Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Kyra
The rope around Aaron's wrists is professionally tied—not too tight to cut off circulation, but impossible to escape.
Patrick's work. He sits bound to one of Victor's dining chairs, positioned so he can see both the Christmas tree where we got engaged and the front door he'll never walk through again if I make the wrong choice.
Or the right one, depending on perspective.
I perch on the edge of the couch, still wearing the red sweater I put on this morning when my biggest concern was whether Victor would like how I looked for Christmas Eve. The engagement ring feels heavier now, like it's gained weight with each revelation about what accepting it truly means.
Victor stands by the window, sipping coffee like we're discussing weekend plans instead of his son's potential murder.
His calm is the most terrifying thing about this entire situation.
A normal father would be anguished, conflicted, desperate to find another solution. Victor looks mildly inconvenienced.
"Take your time, sweetheart," he says without turning around. "This is an important decision. I want you to be completely comfortable with whatever you choose."
Comfortable. With choosing whether someone lives or dies.
"Kyra." Aaron's voice is hoarse from shouting, from pleading, from the growing realization that his childhood home has become his potential tomb. "Please look at me."
I force myself to meet his eyes. They're red-rimmed, desperate, but there's something else there now. Something that looks almost like pity.
"You're not like him," he whispers. "I know you think you love him, but you're not capable of this kind of evil. You're good, Kyra. You're kind. You save lives, you don't take them."
"Do I?" I ask quietly, and I'm disturbed by how detached my voice sounds. "Because I've been sitting here for twenty minutes thinking about all the ways this could go, and murder isn't immediately off the table. What does that make me?"
"It makes you scared," Aaron says urgently. "Confused. Manipulated by someone who's had time to get inside your head."
"Or it makes me practical." The words slip out before I can stop them, and I see Aaron's face crumple. "You said it yourself—Victor is dangerous. His business associates are dangerous. If you know too much, if you're a threat to our future..."
"Our future?" Aaron's voice cracks. "You were crying over me. You loved me."
"I thought love meant settling for someone who canceled dates to get drunk with his frat brothers." I stand up, beginning to pace. "I thought love meant begging for attention from someone who flirted with other girls right in front of me."
"That's not—I never—"
"The redhead at Jake's party. The brunette at the campus coffee shop. Should I keep going?" Each word is a small cruelty, but they feel good coming out. Cleansing, almost. "You treated me like an accessory, Aaron. Something pretty to have on your arm when it was convenient."
"So you're going to let him kill me for it?"
The question hangs in the air, and I realize I don't know the answer. Before all of this, the idea would have horrified me. Now I'm calculating the pros and cons like it's a research proposal.
Pros: Victor's world stays protected. Our future remains secure. No loose ends to complicate our marriage.
Cons: I become an accessory to murder. Someone's son dies because I'm too selfish to find another solution.
"He won't kill you," I say finally. "Will you, Victor?"
"That depends entirely on what you decide," Victor replies pleasantly. "I'm flexible."
Patrick chuckles from his position by the door, and the sound makes my skin crawl. These men find this amusing. A family discussion that might end in bloodshed, and they're entertained.
"You see?" Aaron says desperately. "You see how calm they are about this? This is what his world looks like, Kyra. Violence as a first resort, not a last one. Is that really what you want for your life?"
"I want security," I hear myself say. "I want to be protected. I want someone who sees my worth and fights to keep me."
"Even if fighting means murder?"
I consider this seriously, turning the question over in my mind like a complex equation. "Even if fighting means eliminating threats to our happiness, yes."
"Jesus Christ," Aaron breathes. "He's turned you into him."
"No," Victor says, finally turning from the window. "I've simply revealed who she always was underneath all that conditioning about being nice, being good, being acceptable to people who were never worthy of her anyway."
He moves toward me and I don't step back. I should be afraid of him—this man who's discussing his son's death with the same tone he used to discuss breakfast plans. Instead, I feel drawn to his certainty, his complete lack of moral ambiguity.
"The world is divided into two types of people," Victor continues, his hand coming up to cup my cheek. "Those who take what they want, and those who spend their lives wondering what it would be like to be brave enough to reach for it."
"And which type am I?" I ask, though I think I already know the answer.
"You're learning to take," he says with approval. "The question is: what are you willing to take first?"
His thumb traces my lower lip, and I find myself leaning into the touch despite Aaron's horrified stare. This man who's offering me everything I've ever wanted, at the cost of becoming someone I never thought I could be.
"Victor," I breathe, and hunger flashes in his eyes.
"Show him," he murmurs, his voice dropping to that intimate register that makes my heart race. "Show him who you belong to now."
I rise up on my toes and crash my mouth against Victor's, kissing him with desperate hunger. His arms come around me immediately, pulling me flush against his body as he deepens the kiss with possessive thoroughness.
"No," Aaron chokes out behind us. "Kyra, don't—"
But his protest only spurs me on. I tangle my hands in Victor's silver hair, kissing him harder, claiming him as thoroughly as he's claimed me. His hands slide down to grip my ass, lifting me slightly, and I wrap one leg around his hip with shameless abandon.
"That's my girl," Victor growls against my mouth. "Take what you want."
I can hear Aaron making wounded sounds behind us, and can practically feel his heartbreak like a physical presence in the room, but I don't care. This is what power feels like—the ability to destroy someone with nothing but desire.
Victor's mouth moves to my throat, and I throw my head back with a moan that's deliberately theatrical. "Yes," I gasp loud enough for Aaron to hear every word. "God, Victor, you make me feel—"
"Stop," Aaron pleads, his voice breaking. "Please, Kyra, stop."
