Not them.
I won’t die on their timeline.
If I fall, it’ll be because I jumped.
Not because they pushed.
The driveback to Blackstone is silent. Conor doesn’t speak, and I’m grateful. I don’t trust my tongue not to spit venom.
My fists stay locked in my lap, nails cutting into skin. Rain streaks the windows, fogging the glass with breath I didn’t know I was holding.
As soon as we pass the gates, I shove the door open before the car stops.
I need air. Distance.
The courtyard blurs as I walk fast, holding myself together with every step.
Conor catches up.
His fingers clamp around my arm, yanking me back.
“Stop being a fucking bitch,” he hisses.
I laugh, a sharp, bitter sound.
“Oh, that’s right,” I say, voice low and lethal. “You give orders. You say sit, I sit. You say bark, I bark. And the whole time, you knew. You knew what they planned for me and said nothing. So, when this explodes, remember, you could’ve stopped it.”
His grip tightens, bruising. I don’t know how much he knows, maybe not everything, but he knows enough to have warned me.
“Don’t screw up what the family built,” he says. “You’ll regret it.”
His eyes don’t just glare, they burn. Cruel. A crack in his mask that makes my stomach twist.
“Conor,” I whisper, pushing at his chest. “Let me go.”
He doesn’t.
He shoves me, hard.
My back hits the stone wall with a crack. Pain shoots up my spine, knocking the breath from my lungs.
He leans close, voice low. “One more warning. Don’t fuck this up.”
Then he walks away.
The sky cracks open. Thunder rolls. Rain hits like a slap, soaking through my clothes, plastering them to my skin.
I don’t move. Finally, something’s louder than the voice in my head.
I tilt my face to the sky and let the rain drown me, hide the tears I can’t stop.
Then I feel him, his stare cutting through the rain.
I blink through the storm.
He stands across the courtyard, fists trembling at his sides, jaw locked, eyes dark as storm.
He looks ready to kill. Maybe Conor. Maybe everyone.
