Page 250 of Vexatious Queen

“Sabastian,” Ren said carefully.

He didn’t look at her.

“You don’t get to pretend,” he went on, voice rising. “You don’t get to stand there like you’re some saint rising from the dead after what you did to me.”

Yuliana didn’t move. She didn’t even flinch. She looked…confused, but steady. Like she’d been bracing for this moment but hadn’t expected it to look like this.

“Sabastian, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’m not pretending anything,” she said quietly. “And I didn’t even know you were here,” she said.

That did it.

He surged forward, and we all moved at once. I jumped in front of Ren, who was going to beat my ass for it later. While the rest of the guys lined up in front of the three of us, forming a human wall.

“I think you need to calm down,” Liam growled, his voice threatening.

Sabastian slammed a hand into his own chest, his eyes never leaving Yuliana. It was like they were having a conversation, but only he understood.

“You left me. You took her…” Sabastian pointed. “Ren.”

He said her name with so much poison that the hair stood on the back of my neck.

“You took her with you, and you tried to leave me alone.” His voice broke, then hardened again. “I was just a kid, and you left me there.”

Ren tried again. “Sabastian, please⁠—”

“No.”

He finally looked at her, eyes blazing.

“Don’t. You don’t get to stand there and defend her when she chose you and threw me away. She shot my father and my mother and ran away, almost leaving me an orphan.”

“That’s a really stripped down and simplistic version of what happened,” Yuliana said, the pain cutting into her words. “I never⁠—”

“You murdered my mother. I didn’t even get to know her as my mother, and you stole her from me,” he shouted, drawing everyone’s attention.

We just couldn’t seem to stop having family dirty laundry sessions in the middle of the school lately.

“You let me think you were my mother, then killed mine and left me there to find her dead in a pool of blood,” he roared.

Yuliana gave nothing away as she stood there. Ren looked shocked.

The foyer was dead silent, waiting to see what would happen next.

Yuliana closed her eyes for half a second. When she opened them, they were glassy but unyielding.

“You don’t understand the whole story, and I didn’t know you were there,” Yuliana said.

“But you don’t deny shooting her.”

“No, I can’t deny that,” Yuliana said.

“So, it’s okay, because you didn’t know I was around?”

Sabastian was vibrating with rage. I could feel it flowing off of him.

“No, of course not. I never meant for you to see that. There are a lot of things that your father wouldn’t have told you about Alina or our time in that house,” Yuliana said. “She tried to kill me twice.”

“That’s a lie,” Sabastian roared. “You were jealous of their love. You hated her. You hated me. That’s why you had an affair and had her.” He pointed at Ren once more and I was going to break all his fingers if he did it again.