Roman glanced at his gun where it rested in his hand on the armrest.
“What are you going to do? Shoot me?” I hissed.
We both knew our father would never forgive him for that. And at the end of the day, Roman wanted Daddy’s approval more than he wanted anything else in this world.
Our father might’ve been a Machiavellian narcissist on the sociopath spectrum, but he still valued his sons, his own flesh and blood legacies—even the son who had spit in the face of his empire and stopped speaking to him over five years ago.
In fact, it was possible he valued me even more after that, in some sick and twisted way. Which was half the reason Roman had a gun pointed at me.
“So, here’s the thing. I might not be able to kill you without consequence, but Icankill Nova. Actually, I can do far worse things to her than kill her.”
I felt thin cords of restraint snapping one by one, and the only thing holding me in place washer.I couldn’t get myself hurt, not when she needed me. I had to stay calm forher.
Roman showed me his phone. I recognized the street footage immediately. Nova’s apartment was clearly visible, as well as a man in a black hoodie standing outside.
Roman’s face lit up with satisfaction as he watched every last drop of my power slip away. “You know what I did to the last one now, right?”
I trembled with rage. I’d figured it out too late. My dreams, the cards—they’d all been trying to warn me, but I was too ashamed to fully revisit my past, and I’d spent too many years drunk to piece it all together.
Time had run out.
“Drink,” Roman snarled, his eyes dark and unfeeling. In one hand, he held a gun, and in the other, his phone. One weapon was vastly more dangerous.
I picked up the glass of whiskey. The smell of it was nauseatingly familiar. My heart raced. My life flashed before my eyes: my mom’s radiance and love, her slow death, my exile to New York City, twelve years of chaos and destruction, one year of darkness so dark, I didn’t think I would ever taste the light again.
I saw my slow climb out of that endless pit, one fistful of dirt and grime after the next. The hands that reached for me—Will’s hands, the hands of neighbors, friends, and even strangers. My mom’s, from beyond the grave.
Because of all of them, I could sit outside on my stoop with someone I loved and feel the sun on my skin again.
If the gun had only been pointed at me, I wouldn’t have drank.
But it wasn’t.
The gun was also pointed at Nova.
Whiskey coated my tongue, sharp and smoky.
“Finish it.”
I drank the whole glass, at least three shots, on an empty stomach. My world grew fuzzier immediately from the raw adrenaline. My every nerve pulsed with a kind of unwanted, automatic pleasure that terrified me.
This was my worst nightmare, and he knew it. Someone I loved was in danger, and I was helpless to stop it.
Instead of meeting Roman’s taunting eyes, I stared at the empty glass. Five years of sobriety, gone in an instant.
Roman refilled the glass. “Again.”
Sweat broke out on my forehead, my insides warm and sickened. As more amber liquid coated my gut, I gagged.
“If you throw up, I’ll shoot you in the foot.”
Roman reached for a stack of books on the table. He pulled outThe Story of O—the copy he’d stolen from me years ago—and started casually flipping through the pages.
My vision grew blurry, unfocused, my sense of gravity starting to tilt.
He laughed when he got to a passage at the end of the book, as if at an inside joke I wasn’t privy to.
“Where is Max?” I bit out.
