“You can kill me,” I say. “Right here. Right now. Add another corpse to your mountain. But it won’t fix the hole you’re trying to fill. It won’t make you a legend. It won’t end the story.”
I step in, close enough I can smell her perfume again—cloying and bitter, like flowers left too long in the vase.
“You don’t want to kill him,” I say. “You want him to beg.”
Her breath catches.
“You want him tosubmit. So you can tell yourself you broke the myth.”
I let the words hang in the air.
She blinks.
Just once.
Then, finally, she speaks.
“You done?”
“No,” I say.
And then I go quiet.
On purpose.
Letting the silence press down like a boot on the back of the neck.
She waits.
So do I.
And in that breathless span between seconds, something breaks.
Not loud. Not violent.
Just the tiny snap of her control slipping at the edges.
Behind her, one of the guards lowers his weapon a hair.
Just a little.
Like maybe the script isn't playing out how it was supposed to.
Like maybe they’ve seen something they weren’t meant to see.
Marj sees it too.
And for the first time since I walked into this compound, she hesitates.
Only for a second.
But a second is all it takes.
CHAPTER 29
VROK
They come for me at midday.
