Page 65 of Silent Night, Savage Heart

“Don’t act like murder is suddenly beneath you. Every Delano breathing has had to take a life or two along the way.”

“Why is that? We have lived in Wintervale for generations. We have money and influence here. Why do you need to hurt more people? What the fuck is the end goal, Silas?”

“There can only be one king of the jungle. It’s time for Edmund to relinquish that role to someone more deserving.”

“And that’s you.”

“Who else?”

Luca's watching this, and I see him processing, understanding what he's become part of. What Silas has turned him into.

"What about Luca?" I ask. "What's his role in this?"

I purposely don’t ask about Nico so I don’t accidentally put him in harm’s way. Hopefully, he’s far away from Wintervale and never comes back.

"Your brother is going to help me start the fires. Then he's going to evacuate like a concerned guest, establish his alibi, and continue being a valuable member of this family."

"And if I refuse?" Luca chimes in.

"Then you burn with the rest of them." Silas checks his phone again. "Eight minutes. Decide, Blake."

He's offering me exactly what he thinks every Delano wants: belonging, acceptance, a place in the empire we've built on suffering. But he's wrong about what I want, and he has been wrong from the beginning.

"No," I say simply.

"No?"

"I'm not helping you kill anyone, and I'm done pretending that family means more than being a decent human being.”

"I was afraid you'd say that." Silas nods to Luca. "Lock him in the storage room. He can burn with his principles."

Luca doesn't move. "Silas, I can’t. This is Blake. My brother. A Delano.”

"He's a traitor who's chosen strangers over blood. He's made his choice. Now make yours."

My brother looks at me, and I see the war happening behind his eyes. Loyalty to Silas, who's been his mentor. Fear of consequences. And underneath it all, the memory of who we used to be before the family destroyed everything good about us.

"I'm sorry," Luca says quietly. Then he pulls a gun, my Glock, the one Silas made me surrender, and points it at me. "Storage room. Now."

The weight of my disappointment with his decision crushes me.

"Luca.”

"Don't make this harder than it is. Please."

I could fight and probably disarm Luca before he gets a shot off, but that starts a confrontation I'm not sure I can win with Silas in the room. And it wastes time the people downstairs need.

I let Luca march me to the storage room at the end of the hall. It's windowless, reinforced, the kind of space designed to contain valuables during estate events.

It’s the perfect prison.

The perfect tomb.

"I really am sorry," Luca says as he pushes me inside.

I try one last bit of reasoning with a kid I taught how to throw a football and roll his first condom on his dick the right way.

“Listen to me. Silas will never admit it because he’s a coward, but he killed our father, and he's going to kill innocent people tonight. You're helping him because you're too scared to stand up to him." I meet his eyes. “I get it, Luca, but that makes you complicit. Imagine living the rest of your life with the weight of all those bodies on your soul.”