Page 176 of I'm sorry, Princess

“Yes,” he finally breathes, the admission leaving him like a man signing his own death warrant. “Your mother tried to stop it. She begged me to help. She wanted Johngone. She wanted her son back. But John wouldn’t let go. I… I didn’t help. I used it. I thought I could use it to make your father bend, to bring him closer into our fold.” His face twists, shame and fear colliding. “But she… she broke. Your father told me. She started seeing John everywhere, every shadow, every touch. She relived it, over and over. She was drowning in it.”

My jaw locks so hard it hurts. My pulse is a snarl inside my head.

“And that night,” Thomas whispers, his voice dropping into something that sounds almost like a prayer, “she snapped. She thought your father was him. She thought she was defending herself. She… she killed him, Lorenzo. And then she called John. Begged him to make it disappear. She promised him her shares in the Moretti Estates if he covered it up. That’s why we gave our statements. That’s why it looked like a heart attack.”

The room tilts, the concrete beneath my boots turning unsteady. My chest is a hollow cage collapsing in on itself.

Thomas keeps talking, words spilling in a rush as if silence would damn him. “But she didn’t honor it. She transferred everything to you instead, through Giovanni’s lawyer. That’s why she vanished to Florence. To hide from John. To keep Ian from her. But your father…” Thomas’s voice cracks. “Your father died because of us. Not because we killed him with our own hands, but because of what we forced on her. We destroyed her mind, and she destroyed him.”

I stare at him, but I can’t see him anymore. My father’s face is all I see, his laugh, his hand on my shoulder, the way he danced with my mother in the kitchen at 2 a.m. And then I see John’s filthy grin. His words.

My stomach churns. My vision is a smear of blood, tears, and rage.

“Does Ian know?” I ask, my voice low, dangerous, every syllable cutting through the room like glass.

Thomas shakes his head, his eyes darting, his lips trembling. “No… no, he doesn’t. He thinks his mother died the day he was born. He doesn’t know the truth.”

Good. Because if it’s true… if that bastard shares my blood… I don’t want it. I don’t want him.

But the truth doesn’t soothe me. It burns. It eats. It tears holes in my chest until all that’s left is the echo of a man who once had a father worth loving.

And now, all I can think is how much I want to put a bullet in Thomas Beaumont’s skull, and how much I want to burn the world until nothing of the Archibalds is left.

Even with John’s blood staining the floor, even with his skull split open like a warning, I feel nothing. No release. No justice. No fucking closure.

The truth is worse than any bullet I could’ve put in him. My father is dead because they destroyed my mother, because they crushed her when she begged for help, because they twisted her mind until she couldn’t tell nightmare from reality. That’s why she hides away in Florence, drowning herself in pills, clinging to sanity like it’s slipping through her fingers. That’s why she whispered I’m sorry a thousand times when I spoke to her. She wasn’t apologizing for leaving me. She was apologizing for killing him.

And I can’t fucking take it.

The back of my eyes burn, my chest caves, but I refuse to cry. I don’t want this truth. I wanted blood. Revenge. Something clean, something simple. A name, a face, a target. Not this twisted hell of a broken family.

I move before I think. My fist slams into Thomas’s face. There’s a sickening crunch, the sound of his nose shattering under my knuckles, and he screams through blood. It’s not enough. Nothing is enough. I wanted areason to end him, not the story of how my mother was destroyed, how my father died because of it.

“Fuck!” The word tears out of me as I hit him again, and again, my knuckles splitting, his face caving under each blow. All I see is red, all I hear is the thunder of my pulse, all I feel is rage tearing me apart from the inside.

Strong arms lock around me, dragging me back. Andres. His voice cuts through the haze, sharp, controlled. “Let him go. We still need to deal with the other problem.”

But I can’t. I don’t want to let go. My body thrashes against him, desperate to break free, to finish what I started.

Then Lev storms in, wild eyes bouncing from me to the carnage. “What the fuck happened?” His gaze snaps to John’s corpse sprawled in his own blood, skull cracked open, brain matter painting the floor.

Andres tightens his grip on me, keeping me restrained. My chest heaves, sweat dripping down my spine, blood all over my hands.

“Fuck this!” I snarl, shoving Andres off me with everything I’ve got. I lunge at Thomas again, raining fists on his broken face, his blood spraying with each hit. My knuckles are raw, but I don’t care. I want him to choke on his teeth. I want him to bleed until he’s nothing but a stain.

Then—

A scream cuts through the basement like a blade.

“No!”

My world stops.

My head snaps toward the door, and there she is. Serena. Her eyes wide, her face streaked with tears, her voice shattering as guards hold her back.

She’s watching me. Watching me for what I really am. A monster. Covered in blood, fists raised, ready to kill her father right in front of her.

And for the first time tonight, I feel something.