Page 52 of All The Darkest Truths (Second Sons Duet #2)

ZAIRE

The rage in my blood won't settle. It's been almost two hours since we left her there, alone with that monster, and every minute feels like another betrayal.

“We need to go back,” I growl, pacing the length of our apartment for the hundredth time. The walls are closing in, suffocating me with each pass. “She could be dead already for all we know.”

“She's not dead.” Oz's voice cuts through my spiral, his tone maddeningly calm as he sits at the kitchen table. “The Collector wants something from her. He won't kill her until he gets it.”

I slam my fist against the wall, welcoming the sharp pain that shoots up my arm. “That's supposed to make me feel better? That he's keeping her alive to use her?”

Talon looks up from his position by the window, his injured shoulder still held carefully rigid. “Z, we all feel the same way. But rushing back in there half-cocked will just get her killed for sure.”

“So we just wait?” I snarl, rounding on them both. “Sit here on our asses while she faces that psychopath alone?”

“We follow her instructions,” Oz says, rising to his feet with that lethal grace that mirrors my own. “She told us to trust her. To wait for her here.”

I laugh, the sound bitter even to my own ears. “And when has Vesper ever made decisions that prioritize her own safety?” I demand. "She'd sacrifice herself in a heartbeat if she thought it would save us. You both know that."

Oz's jaw tightens, but he doesn't argue. He can't. We've all witnessed Vesper's self-destructive loyalty firsthand.

“She said Alex is alive,” Talon says quietly, the words hanging in the air between us like smoke.

I freeze mid-step, the impossible truth still refusing to settle in my mind. “If she's right, if he's really…” I can't finish the sentence, hope too dangerous a thing to voice aloud.

“Then The Collector has been playing us from the start," Oz concludes, his mind already racing ahead. “Alex's 'death' was staged to fracture us, to weaken our defenses.”

“And it worked,” Talon mutters. “I should have made sure. Should have searched longer, found some proof?—"

"None of us could have known,” I cut him off, unwilling to let him shoulder that burden alone.

The apartment door clicks open, and we all freeze, weapons drawn before conscious thought.

Vesper steps through, her face a blank canvas that chills me more than any display of emotion could.

She looks...untouched. Physically, at least. But those green eyes that have haunted my dreams since the day we met are dead.

Empty. Like someone extinguished the fire that's always burned there, even in her darkest moments.

“Vesper,” I breathe, holstering my weapon and crossing the room in three long strides.

She flinches when I reach for her, a tiny, instinctive movement that stops me cold.

“Don't,” she commands, her voice hoarse as though she's been screaming. Or forcing herself not to. “Please, just...don't touch me right now.”

I step back, giving her the space she's asking for. Behind me, I sense Oz and Talon exchanging glances, the same worry coursing through all of us.

“Are you hurt?” Talon asks, his voice gentler than I've ever heard it.

Vesper shakes her head and moves past us into the apartment. She sets a sleek black tablet on the coffee table, then lowers herself onto the couch. Her movements are mechanical, controlled—like she’s piloting her body from somewhere far away.

“He's my grandfather," she says flatly, staring at nothing. “The Collector. Mikhail Vasilyev. My mother's father.”

The revelation lands like a physical blow. Oz curses softly in Russian, while Talon makes a strangled sound of disbelief.

I want to reach for her again, to ground her with my touch, but the memory of her earlier flinch stops me cold. Instead, I lower myself onto the coffee table across from her, positioning myself directly in her line of sight.

“Vesper, talk to us,” I urge, keeping my voice steady despite the storm raging inside me. “What happened in there?”

She finally focuses on me, but it's like looking at a stranger wearing Vesper's face. "He wants me to kill Victor, Dmitri, and Bianca. I have seventy-two hours.”

“What?” Talon exclaims, moving closer. “That's suicide. Victor's compound is impenetrable. Not to mention in fucking Russia.”

“He has Luca,” she continues in that same hollow voice. “And Alex. They're both alive.”

Oz approaches cautiously, his mind already piecing together the implications. “You saw Alex? You're certain it was him?”

“It was him.” Her fingers clench into fists on her lap, the first real sign of emotion since she walked through the door. “They've been...hurting him while we thought he was dead.”

Oz moves to sit beside Vesper, careful not to touch her. “Did he give you any specifics? A timeline beyond the seventy-two hours?”

