"Yes." I adjusted the knife, feeling his pulse hammer against the blade. "But not yet. Not until I'm ready."
"Bunny—"
"Don't." The word came out sharper than I intended. "Don't call me that. Don't pretend this is anything other than what it is."
"What is it, then?" His voice cracked. "Revenge? Justice? What are you going to tell yourself when this is over?"
"I'm going to tell myself the truth." I leaned closer, my face inches from his. "That I loved you once. That I believed in you. That you took that love and that belief and twisted them into chains you wrapped around my throat." My grip on the knife steadied. "That you made me feel safe while you were poisoning me. That you made me feel cherished while you were cataloguing me. That you made me feel like your partner while you were treating me like inventory."
"I did love you." Tears were streaming down his face now, cutting tracks through the blood and the dirt. "I know you don't believe me. I know you can't believe me. But I did. I do. Even now, even after everything—"
"Even now?" I laughed, and the sound was hollow. "Even now, when you just tried to stab me in the back? Even now, when you're lying on the floor bleeding out from a wound I gave you? That's love?"
"It's all I know how to give." His voice broke completely. "It's all I was ever taught. My father—the family—the business—love was always about ownership. About control. About keeping what was yours close and destroying anything that threatened it." He swallowed hard, the motion pressing his throat against the blade. "I wanted to be different. I wanted to be better. But I didn't know how."
I looked down at him, this man who'd saved me and destroyed me in the same breath.This man who'd held me through nightmares and whispered promises against my skin and slowly, methodically, poisoned me into submission. This man who was crying now, real tears, real grief, real terror. This man who'd never learned to love without owning.
"I believe you," I said quietly. "I believe that you loved me in the only way you knew how. But that doesn't excuse what you did. It doesn't bring Monika back. It doesn't free the women you sold. It doesn't undo the years of conditioning and chemicals and lies." I adjusted my grip on the knife. "Love isn't enough. It was never enough."
"Then what is?"
"Choice." I leaned down and pressed my lips to his.
The kiss was deep and passionate and absolutely devastating. I tasted blood on his mouth—his own blood, from the wound in his side, from the cracked lip Gabriel had given him before he died. I tasted salt from his tears. I tasted the ghost of every kiss we'd ever shared, every moment of tenderness that had been real for me even when it was manipulation for him. This was goodbye. This was closure. This was the final, brutal severing of every bond that had ever connected us.
I pulled back, and his blood was on my lips.
"That was for every time you made me feel safe," I whispered. "Every time you held me through a nightmare. Every time you told me I was healing. Every time you made me believe I was choosing you, when really I wasjust following a script you'd written before we ever met." I traced the blade along his jaw, leaving a thin line of red. "You took the thing Gabriel broke and tried to break it further. But you failed. I'm not broken anymore. I'm not yours anymore. I'm not anyone's anymore."
"Bunny—"
"I'm going to let you live." I sat back, the knife still in my hand, my weight still pinning him to the floor. "Not because you deserve it. Not because I forgive you. Because I want you to know what it feels like to lose everything. Your network is ash. Your fortune is seized. Your brother is dead. And the woman you tried to own is walking away, and there's nothing you can do to stop her."
His face crumpled. "Please—"
"Goodbye, Nathan." I stood up, the knife still ready in my hand, my eyes never leaving his face. "I hope you survive this. I hope you live a long, long life. And I hope every day of that life, you remember what you did to me. What you did to Monika. What you did to all of them." I took a step back, then another. "I hope it haunts you when you realize that you lost."
32
The Wait
Ididn't leave.
The hallway was cold and dark and silent except for the sound of Nathan's breathing—ragged, wet, each inhale a struggle against the blood filling his lung. I could hear it from where I sat, my back against the wall, my knees drawn up to my chest, my ruined dress stiff with the blood of two brothers. The ceramic knife was still in my hand, resting loosely in my palm, but I didn't need it anymore. The wound I'd given him was doing its work. Slow. Inevitable. Final.
I sat on the cold linoleum and I watched him die.
"Please." His voice was barely a whisper now, thin and reedy, nothing like the confident commander who'dled me through dozens of missions. "Please, Bunny. You can't just—you can't just let me bleed out like this—"
"I can." My voice was calm, almost gentle. "I am."
"You're a monster." The words came out broken, desperate. "Gabriel made you into a monster."
"Gabriel made me into a survivor." I tilted my head back against the wall, feeling the cold seep through my hair. "You made me into a weapon. Neither of you made me into a monster. I did that myself."
He tried to drag himself toward me, his fingers scrabbling against the linoleum, leaving streaks of blood on the floor. He made it about six inches before his strength gave out, and he collapsed with a groan of pain and frustration. The wound in his side was still bleeding—a slow, steady seep that had soaked through his shirt and was spreading in a dark pool beneath him.
"I loved you," he said. "I know you don't believe me. I know you can't believe me. But I did. I do. Even now."
