Chapter 32 When The Lies Crack
WHEN THE LIES CRACK
“NO!”
The sound that tore from my throat was not a word, not even a breath, but something primal and broken.
It was enough.
Vas moved.
He woke with a violence that shattered the quiet, his body coiling upright in one fluid motion that was too fast, too inhuman to follow. His eyes snapped open, glowing white, and the air in the room shifted.
Shadows spilled across the floor, crawling up the walls like smoke, alive and furious. The fire surged in the hearth, its light devoured by the darkness that radiated from Vas in waves.
Victor took a step back, his jaw clenched tight as he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sudden flare. Tal held his ground, his own dagger glinting wickedly in his grasp.
“Vas!” Victor barked, his voice low and strained,
“Stop! You need to stay where you are!” he ordered but Vas’s head tilted slowly toward him, and the sight of his brothers standing there next to his bed was all it took for that decades-old rage to come roaring back to life.
His voice was no longer calm, no longer controlled. It was thunder, jagged and merciless.
“You dare come here…” he growled, rising from the bed to his feet, the darkness lifting him like giant serpents were growing from his back, the sound of his growing fury shaking the walls.
“…Into my home. Into my chamber…. To steal her from me!”
Tal took another step forward, his own fury boiling over.
“You left us no choice!”
“THERE WAS ALWAYS A CHOICE!” Vas roared.
The shadows burst outward like a living tempest, slamming into the walls with a force that sent dust and books tumbling from the shelves.
Victor lunged first, faster than I could blink, but Vas caught his wrist mid-strike, twisting it sharply until the blade clattered from his grasp.
Tal moved next, trying to strike from behind, but Vas turned, catching him by the throat, slamming him back against the wall with a strength that made the entire room tremble.
“Stop it!” I screamed, my voice drowned by the chaos, but none of them heard me.
The dagger spun across the floor, skittering through the blood-red glow of the firelight before coming to rest at my feet.
My breath caught.
Yet each of them was oblivious to it, to what was happening. The fighting continued and I was terrified that anyone of them would get hurt. The power thrummed in the air like a heartbeat, each of them equal in strength.
“Run!” Victor roared, the single word raw with desperation.
“Get out of here!” Tal echoed, still pinned beneath Vas’s grip.
“Don’t move!” Vas snapped, his voice layered with something between command and fear. But I couldn’t listen. My body refused to move, torn between the three of them, between the shadows and the blood and the terrible truth that bound them all.
“Please… please… stop this, all of you!” I choked, tears burning behind my eyes.
Because no one listened to my pleas. Instead, the darkness flared again, sweeping across the room like a storm.
The lamps shattered, the mirrors cracked, and the wind howled through the open window, carrying the sound of my scream through the night.
And somewhere in that chaos, I realized the dagger was humming.
Not from power.
From recognition.
It knew me.
A whisper.
Soft at first, almost like a thought that wasn’t my own.
It slipped beneath the roar of my pulse, curling through the silence like smoke.
My hand twitched toward the dagger. I knew they wouldn’t stop, not unless I gave them something greater to fear.
Something none of them wanted but that would force them to end this madness.
So, I reached for it, my fingers closing around the hilt, and before anyone could react, I pressed the blade’s tip to my neck.
A sharp sting bloomed as I drew blood on purpose, the metallic scent cutting through the chaos.
It worked.
Every movement froze. Three pairs of eyes snapped toward me, their voices overlapping as they breathed my name in horror.
“Nessa?” The echo of it didn’t stop me. If anything, it gave me strength.
“I swear,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands,
“That I will drive this blade into my neck if either of you hurt the other!”
“Hey now, peaches, let’s not act too hasty,” Tal said lightly, though his eyes betrayed his panic.
“Listen to us, firefly,” Victor added, hands raised.
“Put the dagger down and we can talk about this, right, brothers?”
Vas growled low, his tone rough and commanding.
“Drop the fucking dagger now, Nessa!” I met his glare and shook my head.
“If the threat of my life is the only thing that will save yours, then no, I am not dropping this dagger.” I said fiercely, giving them enough cause to step away from each other, now placing all their attention solely on me.
As for my attention, my free hand slipped into my pocket, my fingers brushing against it. Suddenly I knew what it was calling to me once more.
