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He pulls away and turns on the ignition. I frown, my brain still buzzing. “Just to be sure? Damian, we can’t wait for a doctor. He might be dying. We need to go to the hospital now. And you need to—” I set my hand on his arm, and he tenses. “Let’s get him out and put him in the backseat.”

“No, sweetheart.” He says as we pull onto the road. “The doctor won’t be coming for Kane.”

I frown. “What?”

“Kane is a dead man. Or he will be soon.”

I shake my head slowly. “But the doctor?”

“The doctor is coming for you, precious girl.”

21

Damian

Hunter crosses his arms. “Kane hasn’t given me anything. But I don’t think the plan was actually to take Ava off the estate.”

No. Of course it wasn’t.

He knew he wouldn’t get far. There are too many people patrolling the grounds. Even if he made it off the property by a stroke of luck, I could have shut down the 101 from here to Santa Barbara with a single phone call.

Even more unlikely is the idea that Ava is working with him or with his father.

It’s almost ludicrous in the cold reality of hindsight, but at the time?

It felt real.

Rage is like that. It feeds on weakness, distorts logic, bends the mind into something unrecognizable. I saw her leave with him, saw her step into Kane’s car without hesitation, and something inside me broke open.

I was burning.

And I would have destroyed everything.

Everything except for her. Never her.

I’ve truly gone insane.

And I’ve proven it, because I acted too fast. It would have been better if I had gotten a phone call from one of my staff to say they’d seen a car speeding off the property. I would have had to plan, and I’d have had Hunter to help me see reason.

But I was near her room, just like Kane had taunted. A minute earlier, and he would have seen me outside her door, lingering like a lovesick boy. He would have known.

But he already knows. Because I’ve been reckless from the moment I laid eyes on her.

“So what was the plan?” I ask.

Hunter exhales, dragging a hand through his hair and leaning against the edge of the desk. “To unsettle you. To make you react. And you did.”

I grit my teeth. “Yes.”

“I think this was all just to make you look weak to the Sacred Light. There’s still time for him to strip you of your regency and choose Kane for prior.”

I leap from my chair and pace the room. “There’s nothing for it. I’ll kill him. Right now.”

Hunter groans. “We’re not starting a war over this.”

“Kane wants Thornecroft. His dad probably wants it even more. What else can we do?”

Hunter rolls his eyes. “We move on from this. Technically, tonight was just boys being boys. Fighting over a girl. The Sacred Light will forgive this, assuming—” his eyes grow hard “—you don’t fuck up again.”