Chapter 8 Peyton #6
“No, you killed him," I say quietly. "Because he was going to expose your trafficking operations. You knew that he was the only person who could convince Nonno of your treachery.”
Luca's head snaps up. "What?"
"Didn't know that part, did you?" I look at my brother. "Our father, the man you idolized, was murdered by our uncle because he didn’t want to be in the business of buying and selling people."
"That's a lie," Luca says, but his voice wavers.
"It's the truth. Ask Silas since he's feeling so honest tonight."
“Silas?” Luca simply says.
"Your father was sentimental and weak.” Silas shrugs. “If the streets hadn’t gotten to him first, he would have destroyed everything we built trying to save people who were already lost. Capitalism doesn’t work without a hierarchy.”
I stare at my little brother as if to say, ‘See.’
“So you didn’t do it?” Luca asks, hoping for a definitive denial from the snake in the grass.
Silas ignores Lucas’s question and pulls out his phone, checking something. "We have ten minutes until the fire starts. Timers are set. Accelerant is placed. The exits from the east wing will be locked remotely, and anyone who doesn't evacuate fast enough will meet an untimely end.”
"You'll kill innocent people."
"There are no innocent people in Wintervale, especially at this fucking party. Only players and pawns. Your girl understood that when she claimed her inheritance downstairs. Quite the performance, by the way. Very dramatic."
Of course, he knows. Silas has eyes everywhere.
The reason I know is because Talia texted me the moment Peyton took the mic.
I wish I could have seen her stand in her new power and tell the world who she is and why they should all be very fucking afraid.
Instead, I’m stuck on this side of the house, trying to devise a way to talk down a raging maniac.
"Let me guess," I say. "You're going to offer me a choice. Follow your lead or burn with them."
"I'm offering you a chance to prove your loyalty. Help me ensure certain targets don't make it out. Use your knowledge of the building, your combat training, to make sure the right people die. Do that, and you remain part of this family. Refuse, and you're just another obstacle to be removed."
"You want me to help you commit murder? You think I’d actually agree to that?”
“Don’t act like murder is suddenly beneath you. Every Delano breathing has had to take a life or two along the way.”
“Why is that? We have lived in Wintervale for generations. We have money and influence here. Why do you need to hurt more people? What the fuck is the end goal, Silas?”
“There can only be one king of the jungle. It’s time for Edmund to relinquish that role to someone more deserving.”
“And that’s you.”
“Who else?”
Luca's watching this, and I see him processing, understanding what he's become part of. What Silas has turned him into.
"What about Luca?" I ask. "What's his role in this?"
I purposely don’t ask about Nico so I don’t accidentally put him in harm’s way. Hopefully, he’s far away from Wintervale and never comes back.
"Your brother is going to help me start the fires. Then he's going to evacuate like a concerned guest, establish his alibi, and continue being a valuable member of this family."
"And if I refuse?" Luca chimes in.
"Then you burn with the rest of them." Silas checks his phone again. "Eight minutes. Decide, Blake."
He's offering me exactly what he thinks every Delano wants: belonging, acceptance, a place in the empire we've built on suffering. But he's wrong about what I want, and he has been wrong from the beginning.
"No," I say simply.
"No?"
"I'm not helping you kill anyone, and I'm done pretending that family means more than being a decent human being.”
"I was afraid you'd say that." Silas nods to Luca. "Lock him in the storage room. He can burn with his principles."
Luca doesn't move. "Silas, I can’t. This is Blake. My brother. A Delano.”
"He's a traitor who's chosen strangers over blood. He's made his choice. Now make yours."
My brother looks at me, and I see the war happening behind his eyes. Loyalty to Silas, who's been his mentor. Fear of consequences. And underneath it all, the memory of who we used to be before the family destroyed everything good about us.
"I'm sorry," Luca says quietly. Then he pulls a gun, my Glock, the one Silas made me surrender, and points it at me. "Storage room. Now."
The weight of my disappointment with his decision crushes me.
"Luca.”
"Don't make this harder than it is. Please."
I could fight and probably disarm Luca before he gets a shot off, but that starts a confrontation I'm not sure I can win with Silas in the room. And it wastes time the people downstairs need.
I let Luca march me to the storage room at the end of the hall. It's windowless, reinforced, the kind of space designed to contain valuables during estate events.
It’s the perfect prison.
The perfect tomb.
"I really am sorry," Luca says as he pushes me inside.
I try one last bit of reasoning with a kid I taught how to throw a football and roll his first condom on his dick the right way.
“Listen to me. Silas will never admit it because he’s a coward, but he killed our father, and he's going to kill innocent people tonight.
You're helping him because you're too scared to stand up to him.
" I meet his eyes. “I get it, Luca, but that makes you complicit. Imagine living the rest of your life with the weight of all those bodies on your soul.”
His eyes shoot to the floor.
“Your sister is in here, too, Luca. Can you live with yourself if Talia dies too?”
Luca's hand shakes, and I swear he’s fighting back tears. "I don't have a choice."
"We always have a choice. I made mine. Now make yours."
For a moment, I think my little brother might find the resolve to stop this and choose being a decent human over being a good Delano.
Then Silas appears in the doorway. "Enough conversation. Lock it."
Luca closes the door. The lock engages with mechanical finality, and I'm alone in the dark, listening to footsteps fade, knowing that in less than seven minutes, this building starts burning with me trapped inside.
