She is completely still, wrapped once again in the oversized dark turtleneck sweater, her bare legs pale against the shadows of the floor. She is not looking at the hallway. She is staring down at a small, rectangular object clutched in her trembling hands. The cracked screen emits a harsh, artificial white glow that illuminates the absolute, paralyzing horror completely consuming her features.
It is Bastian’s encrypted phone.
"Sybil," I say again, my voice dropping into a smooth, dangerously calm register. I stand up, my massive frame towering in the gray light.
Her head snaps up. Her midnight-blue eyes are wide, fractured pools of terror and disbelief. She looks at me, then down at the screen, and back to my face. Her chest heaves with rapid, jagged gasps of air.
"Dante," she whispers, the name cracking in her throat like fragile glass.
I do not flinch. I do not curse. I simply begin to walk toward her, my strides slow and measured, completely unbothered by the revelation that is currently shattering her world.
"He sent a message," she chokes out, taking a small, involuntary step backward as I approach. She holds the glowing screen out between us like a pathetic shield. "To Bastian. Dante told him we were here. Dante told him you were bleeding. He... he set the trap, Thayer. Your underboss is the rat."
I reach her. I do not look at the phone. I look directly into the terrified, beautiful depths of her eyes.
I raise my right hand, my rough, calloused fingers wrapping gently over hers, completely covering the cracked screen and extinguishing the harsh light.
"I know," I murmur.
The three syllables drop into the freezing air of the mansion with the weight of a collapsing building.
Sybil stops breathing entirely. The blood drains completely from her face, leaving her entirely translucent. She stares at me, her mind violently short-circuiting as she tries to process the absolute, terrifying calmness of my tone.
"You... you know?" she stammers, violently pulling her hands away from my grip. The phone drops to the floorboards with a sharp plastic clatter. "What do you mean you know? We just walked into an ambush! He almost killed you! He almost killed me!"
"But he didn't," I counter smoothly, stepping fully into her physical space, forcing her to tilt her head up to maintain eye contact. "Because I knew exactly what Bastian was going to do the moment Dante sent that message."
"You let him do it?" she breathes, the horror mutating into a profound, suffocating awe.
"I orchestrated it, little bird," I confess, the dark, toxic truth of my sociopathy entirely unmasked in the gray light. "Dante has been bleeding loyalty for six months. He thought I was getting soft. He thought my obsession with you was a fatal flaw that would ultimately destroy the Syndicate. He reached out to Bastian weeks ago, looking for a replacement Don who would put business before blood."
Sybil’s hands fly up, clutching the sides of her head, completely overwhelmed by the sheer, psychotic scale of the chessboard I have been playing on.
"Why?" she demands, her voice rising into a frantic, echoing shout. "Why would you let your own underboss betray you? Why didn't you just kill Dante in the bunker?"
"Because if I executed my underboss without absolute, undeniable proof of his treason, the Capos would have mutinied immediately," I explain methodically, entirely unaffected by the rising volume of her panic. "I needed Dante to show his hand. I needed him to bring Bastian out of exile so I could put a bullet in my brother’s throat and permanently sever the only alternative bloodline the Commission could use to replace me."
"You used us as bait," she whispers, her eyes darting over the heavy white bandages on my chest, the fresh blood seeping through the gauze. "You let him shoot you."
"I took a calculated risk," I correct her, my right hand shooting out to grip her waist, hauling her flush against my bare chest. "I knew Bastian’s ego would demand he face me himself. I knew he would walk up those stairs to gloat. I purged the rot from my empire, Sybil. And I did it to ensure that when the dust settles, there is absolutely no one left in this world who can challenge my claim to you."
The cognitive dissonance completely fractures her sanity. She is staring at the ultimate mastermind. A man who willingly bled, who willingly dragged the woman he loves into a crossfire, just to execute a flawless, sociopathic purge of his own ranks.
"You are a monster," she breathes, the words lacking any heat, entirely laced with a dark, twisted reverence.
"I am the only monster who can keep you alive," I murmur, leaning down until my lips brush the shell of her ear, my hot breath making her shiver violently. "Dante served his final purpose. He flushed Bastian out. And now, the game is completely over."
Before she can respond, the heavy, distant thud of helicopter rotors begins to vibrate through the rotting walls of the mansion.
It is not the high-pitched, whining buzz of a federal drone. It is the deep, rhythmic, chest-rattlingthwack-thwack-thwackof a heavy transport chopper.
Sybil gasps, her hands instantly gripping my bare arms. "The FBI. Dante called them. He told me he was setting a perimeter."
"Dante doesn't control the airspace," I state, entirely unbothered by the approaching sound.
I release her waist and walk to the massive stone fireplace dominating the eastern wall of the bedroom. I reach up to the heavy, soot-stained mantle. I press my thumb against a specific, loose brick on the underside of the stone.
A hidden compartment clicks open. I reach inside and pull out a small, heavy black detonator and a satellite radio.
