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Chapter Thirty-Eight

Stone

The voile curtain covering the open patio doors blows in the evening breeze, and the soft classical music playing creates an eerie ambiance. Beneath that, my blood pumps with vengeance. Little does Vector and Azrael know they’re about to walk into a carefully designed lair orchestrated with a promise of retribution.

My legs are spread as I sit in an armchair like a king, sipping the amber substance in my glass between swirling it around the ice. My exterior portrays me as cool, calm, and collected, but internally, I’m anything but. Doubt and anxiety ripple through me, combined with a surge of excitement at the thought of finally unleashing the years of horror and torment on Vector. Sure, he isn’t the only perpetrator in my nightmares, but Don is dead, and Benito is untouchable… for now. So, with this in mind, I’ll be able to rid myself of the venom ravishing my veins like poison, transferring it to the man who caused so such pain on my body I willed death to welcome me. I never truly wanted to die, too terrified to never see Sienna again, but I didn’t want to live either. I was existing in a gray area of never truly living life, only I was a prisoner of it.

Footsteps vibrate the patio, and I sit up straighter, ready for action, and when the veil is pulled back to uncover my brother’s face, a flash of guilt crosses it.

Azrael is many things; a sadist is at the top of a long list of his accolades, but I know he, like me, never had a choice. We were created to be the versions our so-called father wanted us to be. Azrael’s family was connected to the O’Connells’ uncle, an enemy, and when I uncovered an exchange as a teenager, I was shot and left for dead. It was only when Don discovered I was showing signs of life that the medical team on his payroll informed him of it. Don came to the hospital on the premise of paying his respects only to unearth I had been starved of oxygen but showing signs of improvement; he kept my existence a secret, then he filled his family with lies. He took over my supposed funeral arrangements while placing me in the Carrera infirmary. Later, they decided what better way to control an enemy than to have their flesh and blood serve them as one of their own.

Of course, I was conditioned to believe what I was told. I was trained to become a killer, a man made of stone, willing to do anything to survive in a family of evil. I took their punishments and endured the pain because they inadvertently gave me reason to live and gave me Sienna. While I’ve spent years tormenting myself about my feelings toward her, hating how monstrous it made me feel, I never questioned them; I trusted them.

I trusted him.

“She’s not my sister.” It’s a statement, not a question, and I grind it out with as much malice as I feel.

His shoulders sag as he steps into the room, a gun in one hand and his free hand twitching to release his knife, a tell I’ve mastered.

I tilt my head toward the bar, and his dark eyes follow my movement. He shakes his head, and the lines on his sharp face are etched in sorrow. He thinks this is the end of me, but he’s wrong. This is only my beginning.