I reach for my phone only to realize I don't have it. Silas took it. I check my pockets and find nothing useful. No tools. No weapons. Just me and a locked door and rapidly diminishing options. How I wish I had let Talia commission one of those super spy pieces of jewelry for me.
Think, dammit.
There has to be a way out. Air vents. Ceiling panels. Something. I try not to panic, but it feels like I’ve been in here an hour when it’s probably only been a few minutes. I’m searching the ceiling for a solution when I hear something.
There are voices outside. Shouting. Then alarm bells. It’s not a fire alarm, but evacuation warnings from a sophisticated home security system.
That’s the sound of chaos beginning.
The fire's started early, or something else has gone wrong. Either way, I'm running out of time. I throw my weight against the door. Once. Twice. The fucker doesn't budge. I try the hinges, but they’re reinforced and designed to withstand exactly this kind of assault.
The air's getting warmer. Smoke is seeping under the door, thin but present.
I'm going to die here. Trapped in Edmund Kingsley's estate, killed by my own uncle, unable to save anyone.
Just like my father. Just like everyone who's ever tried to say the word ‘no’ to the power-drunk maniacs of this town.
Then I hear footsteps running toward the storage room instead of away from it. Before I can thump on the door with my fist to get whoever’s attention, the lock disengages and the door flies open.
It’s a face similar to mine, except prettier, standing there, breathing hard, with soot on her face. "Move now, big head,” Talia orders. “The whole east wing is going up."
"How did you know I was in here?”
"Luca came to find me with tears in his eyes. He told me what Silas did and where to find you.” She's already pulling me toward the exit. "We need to go. The fires are spreading fast."
"Luca helped you?" I ask incredulously.
“He gave me back your gun, and now he's trying to evacuate people. Probably making up for being an idiot. We can process his redemption arc later. Right now, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
We're moving through corridors filled with smoke, past windows showing flames climbing the exterior, and toward an exit that might already be blocked.
“Where’s Peyton?" I ask, wondering whether she thinks Silas has done something to me or even cares.
“She was determined to come with me to find you, but I convinced her to go with the FC. I knew you’d never forgive me if I didn’t. So she's safe, but Blake, there are some board members trapped inside a room.”
"Where?"
“Helena’s people texted and said they’re in a conference room three floors down. There are at least six of them.”
“And you’re sure Peyton is okay?” Honestly, she’s all I give a fuck about.
“I promise she is.”
“Okay, then, against my better fucking judgment, show me where they are.”
We change direction, heading deeper into the burning building instead of out.
It's stupid, reckless, exactly the kind of heroic bullshit that gets people killed. But Talia explains that they’re only inside that room because of Peyton's speech.
“Her speech was so powerful that they felt compelled to immediately acknowledge her claim and hold an emergency vote.”
Damn, my girl did her thing.
Okay, there’s no way I’m letting them burn.
We find the conference room. The door's locked from the outside, and the heat is already making the metal too hot to touch.
"Stand back," I tell Talia. She's still holding my Glock, but I take it, aim at the lock mechanism, and fire three times.
The lock shatters.
The door opens.
Six men pour out, coughing, disoriented but alive.
"Out! Now!” I shout. "Follow her."
Talia leads them toward the exit while I check for more victims. The smoke's thicker now, dropping lower, making it hard to see, harder to breathe.
There’s a sound behind me. Its footsteps. I turn and find Silas standing in the hallway, blocking the exit, gun in hand.
"You couldn't just let them burn, could you?” he says. “Just had to play hero for some ridiculous reason. It couldn’t possibly be for the Quinn girl’s sake?”
“Maybe.” I shrug.
"Then die like a hero.”
He raises the gun. I'm already moving, diving sideways as he fires. The shot goes wide, hits the wall where I was standing.
A series of brief memories flashes in my mind. Silas and my father are taking me on my first hunting trip together. Silas and my father having a whiskey neat after every Christmas dinner. Silas feigns grief at my father’s funeral. The moment I suspect Silas is trafficking women.
I return fire. Two shots. Center mass.
Silas staggers, looks down at the blood spreading across his shirt with something like surprise.
"You shot me," he says, and starts coughing.
“Yeah, I shot you.” I move closer, gun still trained on him.
He's sinking to his knees now, hand pressed to the wound, blood seeping through his fingers.
"The family,” he starts.
"Whatever you think you were building this family into dies with you."
"Luca and Nico, they'll continue.”
"Luca just saved my life, and Nico warned us about your plan. They're done taking your orders." I step past him, toward the exit. "You die alone just like you lived. Tell my father I said hello.”
I leave him there, bleeding out in the burning building, and don't look back.
The hallway's an inferno now. Flames on the walls, ceiling collapsing, air so hot it burns to breathe.
I find the window, the one leading to the gardens.
Three stories up. No time for clever climbing.
I break the glass, look down at the drop, and jump.
The landing's brutal. My shoulder is screaming, my ribs are probably cracked again, but I'm alive. And somewhere in the wintery chaos of evacuating guests and emergency vehicles, I’m going to find Peyton and tell her what I should have told her from the beginning.
That I'm sorry.
That I love her.
That I'm done letting fear dictate my choices.
And that I choose her.
Every time.
I pull myself up, start moving toward the front of the estate where the crowd's gathering toward whatever comes next. Together or alone, I'm done running from what I feel.
I'm Blake Delano.
I saved six girls from White Ember, I burned my uncle's evil empire the hell down, and I chose the woman I love over the family that raised me. And I'd do it all again. Without hesitation. Without regret.
Because that's who I am now.
That's who I choose to be.