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But I can’t move. My feet remain rooted to the floor as I stare at Julian, silently begging him to see through his mother’s deception.

To remember everything we’ve been through.

To prove that years of childhood friendship, stolen kisses, laughter and support and the mind-numbing heat I feel when he’s near… that it all means something.

I’m begging him to choose us .

His eyes meet mine, and my breath catches in my throat.

Where there was hesitation before, where there was that flicker of fear that made him human, there’s nothing now but a void.

I watch it happen in real time—his heart turning to stone, altered by the weight of his brother’s corpse and his mother’s tears.

Whatever we had, whatever fragile thing was growing between us despite everything... it’s now dead.

Just like the man I gave a piece of my heart to for ten years.

Was it more than just a piece?

Behind us, Valentine kneels beside Adrian’s body. I take an instinctive step toward them, just wanting to see Adrian one last time, but Valentine’s voice cracks like a whip as he blocks me.

“I said leave!” he shouts. I stumble back with a gasp, and I must look disturbed because his voice softens. “Go, Aurelia. Now. You don’t want to see him like this.”

A lump forms in my throat, but I swallow it back as Valentine shouts orders into his phone, summoning guards.

Reality crashes over me in waves. All this devastation. I can’t see Adrian’s face since Valentine is blocking my view, but I imagine his blank, empty eyes. Then I glance at Lady Harrow’s victorious little smirk, barely hidden behind her son’s shoulder. Then there’s Julian’s shadowed face.

How did I even get here? Just days ago I was on top of the world, dismantling the Inferno Consortium—and its leader, Lucian—piece by bloody piece. I was getting revenge for every cruel, fucked-up thing those disgusting assholes did to my mother.

I poisoned Vincent DeMarco for the way he ignored my mother’s pleas at Lucian’s parties, only to later violate and torment her.

I humiliated Marcus Whitman then filled his body with bullets for the psychological games he played, using my mother’s worn, bruised body for his own sick pleasure.

And Victoria… poor Victoria was birthed from the wrong woman, though she was still an entitled bitch.

Victoria’s mother brutally abused mine, but she died before I could get revenge.

I set Victoria on fire in her own penthouse so she could pay for the sins of her family.

Julian had actually been helping me with my mission toward the end. I thought he loved me, thought I loved him.

Then I found Adrian here, shot and bleeding out. Adrian had tried to warn me and said he wanted to talk. All along, I thought he was just his father’s good little soldier, but he’d tried to warn me. When I found him like this, he gave me a gun and told me to leave. He said I was next.

Then Lady Harrow appeared and didn’t even try to hide that she shot her own son. She confessed everything—how she orchestrated Lucian’s demise, manipulated me with my mother’s diary so I’d kill those in power. All so she could make her favorite son, Julian, the leader.

God, I was a fucking fool. How could I let myself fall into this trap?

My chest splinters as I look between them—Adrian’s lifeless body and Julian’s living corpse. Both Harrow brothers, lost to me in the span of a single night. One about to be buried, the other transformed into stone, looking at me like I’m nothing but a curse that needs to be excised.

But Julian will see the truth. He has to.

That thought is my only hope as I stumble backward toward the door.

Time—that’s all he needs. Time to process, time to think, time to remember what we’ve shared. Lady Harrow will make a mistake eventually and then he’ll see behind her mask.

He’ll come back to me.

Because if he doesn’t believe me… if Julian truly thinks I could murder his brother like this… then Lady Harrow has won. She hasn’t just orchestrated Adrian’s death—she’s burned whatever fragile thing was growing between Julian and me, leaving nothing but ashes.

Three guards surround Adrian’s body like a barrier made of muscle. Valentine’s broad shoulders block most of Adrian from my view as he kneels with a sheet, but I can see one of Adrian’s hands splayed against the carpet, fingers slightly curled, blood darkening the creases of his palm.

His hand…

I’m brought back in time to a morning when I’d been sleeping in his soft bed.

We’d only been dating a year and he still played the part of a dutiful boyfriend well.

Sunlight streamed through gauzy curtains, making everything honey-gold.

Adrian’s hand rested on the crisp white sheets, catching the light.

Something about the peaceful way his fingers lay there, the strength in those thick bones, made me reach out.

I slipped my smaller hand into his larger one, testing the way they fit together.

I’d thought he was asleep. But his warm fingers had curled around mine, his grip gentle but steadying. One eye cracked open, blue as the sky, and his lips curved into that crooked smile that always made my heart skip.

“Caught you,” he’d said.

I’d felt so happy I giggled.

I press a hand to my chest, which won’t stop aching. Now those same fingers are cold, and that smile is forever lost to memory. The contrast splits me open, leaving me raw and bleeding from wounds I don’t think will ever heal.

I think I gave him more than just a piece of my heart.

My eyes lock on Julian’s as everything inside me is breaking. His eyes are almost completely black; he’s a stranger now .

Mom, you tried to warn me in your diary. About masks and monsters wearing human skin. But you never warned me they’d wear the faces of those I love.