“My angel has lost all value.”
I tore the gun from my father’s grasp with a decisive yank.
Nova let out a frustrated cry as she writhed. Roman pulled the trigger.
I shot him in the chest. He stumbled back. When his back hit the wine shelves, several bottles were knocked loose and exploded on the floor. He slumped into a pool of glass and wine.
My father rushed to his side, and my eyes snapped to Nova, her eyes closed, head falling limp.
“Nova,” I whispered, a desperate, tortured sound.
She’d shifted her body and turned her head just in time. The bullet had hit her shoulder, grazing her deltoid muscle. I yanked off my shirt to apply pressure to the oozing wound.
She’d lost consciousness from the shock and pain, but Nova,myNova, was okay.
“Just like I promised. You’re going to be okay,” I told her as I pressed my shirt against her shoulder. “And I will never break another promise to you again.”
Her eyes moved rapidly behind her eyelids before she gasped, her eyes flying open. They found mine immediately as they filled with tears. She grit her teeth, the pain breaking through her momentary confusion.
“It’s just a graze,” I told her.
The door flew open again. Nova feebly lifted her head.
“Lay back down, baby. Don’t move,” I whispered.
As soon as I saw the tall blonde at the bottom of the steps, I knew it was Nova’s friend Lorelei, trailed by Jayne.
“One of you hold this while I untie her,” I said to the women, nodding to my shirt pressed against Nova’s wound.
Lorelei broke into sobs, her gaze moving rapidly between Roman and Nova. Jayne rubbed her shoulder before gracefully stepping around her toward us, her posture straight, even as her eyes flashed trepidation. She took over applying pressure.
“Lor,” Nova said, her eyes wide with shock. “How…?”
Nova stopped speaking the moment she noticed that instead of untying her, I’d halted, gun in hand. She angled her head to look at me.
“Wes,” she said, her voice stronger now.
I stared at my father, his back to me as he held Roman, searching for a pulse that wasn’t there.
I thought of everything my father had done. I thought of the way he abandoned my mom, the woman who worked tirelessly to raise me while he chased his soulless ambitions, the woman he traded for a nineteen-year-old model—the fucking cliché of it all. I thought of how I’d watched my mom die as he made his first millions.
I remembered everything I’d seen him do or overheard him say while I pretended to be his golden boy. The people whoselives he’d ruined, both personally and en masse. He knew exactly what his platforms did to people, to children, and he encouraged their cancerous, all-consuming growth with reckless abandon to maximize profit. He appointed corrupt politicians and pulled their strings to serve his interests no matter the consequences. He’d created a system of mass surveillance to add omnipresence to his omnipotence.
Max Graves had no higher power.Hewas his own higher power. He was the spiritually empty demon who had spawned Roman, the harbinger of a new world order of control, manipulation, and illusion.
The Circle had earned his golden stamp of approval. Because of course it had.
It would never be enough. He would always need more.
Roman was right. My father was likehim.
I lifted the gun.
“Please, Wes,” Nova croaked, breaking my concentration. She shook her head.
My father hadn’t turned. It would be so easy.
“Don’t,” Nova said. “That’s not who you are. It’s not your side of the street, remember?” She borrowed AA language in her attempt to break through to me.
