Chapter 31
thirty-one
Valen speaks as if he’s aware of everything. My mouth hangs open. “You knew?”
“I mean, I figured that’s what would happen. I think they’ve sent someone to watch me…a man in a cloak. And then I toyed with them. Didn’t complete an assignment the way they liked. So they gave me one that would be impossible to complete, so I’d have to face their wrath.”
As ravenous as I was, I’m suddenly not hungry. “And what was that?”
“To kill your father.”
A breath gets caught in my chest as my fork slips from numb fingers, clattering on the fine china like a gunshot. My heart slams against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. Terror and disbelief collide in my veins. Would he do this to me—destroy everything I love?
“Oh, I have no intention of harming Xavier Cardell. Besides…” He shrugs, his tone so casual it’s chilling. “He had something I wanted.”
Valen’s steady green eyes crinkle at the corners, as if amused that I would think he could do such a thing. Seeing Elliot say it relaxes me somewhat. Somewhat.
“What was that?”
He acts like he didn’t hear me and carves into his lobster, savoring the bite. Fine. I guess I’ll find out my way.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I tell him, my voice steady even though I can still taste the fear that coated my tongue. “I was told to, yes. But I never would. You know that.”
He studies me from across the small dining table, a half-smile playing on his lips. “It seemed touch and go there for a minute.”
His candor relaxes me enough so that I can take a bite and relish the gourmet flavor.
I’d been starving before coming here. My stomach rumbles with eagerness.
“Why? Because you were pretending to be Mister Scholarship Perfection and taking me on normal dates while tying me to the headboard and leaving me for Sora to find at night?”
He smirks. “Yeah. Because of all of that.”
The flicker of a candle between us casts shadows up the walls, catching on the peeling paint and the faint glint of broken glass in the corners.
Seeing him in this light, in this place…
he’s even more strikingly handsome than that first day I saw him at the president’s luncheon.
Valen seems…peaceful. Dangerous, but calm.
Like he’s always known I’d end up right here, across the table from him, secrets exposed.
“You have a plan,” I say, eyes narrowing.
He tilts his head, sandy hair slipping over his forehead. “Don’t I always?”
An argument stirs on the edge of my tongue.
One I wouldn’t dare raise with men in the past, but the urge is there.
To push him, to demand he stop treating everything like a game he could win.
But his smirk softens, his eyes growing warm and earnest. I press my lips together to swallow the need to keep fighting him.
One of his hands extends across the table, reaching for mine. “Eat with me, Olivia. For tonight…let’s pretend there’s no one else but us. Just this and our food and the rain. No rules or society to worry about.”
My shoulders relax. That sounds perfect… “I would love that.”
Dinner is…surreal. Sitting here across from a man I’d known as someone else is bizarre. But the more he chats with me, the more at ease I feel. It’s like his two halves have become one.
I like it.
“So I’m your first, huh?” I say like a cocky schoolgirl, proud that I deflowered such a savage man.
“You’re my only,” he says without hesitation.
I feel warm all over at the adoration in his tone. “Why is that, Valen?”
He continues to eat, chewing his bites carefully. “We were homeschooled. Tutored. Mainly, self-learning. My parents are…different. I just played video games, I guess. Never was interested in anything else.”
“Until you saw me?” I worry that he’s never really known people before. Tucked away from everyone, and then latched onto the first thing he saw.
“No. I mean, yes, in a way… It wasn’t your looks that caught my eye, though you are stunning.
” Waving his fork over my body, he says it like it’s obvious.
“As I said, the more I watched you, the more I wanted to know you. You were so polished and obedient. But underneath the pink, I thought you were just like me.”
I still in my chair. “Like you?”
His green eyes lift across the table and hold mine. “Dangerous.” He swallows his bite and shrugs. “You just didn’t know it yet.”
The food is excellent, but my mind is racing. “So then the night with Hunter…”
“I didn’t know you were going to show up to the warehouse that night.
That was just a bonus for me. And I decided to act on the opportunity.
Watching Hunter’s tantrums for all those years was enough.
I’d had it. So I came up with a plan to give you a test. Hunter and Bryce were the pawns, but I needed to see how far you’d bend. Not for them. For you.”
He pauses for long enough for me to remember forcing Hunter’s dick onto Bryce’s…
“But when you turned the game around on them? When you used your power instead of letting it be taken from you—” A slow smile stretches across his lips. “That’s when I knew. You were willing to rebel.”
