Chapter 14
Blake
The east wing corridor is empty when I arrive.
Too empty. No staff. No guests who've wandered off from the party. Just expensive art, thick carpet, and the kind of silence that says someone's cleared the area deliberately.
Silas is here. I can feel that particular charge in the air that comes from facing someone who wants you dead but needs to talk first. I know it well. It’s a common Delano state of mind.
I keep my hand near my Glock, scan for threats, and move deeper into the shadows of the hallway.
"Blake." Silas's voice comes from a doorway to my right. "I wondered if you'd actually come."
"You said we needed to talk."
"We do." He steps into view, and he looks different than the last time I saw him. He looks older, harder, like the mask he wears in public has finally cracked. "But first, empty your pockets. Gun, phone, anything else you're carrying."
"Not happening."
"Then this conversation is over, and I proceed with my original plan." Silas's smile is cold. "Your choice. But if you want to save those assholes downstairs, you'll comply."
I weigh my options. Fighting here accomplishes nothing. I need to know what he's planning, and I need to buy time for Talia to get Peyton out.
Slowly, I pull out the Glock and set it on a side table. I take out my phone next and my knife from my ankle holster.
"Good." Silas gestures to the room behind him. "Inside."
It's a conference room, windows overlooking the gardens, a long table dominating the space. And sitting at the far end is a person I was hoping not to see.
"Luca." My brother looks up, and I see the guilt immediately. He's part of this. Whatever Silas has planned, Luca's involved. My father has to be rolling over in his grave.
"Blake." His voice is rough, uncertain. "I tried to warn you. Tried to get you to leave before.”
"Before what?" I ask, though I'm starting to understand.
"Before I eliminate the obstacles preventing our family from controlling this town completely." Silas closes the door behind us and locks it. "The Kingsley board. Edmund's children. Everyone who might oppose our consolidation of power."
“Silas, we do back-door deals with half of the people in that ballroom. Your big plan is to commit a mass murder on Christmas Eve and kill them all? ”
"I'm planning a strategic elimination during an unfortunate accident." Silas moves to the windows, looks down at the party continuing below. "A fire, specifically. Your favorite tactic.”
“Jesus, Silas.”
“It’ll start in this wing, spreading rapidly through accelerant-soaked materials. Then, in the chaos of evacuation, certain high-value targets will be... delayed. Trapped. They’ll be tragic casualties of a terrible accident."
My stomach drops. "You're going to burn them alive."
"I'm going to burn this building. What happens to the people inside depends on how quickly they evacuate.
" Silas turns back to me. "But you, nephew, you're here for a different reason. I held a family meeting that you purposely avoided, and now you’ve forced my hand.
I need to know if you're with the family or against us.”
"You already know the answer."
"Do I?”
“I’ve got the same last name as you.”
“I’m the one who brought you home after you tried to annihilate one of my businesses, but now you’re keeping the Quinn girl from me. Disobeying orders. It doesn’t feel like family loyalty.” Silas's voice hardens. “Remember, your father made the same mistake going rogue, and it got him killed."
“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.