Chapter 71
ADELINA
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“Cezar…”
Nothing.
The silence he left was worse than screaming; it was closing in from every direction. One second, Cezar had been holding me so tightly and the next, he was gone.
My fists hit the door again before the last of my strength gave out. I stumbled backward and collapsed beside the bed, naked, tears slipping down my face.
Something was terribly wrong.
The panic in his voice replayed in my head. The way he avoided my gaze. The way he covered my eyes. The way he refused to talk to me. Then my name, not Lina, Adelina. The name, buried in years of blood, lies, and revenge. A shaky breath left me as the tears fell.
He knew. Cezar knew exactly who I was in that moment, and instead of anger or disgust, he was destroyed by it.
The knock against the door made me flinch.
“Adelina?”
Dorin.
I tried to answer, but nothing came out. Moments later, metal scraped against the lock as Dorin pulled the dagger free from the other side and eased the door open. He stopped short when he found me crumpled on the floor.
“What the fuck happened?”
I barely noticed him covering me with a robe before I sagged into him, gripping the fabric in my fists.
“He knows,” I mumbled.
“Knows what?”
My throat closed painfully around the words. “Who I am.” I looked down for a second before managing to get the rest out. “He said my name.”
Confusion crossed his face before he realized what I was saying. Despite all of it, I smiled. “It was beautiful.”
His silence was all the confirmation I needed. Dorin understood what I meant. My entire life, my name had felt tainted. Something hidden and dangerous. Yet Cezar said it as if it belonged to someone worth loving.
Dorin’s hand settled against the back of my head carefully. “What’s he going to do?”
“He’s going to get himself killed.” The words came out panicked. “He is going after Viktor.”
“All right.” He grabbed my face, halting my spiral. “Breathe.”
I clung to his wrists.
“We were almost ready to take your throne back anyway,” he continued. “Maybe the priority has changed a little.”
I huffed out a laugh. His thumb brushed away another tear before he looked at me more seriously.
“You love him?”
“Yes.”
The answer came without thought. Not my throne. Not revenge. Not Viktor. Cezar. Just Cezar. Dorin nodded once like that confirmed everything he needed to know.
“Okay then.” He gave me a firm squeeze. “Let’s go save your man.”
A hint of mischief surfaced.
“And bonus if Viktor dies in the process.”
CEZAR
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
Every step in that direction felt like a march to my own execution. If my brothers weren’t inside, I would’ve torched the whole fucking house—just like he torched my life. And hers.
The night he took something I could never get back.
The night he made me into this.
The smell of alcohol hung on me like gasoline. If I was going to do this, why the hell would I be sober? Still, I wasn’t going to let him rob me of my death—that was hers to claim. My Petal’s. When she knew the truth, I would meet my end.
But first, he had to.
The guards stiffened when they saw me, but none of them mattered. The only thing in the world that made sense was killing him. The only clear thought I had was murder.
Fueled by liquid courage and twenty-something years of hate, I slammed the door open so hard the hinges screamed.
“VIKTOR!”
He stormed down the stairs, already tense. Maybe something else had gone wrong while I was gone.
Darius and Codrin crept around the corner, their attention fixed on me, the same way people watched a feral dog about to bite.
“You are such a fucking piece of shit.” I sneered, my voice splintering beneath the weight of every year I’d swallowed my hate. “I hate you. I hate everything about you. You are nothing, Viktor. Just another dead man waiting to be added to my list.”
I took another step, teeth bared and rage demanding blood.
“And when you die, you’ll die alone. No one will mourn you.
No one will speak your name again. No one will give a single fuck.
I’ll make sure of it. I’ll erase every trace of you from this world until you’re nothing but a warning about what a father should never fucking be. ”
Viktor’s gaze snagged on the gaping line of my shirt where a button had popped. For a flicker, his eyes narrowed to the carved rose blooming raw across my chest.
“What the hell is this?” His tone was dangerous. “Do you mock me with this?”
I scoffed, spreading my arms wide so my brothers could see too—the bloom permanent on my skin. “Come on. You say I never take anything seriously, that I need to be more committed. Well, look at me now.”
I pressed my fingers into the swollen petals, smearing blood across my skin. “Making sure I can never escape the thorns of a rose.” I laughed. “Tell me, does this look like a joke to you?”
For the first time, his expression fractured. Recognition dawned—and with it, fear. “You…” His voice thinned. “You’re working with the Nycto Reaper.”
My laugh rang out empty. “Working with? No. Belonging to.”
My fingers flexed at my sides. Part of me wanted to rip his throat out.
The other wanted to tear myself apart. “You want to know what the cruelest part is? That I ever wanted your love. That some broken part of me wanted a smile, a nod, something that proved I wasn’t just your monster.
And you never gave me that. You never gave me anything. ”
I laughed, and the sound felt like razor blades in my throat. “But you did give me one thing. You gave me the truth of what I really am. You made me into this. And tonight, I’ll be the monster that you always wanted.”
Darius barked, “Cezar, enough. You are an irresponsible child who throws tantrums. You reek of alcohol. Why don’t you leave again, the way you always do? Abandon us the way you abandoned Mom the night you killed her—”
“Oh, fuck you, Darius!” I snarled, my eyes burning as I spun on him. “You know nothing. You never knew. None of you. You think I throw tantrums? You think I’m the only monster here? You have no fucking clue. Do you want to know why I am who I am?”
The room warped around me, tilting, constricting. I couldn’t even remember the last time my brothers saw me like this. “Why don’t I enlighten you, my dear brother—” My eyes locked on Viktor, venom hitting my tongue. “Why don’t I tell them how you be—”
WHACK.
Pain split my skull, and the world went black. Distant voices muffled together as I fell into nothing.