Chapter 50
I’m still dizzy and weak, like the adrenaline drained out of me all at once, leaving me breathing heavily.
Grayson rushes to me, his hands gripping my arms before my knees give out.
Adam is standing over us, staring down at me as if he still can’t process what just happened.
I don’t blame him. His eyes are too calm and empty, stripped of anything human, and that terrifies me more than the blood or the pain ever could.
“She needs stitches,” Grayson says sharply.
“Do it,” Adam replies, almost indifferent. Then his gaze locks onto mine. “When you’re done, I need to talk to her.”
My heart starts racing fast and loud. I have no idea what he wants to tell me, and my thoughts spiral through a million different endings. None of them are good.
He turns and walks away without another glance. Cain hesitates only long enough to roll his eyes before following him.
“Come on, my dear,” Grayson urges. “Let’s fix you up.”
He supports me into Cain’s office and helps me sit down on the black leather couch. My eyes move around the room, like it’s the first time I’ve ever been in here. There’s a second exit door, just like in my dad’s office. I guess all these men have a lot in common.
Grayson brings over the first aid kit and takes out a needle and thread to stitch me up.
Once it’s ready, he disinfects his hands and the skin around the wound.
“Lean forward,” he says, guiding me slightly so I don’t strain. “This is going to sting.”
I shake my head and brace myself.
He presses gauze against my back to stop the bleeding, then adjusts his grip and starts stitching. I suck in air through clenched teeth, trying to remain sane and still.
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to be as gentle as I can,” he explains.
“It’s okay,” I breathe shakily.
I still can’t believe what that bastard did to me.
He turned me into fucking merchandise, a possession he could cash in on whenever it suited him. A thing with a price tag, prepped and packaged for sale long before I even understood what was being taken from me.
I was nothing but a walking transaction, a body prepped for whoever could pay enough.
He pierced my skin without hesitation, jammed a tracker in like he was branding cattle.
He raised me for profit, not love, and that fucking bastard smiled through every second of it.
Every time I clawed for his attention, every night I bit down on my pillow so my sobbing wouldn’t leak through the walls and earn me another lecture about being dramatic.
Every time I begged like a dog for a single glance, for one shred of acknowledgment, he watched me do it and let me bleed for it.
He trained me to want him, to need approval that never came, to crawl for scraps he enjoyed withholding. He ignored my pain, and my spineless bitch of a mother did whatever he told her, like she didn’t even have a mind of her own. Or she did—and that makes her worse than him.
If there’s a hell, I hope he ends up in the deepest fucking part of it, begging for mercy he’ll never fucking get.
“Are you alright, Miss Calvano?”
“I hate him, Grayson,” I hiss, voice low and scornful. The tears are there, but I won’t give them the satisfaction. “I used to think I understood hate, but I didn’t, after all. What I feel now is poison.”
His hand touches my shoulder softly, contrasting the storm inside me. “Maybe it’s for the best.” I turn to him, eyes burning. “It’ll make it easier for you to accept what Adam’s going to do.”
I grit my teeth. “Does it make me a bad person if I want him dead?”
“No,” he says without hesitating. “It makes you someone who’s been through too much and finally stopped pretending it’s okay.”
I blink once, trying to swallow what he just said.
Two weeks. That’s all it took for him to treat me with more decency than my father managed in a lifetime.
“Do you have children, Grayson?”
He looks down at the couch. “Not exactly how you’re probably thinking. But yeah. These boys are mine. They all came from the only woman I ever loved.” He lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Maybe not all of them carry my blood, but that doesn’t change a thing.”
He raises his grassy eyes and looks at me over his glasses. “Some things just are, whether they make sense or not.”
I let out a quiet chuckle. “They’re so lucky to have you.”
“So were your parents,” he says gently.
My eyes snap back to him.
He wraps my hand in his, holding it like something fragile that still deserves to be held. “You’re a good woman, Isabella. Stronger than most. Kinder than you should be after everything. They should’ve seen that. They should’ve protected it.”
He didn’t have to say much. The way he talks about them, about Adam’s mother, or even me, says everything. He didn’t get handed a perfect life, but he still showed up. Claimed them. Loved them anyway. That kind of loyalty doesn’t come out of nowhere. A man like that doesn’t fake it.
He treats people like they matter, even when they’re messed up or broken. Even when the world tells him not to. And he’s here, with me, looking at me like I’m not a lost cause. Like I’m still worth something.
Maybe I’m not just the damage my father left behind.
There’s a knock on the door, but it opens before either of us can say a word.
