I move toward her, until I’m close enough that only she can hear.Close enough to breathe her in, to feel the heat radiating off her skin.
“You’re fucking incredible,” I murmur, voice rough, low, soaked in everything I’ve been holding back.“Standing there, facing him down like that… you weren’t just strong, Em.You were a fucking queen.”
She meets my gaze, and for a moment, something soft flickers behind all that fire in her eyes.
“I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction,” she whispers, voice tight with emotion.“He’s already taken enough from me.”
“He’ll never take another fucking thing,” I say, my fingers brushing along her jaw, tilting her face toward mine.My touch is gentle, but everything inside me is anything but.“Not from you.Not while I’m still breathing.”My thumb traces the edge of her cheek, possessive, steady.“You ready to do this?”I ask.
She nods, the smallest smile pulling at her lips.
I curl my fingers around hers, lead her around the front of the truck and open the passenger side door.She slides into the front seat without a word.
I round the hood, drop into the driver’s seat, and twist the key.The engine growls to life.
In the rearview, I catch sight of the bastard slumped in the back.Cowering.Shaking.A fucking ghost of a man.
I look him dead in the eye, voice low and lethal.
“You better pray my father is in a merciful mood today,” I say, the words sharp.“Because if it were up to me?”I pause, letting the silence stretch.“You’d already be rotting in a shallow fucking grave, wrapped in all the lies you bled to keep breathing.”
Then I look at Emery.
Head held high, spine straight.She stares down the whole world, daring it to blink first.There’s no fear in her.Whatever’s waiting at the end of this ride… it should be scared of her.
And right then, I feel it in my bones.
Whatever my father has planned, whatever sick fucking game he’s playing, he’ll learn that the boy he raised isn’t the same man driving toward him now.
He’s going to want blood for this.And he can have it.But it won’t be hers.It’ll be mine.
The road hums in silence.Except for him.Her father, the coward in the backseat choking on his own goddamn lies.
He hasn’t spoken since we dragged him out—trash, nothing more.Not a single fucking word.He just sits there, small, sweating through his sins.Every breath he takes sounds like a confession.It’s sharp and shallow, as if his lungs are too scared to fill all the way, as though even they know he doesn’t deserve the air.
I hear that soft, pathetic panting.Like fear is crawling up his throat and strangling him from the inside out.
Good.Let the fucker suffer.Let it settle in his chest and crack every rib.Let it twist around his spine and remind him with every mile that this is borrowed time.
He shifts once, barely, and the leather creaks underneath him.I don’t even look back.Just tighten my grip on the wheel and say nothing, because the longer the silence drags, the louder it gets.And I fucking want him to sit in that noise.I want him to stew in every second of it, in every mile that takes us closer to the man who turned me into what I am.
He’s scared.Not just of what’s waiting at the end of this road, but of me.Which he should be because if my father doesn’t end him, I fucking will.
I glance at Emery.She doesn’t speak, just stares ahead like she’s carved from stone and lit from the inside with something untouchable.Chin up, shoulders squared, eyes locked on the road.She doesn’t even acknowledge the sorry fuck curled up in the backseat, wheezing through his fear.She doesn’t need to, because she’s already won.
We’re driving straight toward the monster most people would sell their soul to escape.And she’s walking into it as if it’s just another fight she intends to finish.As though she’s already counted the cost and decided that pain and fate are part of the price.And fuck me, I’ve seen men lead armies with less fire in their eyes.I’ve watched killers, warlords, empire-builders stare down death and grin.But none of them had this.
That quiet, relentless strength.This brutal grace that doesn’t ask for power it just fucking commands it.She took her crown without ceremony, without mercy.And I swear to God, I’d follow her into any war she wanted.
My phone buzzes.I already know who it is before I look.The weight in my gut tells me.The kind of dread you don’t shake.The kind you’re born with when you carry his blood.
King Prick:Time’s up, Matteo.
That’s all it says.Three words.Cold and final.Loaded like a fucking gun.
I slam the brakes, gravel spraying like shrapnel as the truck jerks off the road and skids to a stop beneath a canopy of thick, overgrown trees.The engine growls once before settling into a low, threatening purr.
My father wasn’t supposed to move first.We were supposed to walk in strong on our own terms.But now…
