Chapter 46
The door closes behind them, leaving us three alone. Ah, finally. Time for some fun.
Cain drifts through the office like he owns every shadow in it, eyes skimming the walls with a lazy, haunted familiarity. His fingers slide along the wooden desk until they stop at the Rubik’s cube. He picks it up, turning it once in his hands, and lets out a low, quiet chuckle.
“Still keeping sainted mommy’s little souvenir?” I sneer, voice thick with mockery.
His hand freezes around the cube. Slowly, he looks over his shoulder.
“Watch your mouth,” he growls. “You don’t talk about her.”
I tilt my head, unimpressed, arms folding, bored of the warning.
“Touchy, huh? Guess it’s easier to snap at me than face the fact that you’re still chained to a dead woman’s shadow.”
He pulls the gun, points it right at me like it’s supposed to scare me. I just grin, calm, maybe even a little amused.
“Well, there it is. You always did skip straight to violence when your feelings got too loud.”
“Cain, back off,” Judas hisses as his hand presses on Cain’s chest.
“Come on,” I murmur, stepping just a little closer. “Do it. Shoot your baby brother. Put a bullet in the last mistake that woman ever spat into this world.”
“Hold,” Judas says, his voice low and steady. “Put the gun down.”
I scoff, venom curling in my words.
“Yeah, do what your ex-military saint of a cousin drilled into you.” I lean in just a little. “Go on. Let the biggest liar in the room walk you through calm, like he didn’t teach you how to break in the first place.”
Cain’s eyes flicker, mouth twitching, almost amused. He lowers the gun. I guess I’m not worth the effort. How generous.
“You’re still that idiot you used to be back then.” He scoffs.
“So,” Judas says, crossing his arms with a shrug. “What’s with the whole ‘everyone out’ thing?”
I take a few steps back and lean against the wall. “If you’re gonna help me, you should at least know what kind of monster you’re signing up for.”
“We’re all the same in this room,” Judas says quietly. “Broken by the same shit, just dealing with it differently.”
My eyes linger on him, unblinking. A low hum slips from my throat.
“All right,” I say. “Let me tell you a story. You’ll love this one.”
I prowl to the office and lift the cube, holding it tighter than I should.
“Once upon a time, there was this pretty woman. Forced into a life she never asked for. Tricked into marrying something wearing a man’s face, never knowing the devil she was binding herself to at that altar.”
Cain scoffs. I’d already insulted his mommy.
“Born into a shiny, powerful family. Money, status, power dripping from every corner. And the husband wanted it all. Every last piece. So he kept her drugged, fogged out of her own head, stuffed with pills until she looked unstable, useless and easy to control.”
“We already know all this,” Judas snaps.
“Fine,” I mutter, clicking my tongue. “Let’s skip to the good bit.”
A grin twitches at the edge of my mouth.
“This house started filling up like a fucking zoo. First, the bastard her husband dragged in from God-knows-where, dropped right into her lap like some twisted gift. Then—surprise, surprise—she ends up pregnant with her own. Shocking, right? Even drugged out of her mind, her body still did what it was told.”
Cain rubs his temples, agitated. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Then she got pregnant again. Sweet, right? Maybe her loving husband just couldn’t get enough of her?” I huff out a laugh. “Yeah, no. That piece of shit raped her.”
I nod, wiggling my fingers in the air with a proud smile. “And guess who popped out of that nightmare? That’s right. The one and only.”
Judas stays still, his brows pulling together like he’s just now realizing the freak show he was born into.
“Not to drag it out,” I go on, “but Father hated Cain—wasn’t his blood, after all. And as for me … Well, he didn’t give a single fuck.”
My eyes darken, the grin fading. “And mommy dearest? Oh, she loved Cain. Worshipped the ground he walked on. Meanwhile, her psycho ass wanted me dead before I even had a heartbeat.”
“What?” Cain barks, like I’d just smashed the holy portrait he keeps of her in his head.
Not so holy now, huh?
“I never saw a saint,” I snap. “I saw a fucked-up wreck, rocking back and forth, whispering shit to herself like a demon was gnawing on her brain. And every time she looked at me, it was like I was the disease eating her alive.”