She shakes her head, reaching for the tablet on the coffee table. “This is my 'lifeline' to him. And to them.” Her fingers tremble as she swipes across the screen. “I get proof of life once a day. A one-hour video feed that expires at the end.” The screen is blank.

The guilt is a living thing writhing in my gut. We abandoned him, mourned him, while he suffered. I force the thought away, focusing on the immediate threat.

“What else does this Mikhail want?” I press, sensing there's more she hasn't told us.

A tremor runs through Vesper's body, almost imperceptible if I wasn't watching her so closely.

"He wants my son. To raise him as the heir to his new empire. He wants..." Her voice falters. “He wants me to marry someone of his choosing. Someone with connections.”

The rage that floods through me is blinding, a red haze that threatens to consume everything in its path. I'm on my feet before I realize it, a string of Russian curses tearing from my throat. Something inside me snaps.

“Fuck this!” I roar, slamming my fist through the drywall. The plaster crumbles, dust billowing around my bloodied knuckles. “We're not playing his fucking game!”

My vision narrows to a crimson tunnel as I tear through the apartment, upending the coffee table, sending the tablet skittering across the floor. The sound of my own pulse drowns out whatever Oz is shouting at my back.

“Z, stop!” Talon grabs my arm, but I shake him off with enough force to send him stumbling backwards into the wall.

“We abandoned Alex,” I snarl, rounding on him. “We left him there while that monster tortured him. And now we're supposed to sit here with our thumbs up our asses while Vesper sacrifices herself again?”

I grab the nearest object—a lamp—and hurl it across the room. It shatters against the wall, glass exploding in a spray of light and rage, raining down like sharp, glittering confetti from a nightmare.

“We should have burned that fucking mansion to the ground with everyone inside it.” My voice is barely recognizable, a guttural growl that tears at my throat. “We're going back. Tonight. I'll kill every last one of them myself.”

Oz steps into my path, his face a mirror of my own, but with that infuriating control I've always envied. “Zaire, enough. This isn't helping.”

“Get out of my way, brother. I will do this with or without you.”

“And get us all killed in the process?” Oz steps closer. “They're alive, Z. Both of them. That's what matters right now.”

“Alive and imprisoned by a psychopath!” I spit back.

“Because Vesper made a deal to keep us safe.” Oz's voice drops lower, forcing me to focus on his words. “She bought us time by agreeing to his terms. If we storm in there now, we destroy any chance of getting them out alive.”

I turn away, unable to face the logic in his argument. My breath comes in ragged gasps as I fight to contain the storm building inside me, threatening to tear me apart from within. The wall I punched throbs in rhythm with my heartbeat, blood seeping between my knuckles.

“Seventy-two hours,” Oz continues, pressing his advantage. “That's what she negotiated. Three days to figure out a counter-move.”

“What counter-move?" I demand, whirling back to face him. “You heard her. He wants her to assassinate Victor fucking Petrov and marry some puppet of his choosing. There's no counter-move to that kind of insanity.”

“There's always a move,” Oz insists. “We just haven't found it yet.”

I glance at Vesper, still seated on the couch. Something in Vesper's posture shifts, a subtle tension that draws me back from the brink of my rage. I force myself to breathe, to push down the violent impulses screaming for release.

“Did Alex say anything to you? Anything that might help us?”

“He tried,” she says, her fingers tracing the edge of the tablet. “Right before they dragged him away. He was fighting them, desperate to tell me something.”

I move closer, careful not to crowd her. “What did he say?”

“That I'm the key. The key to everything, according to him.” She shakes her head, that momentary spark fading completely. “But I don't know what the hell he was talking about. I'm not the key to anything. I'm the reason all of this is happening.”

The self-loathing in her voice pulls me back from my spiral of rage. I kneel before her, close but not touching.

“That's not true,” I tell her firmly. “None of this is your fault.”

“Isn't it? My grandfather orchestrated everything, my sale to you, Alex’s death, Luca's captivity, all because of who I am. Because of the blood in my veins.”

“Blood doesn't define you, Vesper.” I reach for her hand, relieved when she doesn't pull away this time. “Your choices do.”

Something shifts in her expression—a flicker, a barely visible crack in the emptiness she’s worn like armor since walking through that door.

“I have to do this. I don’t see another way.”

“There's always another way,” Talon interjects, moving to sit on her other side. “We just need to find it.”