Chapter 48 #2
She just turned. Walked out. Said she needed air like that would be enough to patch the hole she left behind.
The door clicked shut behind her, and the silence that followed felt sharp.
Like pressure building in my ears.
I didn’t move at first.
Just stared at the contracts.
The gold-embossed seals. The inked signatures. The waxy sheen of dynasty blood trades masked as “alliances.”
Then I reached down and picked one up.
My fingers didn’t tremble.
Not like Luca’s.
He was pacing now. We’d switched places, and we both knew it.
“You know,” I said quietly, eyes still on the contract, “maybe we just have to play the long game.”
Luca turned toward me sharply. “ The long game? ”
I looked up.
He was barely holding it together now. That unshakable control of his? Gone. His hair was a mess from raking his fingers through it. His jaw was locked so tight it looked painful. He was breathing like he’d just run ten miles uphill in winter.
“You think we’ve got time for that? You think Alexander’s ever going to agree to a merger with our family?” he snapped. “Even if we do drag it out to twenty-one, you think he’s just gonna hand her over and say congrats, boys, thanks for fucking my sister?”
I didn’t flinch. Because I’d already thought about that. About all of it. But Luca wasn’t looking for strategy right now. He was looking for blood.
“And what about our side?” he hissed. “What about Damius ?”
That name landed like a blade.
“He’s not going to let us marry someone we want, Bastion. Not when we’re still defying him every fucking day by refusing to become another cold-blooded psycho killer like Vince.”
Silence stretched between us.
I didn’t answer.
Not right away.
Because the truth?
Luca was right.
Damius had always hated the fact that Vince claimed us—raised us. That he made us something he couldn’t control. Couldn’t bend into monsters like the rest of his legacy.
Vince shielded us. Took the brunt of it. Made himself the first line of fire so we didn’t get pulled in too soon.
But Vince wasn’t immortal.
And Damius ?
He was waiting .
Waiting for the moment Vince was too weak, or too compromised—to stop him.
And then he’d make his move.
Luca moved across the room, pacing like he couldn’t bear to stay still. I watched him from the edge of the bed, papers still in my hand, the names on them burning like brand marks into my skull.
He stopped suddenly, eyes dark, voice low. “You remember what Damius did to Vince?”
I didn’t answer.
“Used to lock him in the basement for weeks , Bastion. No food, no light. Just him and those fucking concrete walls.” Luca’s voice cracked. “Remember when he used to show up to family dinners? Cut Vince up like meat, made him clean the wound himself at the table—while Nik tried to distract us.”
My grip tightened on the papers.
“And then he’d smile,” Luca shook his head. “Fucking smile like it was all love. Like he was teaching him how to be strong.”
I could still see Vince’s body. All those old scars. The ones no one talked about. The ones Damius never tried to hide, because pain was part of the bloodline.
“That’s what we have to look forward to,” Luca muttered. “That’s what he wants from us. ” His fists clenched at his sides. “Break us. Rebuild us. Marry us off to whatever dynasty daughters will breed killers into our legacy.”
His voice dropped to something hoarse. “He wants us empty , Bastion. Just like he made Vince.”
My throat burned.
Because every word was true.
Vince had sacrificed himself so we wouldn’t become monsters. So we wouldn’t forget how to feel .
“Then maybe it’s time we repay him.”
Luca went still.
The kind of still that only came when something dangerous had been said out loud. His chest rose and fell like he’d just taken a hit, but his eyes—his eyes locked on mine like he already knew where this was going.
“We take our place beside them, help build Villain into something stronger than they ever saw coming,” I said, voice low. “Bigger than the Grimaldi syndicates. A fortress of legacy. A dynasty so untouchable that not even our cousins can breathe without asking us first.”
Luca didn’t move.
The silence between us burned.
“And then…” I met his gaze. “When no one’s looking—when everyone least expects it…”
I let the words land like a knife.
“We kill Damius.”
Luca blinked once.
Then again.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.
But his voice dropped into something sharp and barely audible. “Speaking that out loud is enough to have your tongue removed.”
I didn’t blink.
Didn’t drop my gaze.
“It’s the least we could do for Vince,” I said. “He killed our father for locking us in those cages.”
Luca’s jaw clenched.
Rome, Cecilia, and Sofia never knew.
