Page 38 of Goldrage (The Chrysophilist Trilogy #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

JULIAN

A fter fucking that woman—whose name I didn’t get—for about an hour, my body is satisfied in more ways than one.

I clean up in the shower and then head to the private lounge where the inner circle conducts real business.

The room reeks of cigar smoke, which matches the suffocating mahogany panels and burgundy leather that’s absorbed decades of evil.

Sergio Castellano is chatting near the fireplace, his silver hair gleaming as he gestures to Marco Benedetti and Vincent Torrino. Their conversation dies when I enter, replaced by a respectful silence. Good. Looks like my show earlier worked.

I cross to the mahogany bar positioned under a portrait of some forgotten baron. My hands are actually steady as I pour whiskey into a crystal tumbler.

That’s when I notice my mother and Bianca huddled near the far wall. Their body language screams secrets: heads bent together, voices pitched so low that even my trained ears can’t catch any words. Bianca keeps touching her stomach and it’s setting off alarms in my head.

I linger where I’m at, using the mirror behind the bar to study their reflection without appearing to watch. When Bianca shrugs, my mother’s face transforms into a mask of cold fury. My suspicions become living things.

They’re so focused on their conversation they don’t notice me silently approaching. I start to catch a fragment of their hushed conversation.

“—yes, I did that. After he came, I capped it quickly and?—”

Bianca’s words die in her throat when she spots me behind Mother. Her eyes widen and she inches back.

My mother spins and gives me a warm smile. “Julian! We were just discussing your show earlier?—”

“What container?” I ask evenly, staring daggers at Bianca. “What are you whispering about?”

Bianca’s mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air, but my cold stare freezes whatever lie she’d planned to tell.

When the silence stretches thin, I step closer, my presence overwhelming them.

The satisfied calm that settled over me during the executions resurfaces, and I can see both women recognize it.

“I asked you a question,” I say softly. “What. Container?”

“It’s nothing important, dear,” my mother says, but I don’t shift my focus from Bianca. She’s the weak link, the one whose guilt is written across her face in letters so large a blind man could read them.

I toss my glass against the wall so it shatters. Bianca flinches and the rest of the room falls silent.

“Tell me.” I reach for my gun, drawing it from its holster and leveling it at her head. “I don’t really care that you’re my brother’s wife. I’ll happily shoot you so I don’t have to hear your fucking voice ever again.”

The barely leashed violence radiating from my skin, the promise of consequences, breaks her resolve.

“I-I didn’t mean— it wasn’t my idea— I drugged Adrian and then went to his room,” she blurts out, the words tumbling over each other. “I jerked him off. I thought— Liora thought if I could get pregnant with an heir…”

Each word brings me closer to pulling the fucking trigger. I can barely believe her words as they send me into a murderous rage. “You… raped my brother?”

“It wasn’t rape!” Bianca is shaking now. “H-he’s my husband! That’s why it’s not. It was just sex. I was trying to… to secure our future, to give us a child?—”

My hand wraps around her throat with enough pressure to silence her pathetic justifications. The feel of her pulse fluttering against my palm sends a dark satisfaction coursing through my veins. I’m feeling sick to my stomach, though.

“You. Raped. My. Brother.”

How fucking dare she!

“Julian!” Mother’s cry is sharp as she moves to intervene, but I holster my gun and stop her with my free hand.

My hand grips Mother’s shoulder too tightly and she winces. “You planned this?” I ask Mother without taking my eyes off Bianca’s purple face .

Her hesitation says everything. The truth hits like a sledgehammer.

I release Bianca so suddenly she collapses to the floor, gasping and clutching her throat. The sound of her desperate breathing fills the space between us.

I tower over her and stare down like she’s trash. I’m so shocked that it’s hard to speak, but I force my brain to work. “If you… if you ever, and I mean ever , touch my brother without his explicit consent again, I will lock you in a room and let you starve to death. Understand?”

Bianca nods frantically, tears streaming down her face as she struggles to catch her breath. My mother moves toward me with arms outstretched, like she’s innocent in all of this. “Darling, you’re overreacting. Bianca made a mistake, yes, but?—”

“Don’t.” The word stops her cold. “Don’t try to minimize this. Don’t make excuses. She assaulted him, and you helped her plan it. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

As she’s floundering for words, a memory hits me. I’m seventeen, sitting in the penthouse living room. My mother’s fingers stroke through my hair as she whispers.

“Adrian thinks he’s so perfect, doesn’t he? So entitled to everything that should be yours. But you’re stronger. You’re the one with real power. You’re the one who deserves to lead this family. Adrian won’t survive.”

At the time, her words felt supportive, like she saw what I was capable of when Lucian only saw weakness. But that wasn’t support.

It was manipulation.

I can’t look at her. All these years she’s been pulling strings, turning brother against brother. And to orchestrate something as vile as rape… for what? Because Bianca is easier to control than Aurelia? Because if Bianca got pregnant with an heir, my mother would have another child to mold.

The pieces are clicking and I’m close to puking up the whiskey in my stomach. Mother’s lies, her willingness to sacrifice anyone who threatens her vision of the perfect family. A family with her at the center, commanding it all.

“Get out,” I say quietly, my voice empty of all emotion. “Both of you. Get the fuck out before I do something we’ll all regret.”

My mother tries once more to approach me, her hand reaching for my arm, but I step away. For the first time in my life, her touch feels like poison against my skin.

“Julian—”

“I said get out!” The words tear from my throat like something dying, raw pain bleeding through every syllable. The sound drives both women from the room, Bianca stumbling in her rush.

“Everyone out!” I roar at the handful of guards and members lingering nearby. “Get the fuck out! All of you!”

They scatter. Within minutes, the lounge is silent except for the distant sounds of the party filtering through the walls.

I sink into a leather chair and stare at my hands—hands that had just killed two men, hands that had nearly choked the life out of my brother’s wife, hands that have done so many other twisted things in service of this family. Now they shake with the weight of terrible understanding.

If my mother could orchestrate Adrian’s assault, if she could lie and manipulate so effortlessly, if she could turn me into a weapon against my own brother…what else has she done?

And most terrifying of all: if she was capable of all this, was Aurelia right?

Did Mother really try to kill my brother?

No.

No.

No.

I’m not ready for the answer.