“Of course.” He says it as if he has done me a kindness.
“How did you feel, when they recorded your sins?”
He doesn’t blink as he stares at me. “Do you enjoy this power? Having everything you need to turn Writhe against me, and my son?”
“More than I ever believed possible.” That’s the most honest I’ve been with this man.
He snorts. “You both are too stupid and tooweakto survive this world without me. Without Gates and his teachings.”
My heart slams inside my ribcage. I want to hurt him.
“Do not speak to her like that.” The voice that interrupts my violence is not his.
I look up.
Sullen is in the doorway.
Cosmo is at his back. I do not know where Fleet is, but I am grateful he is not here for this and my heart squeezes.
Sullen has no gloves. No bandana. He’s wearing a hoodie and he has damp hair, curling at the ends.
There’s a heaviness in his expression as he looks at Sanford. His grandfather.The great pretender.It wasn’t only the double hotels full of duplicity.
“You made me believe someone cared about what I went through.” Sullen breathes in through his nose, nostrils flaring. “In the tunnels, I felt less alone.”
“He only wanted his own immortality.” I am the one to say it, even though it hurts, so that Sanford cannot backtrack.
The man glances at me, as if he is annoyed. I do not give a fuck.
Sullen’s chest heaves. “You are just like him.”
“Butbetter,” Sanford says, evil in the word. “I knew how to play you like I led your father to Gates. I orchestrated it all, and you, pathetic and stupid, never suspected me. You, so broken, so obnoxious and angry and hurt, you could see none of it and it took this bitch to?—”
The gunshot cracks in the room.
Sanford’s head jerks back, chin snapped up.
He is staring at the ceiling.
He is staring at nothing.
I place the gun that was behind my back on my lap, and when I turn my head, I meet Sullen’s gaze.
“I love you,” I say. “And I am sick of them.”
Chapter 40
Karia
We sit across from one another in the bathtub. Steam swirls around us, bubbles between us, pink candles Alivia found in the library—that must have once belonged to Mercy Rule—lit along the ledge of the tub, below the frosted bay window. There is so much horror tracked across my lover’s skin, but he is the most beautiful I have ever seen, here with me, his guard lowered enough to let me see him like this.
The bathroom door is locked, the bedroom outside of it too, and I told Cosmo—drinking whiskey alone down the hall—to keep an ear out and head anyone off who might think to venture up here.
But I doubt anyone will.
It is nearing midnight, and we have spent the day clearing bodies, lighting them on fire a mile out in the backyard, among the rolling hills. It smells like death and smoke out there, and I could not imagine a better scent to announce our victory.
Stein Rule is dead.
