Costa—bleeding, broken—crawled toward me, dragging his body like a mutilated corpse. His palms left red smears as he inched forward and gripped my ankle.
“Please…” he wept, voice splintered with grief. “Please put him down… He’s just a boy… My son… He’s all I have. Ibegyou…”
I looked down at him, eyes void of mercy. There was nothing human left behind my gaze—only shadow and vengeance.
I let my arm drop.
Alfonso hit the ground hard, wailing in terror. I seized him by the back of the neck and began to drag him from the room. His limbs flailed, boots scuffing uselessly against the wood.
Costa lunged again, clinging to my ankle with blood-slick hands. I kicked him off like a rabid dog. He hit the floor, gasping, crawling—still begging.
Too late.
With a flick of my wrist, my dagger appeared, gleaming with death.
“I’m going to ruin you the wayyouruined me,” I snarled. “I’m going to carve your soul apart.”
I grabbed Alfonso by the hair. His neck was exposed. His screams were lost to the void.
And I sliced.
One clean motion. Flesh parted. Blood sprayed the walls like a cursed baptism.
Costa’s scream ripped through the house—guttural, raw, a sound no father should ever make. It wasn’t pain. It wasa loss. Cataclysmic. Irrevocable.
“No! Alfonso!NO!You fuckingmonster!”
He lunged.
His hands locked around my throat, but it was too late—I was already transforming. His fingers met bone and cartilage, not flesh. Maggots squirmed out from my rotting neck and writhed across his skin. He recoiled in horror, frantically trying to fling them off.
“You know, Costa…” My voice slithered through the air like smoke, dark and vicious. “Alinaplayedyou.”
His breath hitched.
“Did you think she was just some girl?” I sneered. “She’s aTimeborne, you arrogant fuck. And your precious society hasonerule, doesn’t it? Never spare a Timeborne. Never let them live. But you…you let her twist your cock and your judgment right around her little finger.”
Costa stumbled back, pale and shaking. “I—I didn’t know…”
“Oh,please.” I took a step forward, eyes burning. “You weren’t thinking with your head. You were too busy getting your rocks off to care about the consequences. And now yourson—yourlegacy—is nothing but a cooling corpse on the floor.”
Costa’s face crumpled in grief and rage. “I’ll kill you, Balthazar,” he growled. “I’ll make you suffer.”
I laughed—low, cold, deathless. “You think youcankill me? Your poisons are nowhere near. You’ve got no tricks left, old man. I got my vengeance for my children long ago. But mark my words—I willendyour fucking society. Every last Timehunter. If you ever lay a finger on Alina again—if you even think about her—I’ll cut off your balls, boil them in oil, and feed them to you myself.”
He collapsed beside his son’s body, sobbing into the bloodstained floor, broken.
I didn’t linger. I turned away.
When the full moon rose again, I stepped back through time, returning to what remained of my home.
And as I manifested in the garden, the scent of smoke met me first.
My estate was on fire—flames devouring the walls, licking the sky with greedy orange tongues. My heart stopped.
Memories I had buried clawed their way out of the grave—my children, my past, the searing loss that had once hollowed me out.
I bolted for the door, blind to the heat blistering my skin. I stormed through the front hall, the air thick with smoke and fury. The staircase was gone, charred to black ruins. Timbers crashed down in sparks and embers. I leaped over smoldering wreckage, my boots scraping scorched stone.