The necklace.
I pulled it out slowly, my breath catching as the brothers’ gazes followed the motion. The crimson stone gleamed in my palm, its glow faint but alive, like a heart beating under glass. Victor’s expression darkened, disbelief cutting through his anger.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded, his voice low and sharp. Talon’s face went pale.
“That was our mother’s,” he whispered.
“We… we buried it with her ashes.” I stared at the pendant, unable to look away. The whisper came again, stronger this time, a voice curling around the edges of my mind like a serpent.
“It’s not as it seems.” The words left my lips in a whisper before I even realized I was speaking.
The necklace slipped from my hand. It fell, slow and deliberate, striking the floor with a sound far too heavy for something so small.
The stone flared red, brighter, pulsing faster, like it was waking up.
“Vanessa,” Vas breathed, his voice laced with warning. He took a careful step forward, his hand outstretched.
“Don’t move.”
But I couldn’t stop. Something inside me had already shifted. My fingers curled tighter around the dagger still slick with my blood, and my vision blurred at the edges. It was like someone else was moving me, guiding my hand with intent that wasn’t mine.
The whispers grew louder. They weren’t words anymore but sounds, dark and ancient, a demonic language that made the air thrum. The light in the room dimmed until only the stone glowed, its surface swirling like liquid fire.
“Nessa!” Victor shouted, but it was already too late.
My arm moved on its own, the dagger flashing downward in a single, sharp motion. The blade met the gemstone with a sound that split the air.
A crack.
Then a scream.
Not mine. Not human. Something vast and furious burst free from the shattered stone. Darkness erupted from it like smoke and flame combined, swallowing the floor, climbing the walls, twisting the air until it tore. And then it struck me.
The force hurled through my body, searing every nerve as light and shadow collided behind my eyes. I gasped, but the breath never came. My knees hit the floor, and suddenly I wasn’t in the room anymore.
I was falling.
Through flame. Through memory. Through truth.
Images came, flashing like lightning through my mind, each one burning brighter than the last.
Vas just before it happened, a man grown into strength, the weight of responsibility already carved into his shoulders.
His father’s estate was alive with candlelight that night, the air tense with the kind of silence that always comes before ruin.
From the doorway, Vas stood watching his parents, unaware that these would be among their final days together.
His mother sat at her vanity, her reflection gleaming pale and flawless in the mirror’s glow.
The years had barely touched her beauty, though the edges of it had grown sharp, honed by pride and desire.
She turned her head slightly when she saw her husband enter, her expression softening with a practiced grace that no longer reached her eyes.
“Sebastian,” she purred, her tone silk draped over iron,
“You’ve been distant again.” Her husband’s shoulders sagged beneath the invisible weight of her words.
“There is much to prepare for, the elders meet soon. There are matters that need tending.” he said tiredly. She rose, gliding toward him like a wraith in satin.
“And yet you never have time for me anymore,” she murmured, pressing her hand to his chest.
“For us.”
He caught her wrist, gentle but firm, lowering her touch.
“Do not play games with me, Calista. You know the dangers of what you suggest.”
“I suggest nothing,” she said, feigning innocence, though her eyes gleamed like cut emeralds.
“I only wish for what every wife wishes. Security. Power. A place among those who rule, not those who serve.” He turned from her, pacing toward the fire.
“You speak of the Fondatori again,” he said with quiet disdain.
“You know as well as I that their power is not ours to claim.”
“But it could be,” she whispered, stepping closer, her reflection caught in the glass of the window beside him.
“You are stronger than they are, Sebastian. Smarter. You only lack the courage to reach for what should already be yours.”
“Courage?” His voice cracked with disbelief.
“You speak of courage, yet what you really mean is greed.” Her smile did not falter.
“Call it what you will. But our sons deserve more than a name whispered in the shadows. Do you want them to live forever beneath those who have taken from us? Those who treat our family as lesser?” He turned sharply, his temper flashing, but she was already closing the distance.
Her hands rose to his face, soft, coaxing, the way they had been when love between them had still been real.
Her voice lowered, a sweet poison in his ear.
“Do it for them,” she breathed.
“Do it for me.” He froze.