Victor lifts his head, his eyes dark and cruel. "She doesn't want to stop," he says, his hands still possessively gripping my body. "Do you, sweetheart?"
"Never," I breathe, pulling his mouth back to mine for another searing kiss.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, Victor keeps me pressed against him like a declaration of ownership.
"Time's up, sweetheart," he says softly, his lips brushing my ear. "What's your decision?"
I look at Aaron, tied to the chair, terror and heartbreak warring in his expression.
Then at Patrick, waiting patiently by the door with the kind of stillness that speaks of practiced violence.
Finally at Victor, who's watching me with the focused attention of a professor observing a particularly interesting experiment.
The ring on my finger catches the Christmas tree lights, sending rainbows across the wall.
"I need to know something first," I say finally.
"Anything," Victor replies.
"If I choose to let him live, will you respect that decision? Or will you have him killed anyway once I'm not looking?"
Victor considers this with the seriousness it deserves. "If you make that choice and give me a compelling reason why it's in our best interests, I'll honor it. But you'll need to convince me that leaving him alive doesn't compromise our future."
Fair enough. Cold, calculating, and completely lacking in normal human empathy, but fair by the standards of his world.
Our world now.
"And if I choose... the other option?"
"Then Patrick handles it cleanly and we never speak of it again. Aaron drove up here in a snowstorm, lost control of his car, and tragically died in the wreck. Happens all the time on mountain roads in winter."
The ease with which he delivers this lie should shock me. Instead, I find myself impressed by the thoroughness of his planning. He's thought through every contingency, every possible outcome.
"Kyra," Aaron pleads one last time. "Please. You're not a killer. Don't let him make you into one."
But as I look at him—tied up, helpless, completely at my mercy—I realize something.
I don't feel guilty about having this power over him. I feel... free.
Free from the weight of being good, of being nice, of considering everyone else's feelings before my own. Free from the exhausting performance of moral superiority that I've been putting on my entire life.
Three years of putting Aaron's needs first, of swallowing my ambitions to make room for his ego, of smiling politely when he dismissed my dreams as "cute little hobbies." Three years of making myself smaller so he could feel bigger.
And what did it get me? A broken heart and a pile of debt when he tossed me aside the moment his father applied pressure.
"I've made my decision," I announce, and my voice is steady, certain.
Victor straightens slightly, Patrick shifts position by the door, and Aaron holds his breath.
"But first," I continue, moving to stand directly in front of Aaron's chair, "I want you to understand something."
I kneel down so we're eye level, close enough that he can see every emotion crossing my face. Close enough that he can see exactly who I've become.
"You never deserved me," I say quietly. "Not my love, not my loyalty, not my forgiveness. You treated me like I was lucky to be with you, when the truth is you were lucky I was too naive to see what a selfish, weak little boy you really are."
"Kyra."
"Shut it. I'm not finished." My voice carries enough authority to silence him immediately. "Victor saw my worth when you couldn't. He fought for me when you wouldn't. He values my mind, my ambition, my strength—things you never even noticed."
Tears are streaming down Aaron's face now, but I feel nothing. No guilt, no sympathy, no regret. Just cold, clear certainty.
"So here's what's going to happen," I continue, standing and turning to Victor.
"He's going to live. But not because I'm merciful.
Because I want him to live with the knowledge that he lost the best thing that ever happened to him to his own father.
I want him to wake up every day knowing that I chose someone else, someone better, someone who actually deserves me. "
Victor's smile is slow and deeply satisfied. "An elegant solution, sweetheart. But what guarantee do we have that he won't cause problems for us in the future?"
I look down at Aaron, broken and sobbing in his chair, and feel nothing but contempt.
"Look at him," I say dismissively. "What's he going to do? Call the police and tell them his father stole his girlfriend? Try to expose your business and end up mysteriously disappearing? He's not brave enough for revenge, Victor. He's not strong enough to be a real threat."
"You're probably right," Victor agrees. "But I prefer certainty to probability."
"Then let me provide it." I kneel down again, grabbing Aaron's chin and forcing him to look at me.
"You're going to leave here and never contact either of us again.
You're going to tell anyone who asks that you wished us well and moved on with your life.
And you're going to live with the knowledge that the woman you thought you loved chose your father over you because he's everything you'll never be. "
"And if he doesn't comply?" Victor asks with interest.
"Then you'll kill him," I say simply, the words coming easier than they should. "And I'll help you bury the body."
The silence that follows is deafening. Patrick looks impressed. Victor looks proud. And Aaron looks like I've just reached into his chest and crushed his heart with my bare hands.
Which, I suppose, I have.
"Outstanding," Victor says finally. "Patrick, untie him."
As the ropes fall away from Aaron's wrists, the girl who drove up this mountain—heartbroken, desperate, clinging to the hope of salvaging a relationship with a man who never deserved her—is gone.
In her place stands someone harder, colder, infinitely more dangerous.
Someone worthy of Victor Strickland.
"Merry Christmas, Aaron," I say as he stumbles toward the door on unsteady legs. "Try not to drive off a cliff on your way home. That would be such a tragic accident."
The threat is delivered with perfect sweetness, and I see him flinch at the implications.
When the door closes behind him, Victor turns to me with something approaching awe.
"Perfect," he murmurs, pulling me into his arms. "Absolutely perfect. You're everything I knew you could become."
As he kisses me beneath the Christmas tree, surrounded by the evidence of wealth and power and complete moral flexibility, I realize something:
I've never been happier in my entire life.
The good girl is dead. Long live the queen.