Vanq stood behind them, not really seeing what was happening at the moment, but I do wonder. “You…wanted to see me do that to them?”
His face screws up with something like disgust, then changes to a menacing grimace.
“No. I wanted to see what you would do when the mask came off and the orders no longer made sense. You could’ve submitted and obeyed.
You didn’t. You redefined the rules. You passed the test by breaking it.
Then, I just needed to punish them for thinking they could ever touch you again. ”
“But why then? Why didn’t you show yourself sooner?”
“Because, my Monarch…you weren’t ready.” His words are a key turning in my chest, unlocking secrets I didn’t want to discover. It’s unsettling—like he’s always known me better than I know myself.
He’s stunned me into silence, especially as he continues. “If you hadn’t experienced men like Hunter, how would you know what was truly good and what you deserved? The caterpillar hasn’t experienced what it’s like to fly.”
His voice dips lower, like he’s confessing a truth he’s carried for too long. “Only through the struggle…does she come to know true freedom.”
My eyes sting with tears. It’s hard to breathe.
“You’re right. If you’d shown up freshman year, I probably wouldn’t have paid you the attention you deserve…
” I’m sad to say it. But I was looking for presidential material.
Someone to lead me to becoming a politician myself.
No matter the cost. “So what was your plan with the video?”
“I had to make you hold the weapon. Feel the power in your own hands. Your phone. Your choice. Not mine. If you hesitated, the video could’ve lit the fire for you if I threatened to release it.
But I hoped you’d take action first—on your own.
That was the point. To show you that you could take control of your past. Without a mask. No help. Just you.”
“I deleted it,” I tell him proudly. “Not sure how you would blackmail me into doing anything.”
“Well…it’s never truly deleted. But I took care of it from the cloud.”
My pride turns into embarrassment. “Oh…”
His eyes flicker with some recollection. “That little rebellion in the warehouse was the first step toward taking on bigger issues.”
“Reggie Blackwell,” I whisper his name. A ghost in my memory now.
“Yeah. With most people, anger covers up fear. But I wondered with you if it were the opposite…”
“What do you mean?”
His smile curls slowly as he answers me. “Were you afraid of the depth of your wrath?”
My mind flashes back to Elliot in the corner, watching me drop the watch in the pond. “You saw it. You saw me.”
“Always.”
Now that we’ve finished our meal, the electricity between us is undeniable. His hand reaches for mine on the white-clothed table.
“Was that it, then? You wanted me to take out my rapist?”
For once, Valen turns shy, reminding me more of Elliot. “You want the entire story? He wasn’t just your rapist.”
My pulse pounds harder, as if my brain has been protecting me from the real answer. The one sitting deep inside that I’ve been terrified to face.
There’s a pause as he squeezes my hand. “He raped a lot of women. Including Naomi. And to keep them silent, he slaughtered them on Terror Tuesday—like an offering to the Seven. You…you were next on his list.”
A ragged breath gets caught on a scream that won’t come. Images of that night flood me—Reggie’s rough stubble, his sweat on my skin. My vision darkens until I’m a girl again, fighting to keep my soul from slipping away.
“It was him.”
Dizziness hits me as Valen’s words sink in— Reggie… Naomi… Omega sisters… The sacrifice of blood on my hands. My stomach twists, bile rising.
Naomi’s fascination with my butterfly. Had she seen mine? The one I kept in his office for the times I’d cry while he forced himself inside me?
Despite the flashes of my darkest memories, an odd comfort rises, slowing my heart rate. Shoulders relax their tension…
I claimed vengeance before understanding the full depth of his darkness.
And now, instead of being cocooned in guilt, I’ve broken free and fly with justice.
Before I realize, Valen has me on his lap, arms wrapped tightly around me like a blanket. “How do you know?” It settles inside me like truth, but I want to be sure.
“I have him on video from my own cameras of that night.”
I whip my head to the side to look into his eyes. “So why not give the evidence to the president? To the governor? To the law—” Even as the words come out, I understand why he didn’t.
“I love you. I do… But these men allow this to happen. They turn either a blind eye or encourage it.”
“My sisters lying in that motel room… He hurt all of them?”
“Yes.”
“And the one with her intestines spilled?”