Page 255 of Ruthless Knot

He never was.

He's a victim too—just like me, just like his mother, just like everyone who's been caught in the crossfire of powerful men making decisions about lives they don't value.

His father decided who was enemy and who was ally.

His father ordered the deaths of my parents.

His father crushed his mother until she saw no way out except poison.

His father sent assassins to kill his own son.

Kai didn't choose any of it.

He was born into a role he never asked for, trained for a purpose that was never really his, shaped by a man who saw him as an extension of power rather than a person worth loving.

Forced into a position.

A position that was never meant to favor him.

But now...

Now things are different.

Now he has a pack that chose each other instead of being assigned.

Now he has an Omega who understands what it means to survive despite everything.

Now he has the chance to tear down the empire that was supposed to be his inheritance and build something better from the ashes.

Forced into a position that was never meant to favor him until now.

CHAPTER 25

Triumph And Treachery

~SERAPHINE~

The stage is a universe unto itself.

Vast and dark beyond the circle of light that surrounds me, stretching into infinity, where the audience sits in shadowed silence. I can't see them—not really—just vague shapes in the darkness, the occasional glint of light reflecting off jewelry or glasses or the polished surface of a judge's table.

But I can feel them.

All of them.

Their attention is a physical weight, pressing against my skin, filling my lungs with every breath. Hundreds of eyes fixed on the small figure in the spotlight, waiting to see what the girl with pink hair and mismatched eyes will do next.

What the Eastman heir will become.

What the crazy Omega with the body count will prove.

My costume catches the light.

The fabric Marguerite and her team created is a masterpiece—dark at first glance, almost black, but shot through with threads of deep burgundy and crimson that become visible whenI move. The construction allows for a complete range of motion, panels designed to shift and separate as the performance progresses, revealing glimpses of the softer layers beneath.

Transformation.

That's what this piece is about.