Chapter Seven #2
Violet pointed with a pen toward a laptop humming quietly in the corner. “Your machine’s been screaming at me for an hour. Whatever you set it to dig through, it finished.”
Klarissa frowned, pushing to her feet. The laptop’s alert was steady, the report waiting.
She clicked it open, her breath catching when she realized what it was—analysis of the information she’d hacked from law enforcement and medical examiner offices in Bangkok.
Boonsri’s autopsy. The official record of how Rune and Kamon’s sister had died.
She tried to be clinical as she scrolled, but the image of the beautiful young woman in the portrait behind her parents that morning rose unbidden. Lines of data blurred, but one detail leapt out and her world stopped. Her heart thundered. Ice slid through her veins.
One of the chemicals listed was hers. A compound she had once named Seraphim-9, a creation she had thought would heal, not harm.
A compound she had created in her desperate search to cure her mother.
In the quantities used it would have been deadly, and mixed with the others in her system, it meant Boonsri’s final moments had been agony.
The room tilted. Her knees gave way, and she crumpled to the floor. She couldn’t breathe, the world started to turn black at the edges. Violet’s chair scraped loudly, her voice sharp and panicked. “Klarissa! Klarissa, talk to me!”
But Klarissa couldn’t hear her anymore. Darkness closed in, crushing and absolute, her last coherent thought an arrow through her heart. She was the monster her mates had been hunting all along.
****
The afternoon had been calm at Pride House, Kamon and Rune sitting with Kieran, Liam, and Josie while they went over patrol rotations and plans.
The talk was steady, even light at times—Josie teasing the brothers for being overprotective, Liam rolling his eyes but smirking, Kieran offering quiet direction that grounded them all.
For the first time in days, the room felt settled.
Then the call came. Kamon’s phone buzzed across the table. He hit speaker, and Violet’s voice cut sharp and urgent. “You two need to get back here. Now. Klarissa needs you.”
Kamon’s stomach turned to stone. “What happened? Is she hurt? Violet—”
“She’s fine physically,” Violet snapped, and Kamon could hear the strain under her words. “But she needs you. Both of you. Just get here as fast as you can.”
Kieran’s expression hardened instantly, his tone leaving no room for hesitation. “Move. Violet never sounds like that unless something’s bad. Very fucking bad.”
Liam nodded, his usual humor gone. “Go. Don’t waste a second.”
“Physically?” Rune repeated, already on his feet. “She’s okay physically? What the hell does that mean?”
“I said get here!” Violet barked, and the line went dead.
Fear clawed at Kamon’s chest as he and Rune bolted for their Jeep.
He fired question after question into the silence—what if Klarissa had pushed too far, what if she’d uncovered something that broke her, what if someone had gotten too close?
Rune’s jaw was set hard, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as they tore through the streets.
They didn’t know. They only knew Violet’s voice had shaken.
The drive blurred into red lights ignored and horns blaring. Every second was a knife.
When they screeched into the garage and sprinted for the elevator, the car was already waiting.
The ride up to Violet’s penthouse felt like the longest of Kamon’s life.
His pulse thundered, every floor a torment.
Klarissa was alive. Violet had said she was alive.
But whatever waited at the top had his gut twisting.
The doors opened and Violet stood in the living room, arms crossed, her face tight. “She’s on the roof. The dojo.”
Kamon didn’t wait for more. He and Rune took the stairs two at a time, bursting into the rooftop training space. The sight that met him ripped the air from his lungs.
Klarissa stood in the center of the room, arms wrapped tight around herself, shoulders hunched as though trying to make her body smaller, less of a target.
Her hair hung in tangled waves around her face, and her eyes—God, her eyes were haunted and so damn red, which meant she had been crying. Kamon’s heart cracked wide open.
“Suuway,” Rune breathed, taking a step forward.
“Waan jai,” Kamon said at the same time, his voice rough with desperation. They both moved toward her, instinct screaming to gather her close.
But Klarissa flinched back, one foot sliding across the mat, her chin jerking up in defiance even as fear flickered across her features. The unspoken plea in her eyes was a knife to Kamon’s chest as he realized she was braced against them—as if they were the ones she expected pain from.
“Talk to us,” Kamon urged, stopping a few steps short. His palms lifted, open. “You are our mate. Nothing you say will ever change what you are to us.”
Her throat worked, tears glittering. “You don’t understand. You can’t.”
“Make us,” Rune pressed. “Tell us what’s wrong.”
The words seemed to tear out of her. “It was me.”
Kamon’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, it was you? What was you?”
Klarissa’s voice shook harder as she spoke. “I searched for Boonsri’s killer, I tried to make sense of it all. I thought if I kept digging I could give you names, give you vengeance, give you closure.”
For one breathtaking instant Kamon felt a rush of joy so fierce it almost toppled him.
She had done this for them—for him and his brother.
His chest swelled with pride and gratitude, visions of standing before their parents with justice finally in hand filling his mind.
They could honor Boonsri, ease their family’s pain, and keep the vow that had defined so much of their lives.
It felt like a victory, like fate had given them a gift through their mate.
Kamon shared an excited look with his brother. “Fuck, waan jai, you did that for us?”
Rune clapped his hands together with glee. “Tell me you have a target, suuway. All you have to do is give us a name and we will do the rest.”
“I can give you a name, but—” Klarissa started, but Kamon’s thoughts surged ahead.
He grabbed his brother’s shoulder, his voice cracking with emotion. “You know what this means? We can finally fulfill the promise we made to our father.”
