I pressed my fingers into the swollen petals, smearing blood across my skin. “Making sure I can never escape the thorns of a rose.” I laughed. “Tell me, does this look like a joke to you?”
For the first time, his expression fractured. Recognition dawned—and with it, fear. “You…” His voice thinned. “You’re working with the Nycto Reaper.”
My laugh rang out empty. “Working with? No. Belonging to.”
My fingers flexed at my sides. Part of me wanted to rip his throat out. The other wanted to tear myself apart. “You want to know what the cruelest part is? That I ever wanted your love. That some broken part of me wanted a smile, a nod, something that proved I wasn’t just your monster. And you never gave me that. You never gave me anything.”
I laughed, and the sound felt like razor blades in my throat. “But you did give me one thing. You gave me the truth of what I really am. You made me into this. And tonight, I’ll be the monster that you always wanted.”
Darius barked, “Cezar, enough. You are an irresponsible child who throws tantrums. You reek of alcohol. Why don’t you leave again, the way you always do? Abandon us the way you abandoned Mom the night you killed her—”
“Oh, fuck you, Darius!” I snarled, my eyes burning as I spun on him. “You know nothing. You never knew. None of you. You think I throw tantrums? You think I’m the only monster here? You have no fucking clue. Do you want to know why I am who I am?”
The room warped around me, tilting, constricting. I couldn’t even remember the last time my brothers saw me like this. “Why don’t I enlighten you, my dear brother—” My eyes locked on Viktor, venom hitting my tongue. “Why don’t I tell them how you be—”
WHACK.
Pain split my skull, and the world went black. Distant voices muffled together as I fell into nothing.
Chapter 72
ADELINA
Cezar was gone.
That should have been impossible. He had been with me, inside the one place no enemy was supposed to be able to reach him. Then he left anyway, chasing a monster who stole everything from me.
I couldn’t fall apart again.
Time was up.
I stood from the chair with Dorin beside me, my body moving before my mind could crawl back to that night. Trying not to break, I prepared for the final battle that would end this war. “It’s time to take back everything that has always been mine.”
The room went quiet.
My people watched me with the kind of loyalty men killed for. Some of them had been with me since the beginning. Some joined after Viktor’s corruption spread too far to ignore. All of them knew what tonight meant.
“Not all of us will make it out alive,” I said. “If anyone wants to walk away, do it now. No shame. No punishment.”
No one moved.
Dorin’s shoulder grazed mine. “You ready?”
I looked at him. He wasn’t asking about the throne. “No,” I admitted.
“Good, means you’re not being stupid.”
“Debatable.”
That almost got a smile out of him, but the humor didn’t last. Not with Viktor waiting. Not with Cezar somewhere in that darkness, possibly already dead because he loved me too much to stay away from hell.
I shoved that thought down hard enough to taste iron.
The Crimson Roses once inspired fear for the right reasons, before Viktor ripped the roots out and poisoned what my parents built. Quiet alliances. Silent loyalties. Power buried deep within the system. I’d staged the perfect coup over years of bloodshed and secrets.
Tonight, the syndicate would return to the blood it belonged to.
Mine.