My jaw tightens, and my eyes are burning.
“That’s the mother I got. Not loving. Not gentle. Just a broken, possessed mess coming at me with a pair of scissors when I was seven fucking years old.”
I pause, my eyes wide like a madman.
“Tell me, Cain … did your precious mommy ever try to carve you open while you were still in your fucking Spider-Man pajamas?”
Why am I doing this? Hell if I know. Maybe I’m sick of carrying this damn curse alone and selfish enough to drag everyone else straight into the pit with me.
Maybe I’m just fucking tired. Tired of them looking at me like I’m still some useless kid who can’t stand on his own. Tired of choking on all the shit I never got—the love, the attention, the basic goddamn fairness.
All of it ripped away before I even had the chance to want it.
We all crawled out of the same rot, the same twisted blood, but somehow, I’m the one who got branded for it. The one they shoved the blame onto so they could pretend they were clean. The unwanted one. The walking mistake.
“I thought, uh …” Cain swallows. “I always thought she loved you.”
“Yeah. That’s because I never showed you what that bitch really did to me.” I step closer, voice rising. “She was a manipulative fucking lunatic. She played normal for you. Made sure you saw some broken, gentle version so you’d think she gave a shit.”
“You forget too easily, brother,” Cain snaps. “Father and Atticus used to chain me up and test how long I could hold my breath before I drowned in the fucking tub, while you got off clean.”
“At the end of the day, she was there to comfort you!” I shout, my face red with rage.
“You had Grayson covering your ass. And while he was busy with you and her, he forgot I even existed. I was standing right there beside Your Imperial Majesty, daring to breathe the same air as you. I was just the bastard our mother never wanted.”
My chest heaves harder by the second.
“You were just another unwanted kid they kept coddling like porcelain, while I had to grow up fast and clean up the blood behind you. I had to watch your back, hold your goddamn pieces together, while she tore me apart.” I point at my chest, my eyes going wild.
“I protected your fucking sanity. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I didn’t want you to hate her like I did. I didn’t want you carrying my scars.”
His eyes stay down. Either he’s too ashamed to face me, or he’s already picturing ways to put me in the ground.
“And then that bitch died,” I spit, pacing, unable stay still. “And Grayson just crawled right into you, wrapped himself around your grief like it was his new religion, and dragged you down with him.”
I laugh under my breath.
“He didn’t give a damn about me. Never did. Why would he? I wasn’t his precious little son like you were.”
“You’re being unfair. He took care of you,” he hisses.
“So I wouldn’t die out of misery while I was still underage? Bless his kindness.”
I step closer and grab his shoulders tightly.
“You got revenge. You wiped out the monsters that ruined you. I never will, because mine was my mother.” I swallow hard.
“I spent years blaming myself, drowning in shame for something I had zero control over. I was a fucking kid. Her kid. And she never loved me the way a mother is supposed to.” My voice drops. “That’s what’s unfair.”
“Do you blame me?” he asks.
“For a long time, yeah,” I say, eyes locked on his. “You’re my brother, but you were the one who had her. Even if Atticus killed her, I blamed you, because she only ever cared about you.”
My voice cracks.
“She was your mother. To me, she was just a fucked-up woman who couldn’t love her own son no matter how much he begged for it.”
Judas stays quiet, watching, listening, hand dragging slowly across the stubble on his jaw.
I turn to him, almost amused. “Oh, she loved you, too. You were her son, after all.”
“What?” Cain snaps, his eyes darting between me and him.
Judas’s stare hardens, locking onto me. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“Good times,” I say with a grin. “Heard her once, sobbing to your dear old dad about how he raped her, too. And then you happened.”
Judas stiffens. “My father was her brother.”
I nod, unfazed. “Yeah. Same thing.” I clap once. “That makes us all brothers.”
Cain and Judas exchange glances—somewhere between trying to decide if I’m lying or if they should just kill me for dragging their sainted, fucked-up family name through the filth it was actually born in.
“Now that the truth’s out, and I’ve been the poor bastard carrying it alone all this time, I’ve got one question.”
I step forward, my grin twitching as I glare at them.
“Do you still wanna help me bury that sick fuck and save my girl?”