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Several long seconds passed as she delayed, clearly hopeful that Roman would take back everything he’d said.

He didn’t.

So she backed up several paces, arms still crossed. “Have a nice life, Roman,” she gritted out, voice breaking on a stifled sob.

She was gone before Roman could say anything else.

“You just broke that girl’s heart,” Darien said a few minutes later as he sped down the driveway. They were in Roman’s car this time. The others had left too, taking Darien’s truck to the tar pits.

“Better a broken heart than one that isn’t beating,” was all Roman said, the words coated in ice.

“So you’re never going to allow yourself happiness—”

Roman exploded, his shouts stretching the car. “Don’t fucking talk to me about happiness—not after what I just heard between you and Loren!” he snapped, nostrils flaring. “And not after all that bullshit you just put yourself through.”

Darien squeezed the steering wheel. The beast in his soul began to pace, foaming at the mouth, his blood begging for a hit of Venom. He was a fucking joke, and he knew it—right back to being addicted to drugs not long after getting off of them. Right back to fucking up every relationship in his life—and all but destroying the most important one.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, indeed.

“I heard the whole thing,” Roman said, his words still razor-edged. “We all did. And I’m not going to berate you for your decision to bargain your life away, but I am going to berate you for walking out on her like you just did.”

Darien stared out the windshield, gripping the steering wheel, boot pressing the accelerator flat to the floor. For several minutes, neither of them spoke, not even Jack or Tanner, who were in the back seat, holding so still they were barely breathing.

When Roman spoke again, he used a slightly softer tone—trying, just like Darien, to control himself. His temper. “You’re a lot like me, Darien,” Roman began. Darien kept staring at the road ahead, not seeing it, instead picturing Loren’s crying face in his mind. How broken she’d been. “You’re a lot like me,” Roman went on, “and that is not a compliment. But you’ve managed to get something right in your life, and that’s her.” He pointed behind them—at the house that had been swallowed up with distance too quickly. The girl Darien wanted nothing more than to race home to. “You have a choice—I don’t. And I just listened to you completely fuck that up.”

Roman spoke the hard truth. Leaving Loren like that—in any condition other than perfect—was not like him. She was upset, and she had a right to be. Loren was correct in thinking he’d be livid if the roles were reversed—if he’d learned that she had traded her precious life for his.

Maybe he had made a mistake in bargaining with the Widow. But it hadn’t felt like a mistake in the moment, and it didn’t feel like one now, neither had it felt like one the moment Loren’s heart had stopped during the Blood Moon. Darien had only managed to outlive that one because Loren had not gone past the point of resuscitation.

“I didn’t fuck it up,” Darien said. He drew a deep breath in through his nose, but it didn’t help at all. His muscles were rigid, heart pounding with rage. With regret. “I’ll talk to her after.”

“If you’re not dead.”

Darien ground his teeth. “I think I’m done waiting for your permission.”

“Permission for what?” Roman snapped back.

“Killing Don. We haven’t had a chance to talk since all that shit happened at the House of Black. He do that to your neck too?” His eyes flashed to the fresh cut across Roman’s throat.

“Doesn’t matter right now.”

“Why—because we need to hurry? Because someone else always matters fucking more? I thought I was a martyr, Roman, but you’re terrible.” Roman stared out the windshield, jaw flexed. Darien sensed that Jack and Tanner wanted to jump in on the conversation but were holding back. “We’re going to help Tanya. And as soon as she’s safe, I’m helping you. And you’re not saying no again.”

“Darien—” Roman drew a ragged breath through flared nostrils, hands in tight fists. “You can’t.”

“Fuck you mean I can’t? He can’t keep doing this, man—”

“Fuck—listen.”

“I’m listening,” Darien said, but the beast in his soul was pacing faster.

He needed to kill. Needed to find something to rip apart so he didn’t do it to his own family.

“I saw you kill that demon by the harbor, okay? I saw you kill hundreds of them in my house. And you killed even more when the Veil almost fell. Right?”

“What’s your point?” Darien barked.

“My point is,” Roman said, black swallowing his eyes as he, too, fought a Surge, “the only other person I’ve ever met with magic anywhere close to yours is my dad.”