Chapter 73 Antonio
Each second is a grain of sand dropping through an hourglass, each one a tiny erosion of my certainty.
This was a mistake. A colossal, potentially catastrophic fucking mistake.
I brought her here to mend what I broke, to show her I am not a monster.
To offer a sliver of her shattered world back to her, a token to earn a sliver of trust. The logic was flawless: reunite Grace with her wretched mother, witness the catharsis, then step in as the benefactor.
I would have Elaine moved from this place, I would arrange with Magnus to see her sentence commuted.
She would become my bargaining chip, my leverage.
See, my darling? I can be merciful, I can give you this. All I ask in return is you. Be mine again.
The plan is ash on my tongue now. The only thing I can hear from behind that door is a low, murmuring hum of voices, too faint to decipher. No weeping. No cries of joy or anguish. Just a terrible, waiting silence. It feels less like a reunion, and more like a vigil.
My jaw aches from clenching. I should never have let sentiment override strategy. I should have kept this card hidden, played it only after the fact. But I was impatient. I miss the scent of her hair, the feel of her skin, the way she looked at me before I fucked it all up.
The silence stretches, gnawing at me. I push off the wall, my boots soundless on the stone floor.
Conrad will be down here soon, making his rounds, smelling of cheap whiskey and cheaper power.
I’ll speak with him, arrange for the woman’s transfer.
Use it as the first thread to stitch Grace back to my side.
The thought calms me, a return to the familiar terrain of manipulation and control. This is not a mistake; it is merely a phase of the operation that requires adjustment.
Then the sound comes.
It is not a murmur. It is not a cry.
It is the sharp, unmistakable crack of wood splintering. A small sound, a chair or a stool giving way but in the suffocating silence, it is as loud as a gunshot.
My body goes rigid. Every instinct, every paranoid nerve I possess, screams at once. This is wrong. This is not the sound of a tender reunion.
My hand is on the door handle before the echo has faded. I shove it open, and the scene imprints itself onto my mind with the brutal clarity of a brand.
Elaine is lying on the floor, her body splayed in an unnatural angle. Her eyes are wide open, fixed on the damp ceiling, seeing nothing. A white, frothy substance tinged pink with blood bubbles from her parted lips and drips down her chin onto her chest.
And Grace.
Grace is on her knees, her body folded over her mother’s, her face buried in the dead woman’s stomach. Her shoulders are racked with silent, violent sobs.
Poison.
The shock lasts only a second. Then it ignites, transforming into pure, incandescent fury. It erupts from me in a guttural, wordless roar of betrayal. My plan, my leverage, my carefully orchestrated moment of control; all of it lies dead, poisoned by the very hands I sought to gentle.
I lunge into the room, my vision tunnelling on the sobbing, hysterical girl on the floor. My little pet. My docile, broken little dog. I am going to drag her up by her hair, I am going to make her tell me how she did this, I am going to…
She moves.
It is not the movement of a victim, it is not a cower or a flinch.
It is the uncoiling of a snake. The pounce of a cat.
Her head snaps up. The grief on her face is obliterated, replaced by a feral rage so absolute it stops me dead for a fraction of a heartbeat. Her eyes are not human. They are the eyes of a cornered animal, blazing with a primal need to kill.
She screams a raw, shredded sound that seems to tear itself from the very core of her. Her hand flashes out, closing around a splintered, sharp-ended piece of the broken stool leg.
I see it happening. I see the arc of her arm, I see the wild, desperate strength in her body. But my fury has made me slow, arrogant. I cannot comprehend that she would fight back. That she could.
The pain is not immediate. There is a pressure first, a deep, shocking intrusion just below my ribs. I look down, my rage momentarily stunned into confusion. I see her small, white-knuckled hand gripping the makeshift stake. I see the rough, splintered wood buried deep in my abdomen.
Then she yanks it back before burying it inside me again.
The world dissolves into white, searing agony.
It blossoms from the point of impact, a supernova of pain that explodes through me, burning along every nerve, stealing my breath, buckling my knees.
I stumble backward, my hands flying to the wound, feeling the warm, shocking wetness of my own blood already soaking through my shirt.
She stabbed me. She actually fucking stabbed me.
My back hits the doorframe, and I slide down it to the cold stone floor. I am grasping the jagged piece of wood now protruding from me. I can feel its rough edges against my fingers, the terrifying, deep pulse of my body around it.
And I start to laugh.
It’s a choked, wet, horrible sound, bubbling up from a place beyond the pain. The absurdity of it is too perfect, too poetic. My perfect, docile little pet. The woman I broke and remoulded. She turned on me. She bit the hand that feeds, and she bit deep.
A wave of nausea washes over me but the laugh continues, a harsh rasp.
I almost marvel at her. At the ferocious, beautiful violence she kept hidden behind those frightened eyes.
I broke her, and in breaking her, I unleashed this.
I created this magnificent, murderous thing.
