Chapter 56
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
acelynn
Kaius’s stare was a weapon in itself. His eyes cut into me with a sharpness that made my chest ache and made my bones want to splinter under the weight of it.
It wasn’t just anger in his expression—it was disappointment, betrayal, devastation, all wound together in a look that should have made me crumble to dust on the spot.
That should have sent me running for the hills, screaming for distance between us.
But I didn’t run.
I couldn’t.
Something in me was tethered to him, as dangerous as it was, as wrong as it felt to even crave the invisible string when his gaze promised ruin.
My eyes burned, the sting of unshed tears threatening to break through, but still I refused to look away.
I held his stare, even as my vision blurred, even as the weight of my guilt sank deeper and deeper into the hollow pit of my stomach.
Kaius stepped away from me as though my very presence was poison, and his voice ripped through the air, low and commanding, calling Nolan’s name like an executioner summoning the gallows.
I flinched at the sound, not because it startled me, but because of the finality in it.
There was no softness left in his tone, no trace of the boy I’d glimpsed in him once, no hint of the man who had promised—if only in subtle looks and half-kept words—that I was safe in his presence.
Then he turned from me.
He stalked back toward his truck, each heavy step echoing like a verdict.
When the engine roared to life, it drowned out everything—the chaos around me, the faint voices calling orders, even the frantic rhythm of my own blood as it pounded in my ears.
The sound was deafening, a wall of fury and decisiveness that seemed to swallow the world whole.
I lifted my hands, raking them back through my tangled, matted hair.
The strands caught between my fingers, pulling at my scalp until it burned, but the pain was nothing compared to the storm in my chest.
I tilted my head back, eyes finding the endless stretch of sky above me.
Blue. Beautiful. Cruel. The kind of day that should have been filled with laughter, sunlight, and freedom.
Not this. Not me standing in the middle of it, suffocating under the weight of choices I could never take back.
My throat tightened, a bitter laugh bubbling in my chest but dying before it could escape.
I was a dead woman walking.
Every step I had taken since lighting that match had carved me closer and closer to the grave, and now it loomed before me, wide and waiting.
And the truth—the truth that settled cold and sharp in my gut—was that I didn’t care.
Not really. What was the point of fighting for a life I never wanted in the first place?
Death felt less like an ending and more like a release.
Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was cowardly.
But the thought of closing my eyes and letting it all stop—the guilt, the fear, the constant weight of being both pawn and betrayer—was a kinder fate than the hell I had been born into.
I clenched my fists at my sides, nails digging into my palms until my skin threatened to break. I wanted the pain. Needed it. At least it reminded me I was still here, still breathing, still paying the price for the choices I had made, because there was no one else to blame.
Not Kaius. Not Nolan. Not Alec. Not even my father.
It had been me.
I was the one who had lit the match. The one who had taken a single flame and burned my entire life to ash.
And now, standing beneath that endless, indifferent sky, I finally understood what it meant to be both executioner and condemned.
There was no forgiveness for what I had done.
Not from the ones who had burned. And not from him.
The red taillights of the King of Lovelen’s truck blazed like twin embers against the desert sun.
I stood rooted where I was, watching as they grew smaller and smaller, cutting down the trail of asphalt until the vehicle swung hard to the right and disappeared from sight.
A tug at my arm snapped me back to the present, a sharp jolt against the road-burned skin that made me hiss.
My head snapped sideways to glare at the paramedic hovering beside me, his latex-covered hand still reaching as though I were some fragile thing about to fall over.
I ripped my arm out of his grasp, eyes narrowing. “Don’t touch me. I’m fine.”
He gave me a flat, irritated look, the kind men gave when they were used to being listened to.
His partner hovered near the open ambulance doors, clipboard in hand, tone softer but no less grating.
“We should really take you in to get checked out. Shock, concussion, broken bones—all things that you might be suffering from but just aren’t feeling them yet. ”
“I said I’m fine.” My voice cracked like a whip. “I’m not going to the hospital. I don’t have time for that.”
For the hundredth time, I bit down the scream of frustration crawling up my throat. They weren’t listening. No one ever listened.
“If she doesn’t want medical attention, let her go.” The first paramedic muttered the words like they tasted bad in his mouth, his disapproval heavy, judgment clear in every clipped syllable. His tone implied I was reckless, difficult, and ungrateful.
It made my blood itch and my fists curl. I tore the blood pressure cuff from my arm and let it fall in a heap at his feet.
My boots hit the pavement a second later, a jolt of pain spiking through my ribs as I hopped down from the ambulance’s metal step.
A groan escaped before I could bite it back.
My muscles screamed, the accident already leaving its mark, unseen bruises flowering beneath my skin.
But I ignored it. Pain was just another language my body had learned to live with.
I pushed forward. One step, then another. My shoulder clipped a body in the crowd, hard enough to jolt me. The man I struck turned, his plain suit marking him for what he was before I even caught the shadow of his badge. Detective Parsons.
“That’s a long walk home,” he called after me, smugness dripping off his words like oil.
I didn’t slow down. Didn’t give him the satisfaction of eye contact.
“I’m not going home,” I muttered, more to myself than to him. But he heard.
“But aren’t you, though?” he drawled, his tone mocking, taunting.
The words were barbed, but it was the smirk in his voice that made my blood spike hot in my veins. My steps faltered. My spine stiffened.
Slowly, I glanced back at him over my shoulder. His mouth curved into a crooked, knowing grin. “You’re the double agent turned triple agent. Tell Kaius I said hi when he fucks you tonight. I’m sure he’ll love hearing my name fall from your lips as he’s buried in that tight cunt.”
The words landed like a slap, sharp and humiliating. My jaw dropped, breath catching in my throat. “Excuse me?”
I turned fully now, facing him. He stood with his head cocked to one side, his eyes dragging lazily over me, slow and deliberate, like he was peeling me open with just a look.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was something darker, uglier, a predator’s grin that made the hair on my arms rise despite the summer heat.
I forced myself to stand tall, to plant my boots onto the pavement and not squirm, not give him what he wanted.
A low chuckle rumbled from his chest. “What’s the matter, doll? Hit a nerve?”
His voice dropped lower, meaner. “Alec was right. You’re just a two-timing whore who can’t see farther than how wide her legs can spread.”
My heart lurched, my pulse skidding. For a split second, the air was punched out of my lungs. Alec’s name on his tongue was an obscenity, a violation that ripped me open more than anything else he could have said.
He didn’t know my brother. He couldn’t have.
This man didn’t deserve to even breathe Alec’s name into the air.
He was just repeating whispers from its messenger, twisting information into something jagged and cruel.
Because no matter how much I told myself he was lying, no matter how many times I repeated in my head that I hadn’t betrayed Alec, that I was fighting tooth and nail to set things right for the Spades, for our family, the words found their mark. Doubt always did.
And there was only one person alive who could have known that. The same person who took sick pleasure in taunting me from afar. My throat burned, but I swallowed it down, locking my jaw so tight it ached.
The detective’s grin widened as if he could sense the wound he’d opened. He winked, a mocking little gesture that turned my stomach. “Better run along, doll.”
I held his stare for a moment longer, daring myself not to flinch, not to show him an ounce of the fear and fury churning inside me.
Then I spun on my heel, boots grinding against the pavement, and walked away before my trembling hands betrayed me.
But his words clung to me like smoke, pungent and suffocating, following me with every step.