Not the truth , at least.
They were told what everyone else was told—that our father took his own life. That the weight of our mothers death, the guilt, the legacy had finally crushed him. That he went quietly.
But we knew better.
Because we saw it.
We were there.
Luca and I were just kids, but we’d learned to move like ghosts. Stay small. Stay quiet. Especially around our father. That night was no different.
We’d crept down the stairs after hearing voices—Vince’s voice.
We didn’t mean to see it. We just wanted to be close. Close to Vince. To Nik. Anywhere but alone in our room. Near someone who made the house feel safe , even just for a second.
So we sat in the shadows in the side room to the lounge, backs to the wall.
And through the crack.
We watched Vince raise the gun.
We watched him end it .
Nik came running, holding Cecilia. Sofia screaming upstairs. Rome was asleep. None of them saw it.
But we did.
And when Damius arrived, he didn’t look at the body first. He looked at Vince.
We still hid. They thought we were upstairs asleep.
“He was going to execute him,” Luca said, quieter now. “I was sure of it. Vince looked him in the eye like he wanted it. Like he’d already made peace.”
I didn’t say anything.
Because I remembered it too.
The way Vince stood over our father’s body, shoulders squared like a man who’d finally done the one thing no one else would. His jaw was locked. His hand didn’t even tremble.
He didn’t beg.
He didn’t lie .
He just told the truth.
“I did it. He deserved worse.”
And waited.
Damius didn’t flinch. Didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t even look surprised. He just stared at Vince like he was deciding.
What came next should’ve been execution. For any other man in the dynasty, it would’ve been. You kill your own blood, you don’t get a trial. You get a bullet.
But Damius didn’t pull the trigger. Because he saw something.
Potential.
He saw Vince as raw material—blood-soaked, willing to do what others wouldn’t. And he had leverage. Us . We were Vince’s weakness. So he let him live. Let him owe. And Vince has been paying for it every day since.
I swallowed hard. “He didn’t spare him. He claimed him.”
“That’s what he does.”
And now he was circling us. Just like he’d done with Vince.
Just like he was with Rome—who was already being pulled deeper into Damius’s grip not by choice.
Because he saw potential.
The room felt still after she left it.
Luca sat on the edge of the bed, hunched forward, his hands laced behind his neck. His chest rose and fell like he’d just been hit in the ribs.
“So what do we do?” His voice cracked on the last word. “Just let them take her?”
He jerked his chin toward the contracts on the dresser.
The gold seals had already been broken.
So had we.
“We can’t keep her out of their grips,” he muttered.
I didn’t answer right away. Because he was right. We couldn’t stop them .
Not like this.
Not yet .
But I wasn’t spiraling anymore.
I was done begging the world to let us keep her.
I was planning .
I crossed the room, picked up the top page. The name inked in the corner curled like smoke—one of the many dynasty sons promised a meeting with her.
“We’re Crows,” I said quietly. “We don’t keep her out of their grips.”
I looked back at Luca.
“We just make sure they’re not alive long enough to reach for her.”
He froze. Just the still, sharp silence of someone who understood what I meant.
Boating accidents happen.
Planes drop out of the sky.
Brake lines wear thin. Real thin.
There were always ways. Clean. Quiet. No suspicion. Not even the victims’ families would know what they’d lost—until it was done.
Luca finally exhaled and nodded.
Because this wasn’t about strategy anymore.
It was war.
And if we wanted to win it, we’d have to play the long game.
We’d have to build something so fucking untouchable in Villain, that by the time we made our move, there wouldn’t be anything left for them to counter it with.
Not Alexander. Not her suitors. Not our grandfather.
Not the empire trying to take her from us.
He stared at the wall, jaw locked. “You think she’ll still want us? After this? ”
Her wanting us wasn’t safe. Not right now.
Because we were still boys trying to become kings.
And kings don’t beg.
They build.
They plot.
They wait until they can win.
The silence stretched between us.
Hours later—just before midnight, the door creaked open again.
She just walked back in and started packing. Neat. Calm. Quiet. Luca moved first, helping her fold. I followed. No one said what they wanted to say.
And maybe that was mercy.
Because we didn’t ask her to stay.
We didn’t make her promise to wait.
We didn’t tell her the plan.
We let her go.