The pain is excruciating, a fire in my gut but the pride, the insane, twisted pride is a drug.
“Grace…” I stammer just as the door bursts open, and carnage takes off.
Boots stampede into the small room. Shouts, curses, the sound of fists meeting flesh. My guards, responding to the noise, but there are others. Men I don’t recognize, fighting mine.
How did they get in? Through the walls? Through the goddamn walls?
I blink and my eyes lose focus for a second. I see Grace, a flash of pale face, being pulled away from her mother’s body by a large, unfamiliar man. She’s fighting him too, like a wildcat, all teeth and nails.
“No.” The word tears from my throat, raw and bloody. Is this Conrad’s doing? Are they his men stepping in, taking control?
I try to get to my feet, to get to her but the pain lances through me, a white-hot spike, driving me back to my knees. My guards are grabbing me, hauling me back from the fray, trying to shield me.
An explosion rocks the corridor outside, a deafening roar that shakes dust from the ceiling. The lights flicker and die, plunging us into a chaos of shadows and screams.
In the half-light, I see her being pulled through the smoke. Her eyes meet mine for a final, searing moment. There is no fear in them now. Only a cold, victorious hatred.
Then she is gone. Swallowed up.
The fight is over as quickly as it began. My guards shove me behind them, their weapons drawn, staring into the dark maw in the wall. I shove them off, the adrenaline a firestorm in my blood, overwhelming the agony in my side.
“Get the fuck off me.” I snarl, using the wall to haul myself upright. The world tilts, but I lock my knees. I am bleeding heavily, I can feel a warm stream tracing a path down my leg inside my trousers but I don’t care.
I storm out of the room and into the main thoroughfare of Oblivion. The explosion has caused panic. People are running, shouting. The air is thick with smoke and confusion. Slaves and clientele alike are running like hell itself has been let loose.
“Grace.” I bellow, my voice echoing off the stone arches. “GRACE.”
She is gone. Taken.
Stolen from me, from my very hands.
Where the fuck is she? Where have they taken her?
I start yelling, hollering, losing what little control I have left. “Where the fuck is my wife?”
As I turn a corner, I come face to face with Magnus Blake of all people.
Whatever words he has to say, I don’t let him speak them.
I cross the distance in three lurching steps, and I punch him.
It’s a clumsy, blood-weakened blow but it carries all my rage, my betrayal, my pain.
It catches him on the jaw, snapping his head back.
Before he can recover, I slam him into the wall, my forearm against his throat, my face inches from his.
“Where is she?” I hiss, spitting blood. “Where the fuck is my wife?”
He struggles, his eyes wide with shock and indignation. “What are you talking…”
“I made you Magnus, I can unmake you just as easily.” I spit.
His eyes narrow. He tries to push me back but I’m too strong for him.
“You married her?” He sneers. “When?”
Despite the situation, my lips curl. “Right here.” I reply. “In front of all of you.”
His eyes widen as he realises the full extent of the trick I played. The full fucking ruse all these arseholes fell for.
A wave of pain hits me so hard that I almost double up.
Has he taken her? Is he so fucking bold he decided to pull this stunt and steal her away? Is she locked in some cell somewhere, the way Paitlyn was?
“I know where she is.” Conrad says from behind us.
I turn, spinning on my heel to look at him.
“I mean, I know how they got her out.” He corrects himself.
“Show me.” I bark. “Show me right now.”
I can’t think straight, I can’t fucking calm down.
My legs feel hollow, my body is both in absolute agony and going simultaneously numb as I follow him through the carnage, through one corridor after another until we reach what feels like the very fucking bowels of the earth.
Conrad points to what looks like some tiny crawlspace over the rocks.
“Devin made us aware of this…” He mutters as if that explains anything.
“You have a leak.” I state.
“It’s not well known.” Conrad replies.
“It’s well known enough to steal my wife away through it…”
But how the fuck did they know we were going to be here, how the fuck did they know any of this?
Magnus shakes his head. “Antonio, you need a medic. Now.”
“I don’t need anything until I have her back,” I growl, but my strength is waning. A dizzy spell washes over me and I stagger, my hand pressing harder against the bloody mess of my abdomen.
Magnus grabs my arm, steadying me. His voice is low, urgent, stripped of its usual bluster. “Sit the fuck down. You’re bleeding out. You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.”
The logic is infuriating because it is true. I am no use to anyone unconscious or bleeding to death in this shithole. With a final, furious snarl, I let him and Conrad lower me onto a crate a guard drags over. I glower, a beast forced into a cage as a medic kneels and begins cutting away my shirt.
I stare past them into the darkness. Did she go willingly? Was all of this planned? Was I so fucking stupid I didn’t see any of this coming? Did she pretend the entire time? Pretend to love me, pretend to want me?
She betrayed me, she did this. She looked into my eyes and she shoved a piece of wood into my gut with the clear intent to kill me.
She wanted me dead.
And I can’t blame her.