“Wait—” Klarissa tried again, but Rune cut her off, practically vibrating with excitement.
“I know! Five fucking years! I cannot wait to feel that bastard’s warm blood rushing over my fingers.”
Kamon saw from the corner of his eye that their mate flinched, but his own voice pressed forward, driven by the glow of long-awaited justice.
“He does not deserve your pity or your fear, waan jai. He took away the most pure, beautiful soul this world has ever seen, and whoever he is that is responsible will rot in the depths of hell for eternity for it.”
“It was a woman,” Klarissa said in a quiet voice.
“Doesn’t matter,” Rune practically snarled. “We will end that bitch just the same.”
“My work. My chemical.” Her voice broke, brittle as glass.
Rune blinked, confusion twisting his features. “What the hell does that even mean, suuway?”
Kamon’s heart slammed against his ribs. “Explain it to us, waan jai. We don’t understand.”
Klarissa shook her head as if the words themselves cut her.
“The compound Boonsri was given—it wasn’t random.
It was mine. I designed it years ago when I was trying to save my mother.
It was supposed to target corrupted strands in her shifting DNA, strip them away so her body could heal.
In controlled doses it was meant to give her a chance to live. ”
She pressed a hand to her chest, tears spilling faster.
“But in the wrong hands, at the wrong levels, it becomes a weapon. Caruso took what I created, twisted it, and when they found Boonsri’s body—the markers were all there.
The chemical signature was mine. My discovery. My miracle. That’s what killed her.”
The world stuttered. Kamon’s mind raced, snapping through memories, timelines of when she was caught in Bangkok and his sister’s murder aligned, the whispers of tragedy. The autopsy. The compounds.
His stomach dropped to ice.
“Holy fuck,” he rasped, horror clawing at his chest. “Rune—she’s saying it was her.”
Rune’s face darkened, thunder gathering in his eyes. “You ... you killed Boonsri?”
Klarissa flinched, shaking her head violently. “No—I never meant—”
But Kamon saw red, his vision blurring with rage. The air in the dojo thickened, charged with their fury until it was a living, breathing thing pressing against the walls. He and Rune advanced a step, voices harsh and relentless.
“Don’t try to twist this,” Kamon barked, chest heaving. “You said it yourself—you created it. You’re the harbinger of death you warned us about.”
Rune’s snarl was low and guttural, his tiger riding him hard. “All this time—you knew. You let us dream of vengeance when the truth was right there in your hands.”
Klarissa’s lips parted as if to explain, but neither of them gave her space. Their grief was a storm, drowning out everything else.
“You brought death to our family,” Kamon accused, his voice raw. “How the fuck are we supposed to look at you now?”
“And don’t think hiding behind excuses changes it,” Rune spat. “You’re no better than him.”
The words hung like a blade, heavy and unforgiving, their father’s shadow cast over her by their own hands.
Rune’s shout, brutal and sharp. “Our sister’s blood is on your hands!”
“You are like him,” Kamon heard himself shout, grief and rage tangling until he didn’t know where one ended and the other began. “Like Caruso!”
Her whole body jerked as if struck. “Don’t you dare,” she screamed back, anguish shredding her voice.
“Don’t you dare compare me to him. You have no idea what he did to me—what I lived through.
He tested every formula on me, over and over, healing me only so he could break me again.
He killed my mother in front of me when I refused to help him.
I bled for every life he took. I carry the stench of death on my skin, the pain layered on pain until I thought I would go insane.
Sometimes I went willingly into his hands, not because I couldn’t have escaped, but because if I stayed, maybe I could stop him from choosing another victim.
Find out what the chemical compounds he had his tech team develop and figure out a way to neutralize it.
I risked everything, over and over, carrying guilt that never lets me sleep, never lets me breathe. And you think I am him?”
The raw truth poured out of her, and Kamon’s fury faltered, doused like water on flame.
Shock stole his breath as the weight of her suffering crashed into him—he had never imagined she’d carried so much pain, so much guilt.
For a heartbeat he could only stare, his anger unraveling under the truth of what she had endured.
Her chest heaved, eyes blazing. “And your words of forever? Standing here having to defend the indefensible is exactly what I always knew would happen. I was never worthy of love that lasted. You’ve only confirmed it.
I am the daughter of the devil, I am responsible for the deaths of hundreds maybe thousands of people, including your—” her voice broke, and she had to take a deep breath.
“Your beautiful sister. I am not worthy of a future, not worthy of you. That is what you truly think of me, and who could blame you, right?” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile as tears streamed unchecked.
“So, thank you for that. Truly. Thank you for proving me right.”
Something inside Klarissa went out like a light.
Her face emptied, her eyes going flat, her skin pale as wax.
Silent tears streaked down her cheeks. When she spoke, it was quiet.
Final. “Tell your parents I’m sorry. Once I finish Caruso—and I will be the one to end that man—I’ll be gone from your lives. ”
She walked past them, shoulders rigid. Kamon’s gut twisted violently, instinct screaming this was wrong. He reached for her. “Wait, Klarissa—”
She turned, eyes dead, voice a whisper that cut deeper than any blade. “Leave me the fuck alone.”
Then she was gone.
Kamon dropped to his knees, agony ripping through his chest as the mate bond within him severed. Beside him, Rune crumpled the same way, both of them hollowed out in an instant. The rooftop spun around them, their breaths ragged, their souls shattered.
What had they done?