Viktor positioned himself in the doorway, effectively blocking the entrance, and Ant heard Claudius before he could see him.
“You dare,” Claudius hissed, clearly furious. “You dare enter my private study, destroy my wards, and lay your filthy hands on my property.”
“You murdered an innocent man and tried to murder my mate. So yeah. I dare.”
“The accountant was a thief who broke into my home…”
“The accountant,” Ant interrupted from behind the desk, “was hired by families you exploited through illegal vampiric trances. He traced your shell corporations, discovered your safe, and photographed evidence of financial crimes spanning decades. You discovered his intrusion via security footage at 5:47 p.m. on October 14th.
“At approximately 1:23 a.m. on October 15th, you, Edmund, and one other coven member noted as Tory, entered the guest room where Ronald Finch was reviewing his notes. You used vampiric trance to paralyze him, then fed until he died of blood loss. You removed his fountain pen because it’s presence would’ve alerted any sensible official to the presence of handwritten notes about your shell corporations and replaced it with a different pen to eliminate evidence, along with the notes.”
“You witnessed nothing. The wards would have prevented…”
“Yes, your wards trapped me in a vision loop designed to fragment my consciousness,” Ant continued calmly. “A clever trap, but that one was flawed as well. Once my mate anchored me, I pushed deeper into the scene and observed everything that occurred eleven hours before Ronald’s death. I watched him photograph your safe contents. Later that same day, I heard you order Edmund to help you kill him. I witnessed the entire murder. You already know all this because, one, you did it, and two, I already told you this when you tried to restrain me before. Seriously, you should get your memory checked.”
Claudius’s hands clenched. “No court will accept testimony from a mage who admits his vision was compromised.”
“Correct.” Ant raised his phone. “Which is why I just photographed every ledger, every bank statement, and every entry in your journal documenting two centuries of vampiric trances and financial exploitation. Including your written confession to murdering Ronald Finch, and I already sent those photographs to my sister.” The last bit was a little white lie, but Ant would get right onto doing that as soon as the Justiciary arrived.Five minutes and counting.
Chapter Twenty
The Claudius who was standing in the doorway was a far cry from the coven leader who’d appeared when they first arrived at the estate. Blood still streaked his face from the magical backlash, and his pale gray eyes had gone nearly white with fury. Gone was the controlled, arrogant mask - in front of him was the Claudius Viktor remembered from old - the messy version.
Edmund and Nathaniel flanked him, along with three other guards Viktor recognized from the garden confrontation. All of them looked like they’d been dragged through hell, but the mere fact they were still conscious meant they were still a threat.
Five against one, with Ant defenseless behind me.Viktor widened his stance slightly, blocking more of the doorway.Could be worse. Could be ten.
“Move aside,” Claudius said, his voice dropping to that deadly quiet tone Viktor remembered from centuries ago. The tone that preceded executions.
“No.”
“I will not ask again.”
“Good. Saves us both time.”
Claudius’s lip curled back, exposing fangs. “You forget yourself, Viktor. You forget what you are, where you came from…”
“I forget nothing.” Viktor kept his voice level, conversational almost. “I remember exactly what this place was like, and I’ll never forget what an asshole you are.”
“I am your elder. I am…”
“You’re a paranoid coward who built a version of your world because you were too afraid of real life to actually live in it.”
The words landed like physical blows. Edmund actually took a half-step back, eyes widening. Nathaniel’s jaw tightened. The three younger guards exchanged rapid glances.
Claudius went very still. “You dare speak to me…”
“I’ll speak however I want. For the last time, you’ve got no authority over me. You are barely older than I am, certainly not enough to be my elder, and you haven’t earned an ounce of respect from me in all the time I’ve known you.”
“I invokelex antiqua…”
“Invoke whatever dead language bullshit you want. It doesn’t mean a damn thing.” Viktor felt something shifting in his chest, some ancient weight finally cracking apart. “You stood in that hallway earlier and tried to claim power over me simply because I spent forty years in this gilded cage. Forty fucking years of watching you humiliate anyone who questioned you, kill anyone who threatened your control, and hide behind walls you called protection.”
“This covenisprotection,” Claudius snapped. “You abandoned your people for a human criminal, degraded yourself…”
“I left because I couldn’t stomach one more second of your paranoid power games.” Viktor’s voice sharpened. “You rule through fear. You demand loyalty but give nothing worth being loyal to. You built this estate into a fortress and convinced everyone inside that the real threat was out there instead of standing right in front of them.”
“I kept us safe…”