“Grayson, if you’re finished, can I have a word with you?” Judas asks, standing with that usual calm, hands folded neatly in front of him.
My eyes stay on him for a bit longer. “Sure,” I say, standing up.
I walk past him and step out of the room, and he closes the door behind him without a word.
There’s something off about him. Like everything he shows is a mask, and underneath it, there’s something he doesn’t want seen. I don’t know what he’s hiding or why, but I can feel he’s not clean.
I press my ear against the door.
“Back in the pit, huh?” Grayson asks.
“Something like that,” Judas says. “Blood calls.”
“You make it sound like routine,” Grayson says, voice harder. “It’s not. Don’t start slipping back into what you used to be.”
“Grayson.” His takes a few steps. “I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need a father. I had one. That was enough.”
A brief silence.
“You know where I’m going,” Judas continues. “If I don’t walk away from this, you keep her safe. No matter what.”
Her? Her who?
“Don’t let her pay for my choices.”
I hear the soft shift of fabric, like Grayson’s laid a hand on Judas’s shoulder, the same way he did with me not long ago.
“You have my word, son.”
There’s a pause.
“Now go. I have some things to prepare,” Grayson says again.
Grayson’s footsteps fade, probably heading toward the second exit. Judas doesn’t follow right away. He stays there for a moment, then his steps become louder, clearly walking toward the door I’m leaning on.
I don’t move.
Let’s see what he’s keeping buried.
He steps outside, casting me a sidelong glance. There’s a flicker of surprise in his expression.
“Nosy, aren’t you?” he says, folding his hands behind him.
A slow smirk tugs at my mouth. I cross my arms and lean against the wall. “Tell me something. Are you actually a priest, or just playing dress-up?”
“Does it matter?” he says, barely moving his lips. “You’ve already made up your mind.”
“You’re right. I don’t like you.”
He leans in, giving a slow smirk. “How unfortunate.”
That fake calm, that carefully measured voice makes my blood boil.
I don’t trust him. Not his collar, not his tone, not the way he watches everything but gives nothing back.
He plays the part too well. Keeps everything neat and quiet, but there’s something off behind his eyes. Something cold and fucked up.
I don’t care how polite he sounds. I see what he is, and I don’t like him.
I narrow my eyes. “You’re a liar.”
He adjusts his collar, calm as ever, then folds his hands again like he’s ready to preach over a grave.
“Aren’t we all?”
The longer I watch him, the more I’m sure that this posture and the way he speaks don’t come from the priesthood.
There’s nothing holy in them. They carry the weight of stance built through discipline and not prayer.
Maybe from learning how to shut everything off and follow orders, no matter how dirty the job is. Like a soldier.
“Are you a real priest?”
“You repeat yourself, Isabella Calvano.”
“Answer me, Judas Manson.”
He straightens at the sound of his real name, like a reflex he can’t control. His neck rolls slightly, and when his eyes find me again, they’re hollow, like whatever was human just shut off.
“I am.”
I don’t back down. “You’re a liar. If you were a real priest, you wouldn’t be so ready to do what you’re about to do.”
He steps closer, his thick, wavy hair falling in strands across his forehead. His hand rises to his collar, adjusting it with a precision that feels like a habit.
“I never said I was good. The choice of what to do or what not to do still belongs to us.”
“You know that’s not how it works.”
“Then how does it work, Isabella Calvano?”
“You tell me. You’re the one pretending to have answers.”
“I’m not pretending,” he says. “I just stopped asking the wrong questions.”
Asshole.
I stare at him for a moment. “I don’t believe in God.”
“Since when?”
I breathe out through my nose. “Since I met Adam. Since I started seeing the kind of truths your God ignores.”
I shift my weight, resisting the urge to pace. “If He existed, He wouldn’t have let my parents treat me like that. He wouldn’t have watched while Adam grew up hated and hunted by the woman who gave him life. His mother tried to kill him and Heaven stayed silent. If He exists, He’s a coward.”
“Bold,” he murmurs, raising his arched brows. “Coming from someone who turned him into a fugitive just to avoid taking the fall.”
“Spare me the guilt trip. You’re the last person qualified to hand out the moral high ground.”
He says nothing. Instead, he just watches quietly.
There’s no judgment in his eyes. That would’ve been easier. At least then I’d know what to fight.
“Like I said,” I mutter, eyes locked on his, “I don’t believe in God. So I don’t believe in whatever you think you are. And I sure as hell don’t believe a word you say.”
“Do you believe in Adam?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He nods once. “Then you’ve already chosen your path. Just remember that every path leads somewhere. Are you ready to face the ending?”