“I’m aware.” He smiled. “And the minute either of those things happen, my death is imminent, isn’t that right?” Lucien sighed as if all of this bored him.

“You have to admit, you’re a danger to your own company,” Lydia said. “You refuse to behave and have openly admitted if you ever get out of here, you’ll kill everyone involved in running it. You’re the biggest threat to the most profitable energy company on earth.”

“I see.” Lucien nodded with a low chuckle. “So what you’re really saying is, whoever has my child first will be the one who inherits my company? That they’ll rule my birthright through whatever spawn I give you?”

Lydia balled her hands but nodded bravely. “Basically, yes.”

Lucien shifted to look at Evelyn. “And you? I don’t believe you’ve suddenly decided to switch teams from killing me to fucking me.”

Evelyn climbed to her feet, trembling a little. “You’re just going to kill me anyway. What does it matter what I say?”

“That’s true.” Lucien nodded. “But won’t it feel good to tell me what you really think before you die?”

I sucked in a breath, my heart palpitating.

Even though they’d hurt me, I couldn’t sit by and watch. I couldn’t witness this man I had feelings for kill in burning blood.

“Lucien...” I coughed, another rush of sickness flooding my mouth. “Stop it.”

He didn’t even turn to look at me. “Well?” he asked quietly. “Will you speak, or should I end you now?”

Evelyn went white. She shifted on the spot as if she wanted to run but...where to? If Lucien had decided to kill her, nowhere was safe.

As if she’d reached the same conclusion, she raised her chin and smiled coldly. “Fine. You want the truth?” Her entire face twisted into something evil and crazed. “I’ll tell you. You’re right that it will feel good to tell you exactly what I feel.”

“Go on then.” Lucien sighed with scathing sarcasm. “I’m positively dying with anticipation.”

“Fuck you.” Marching forward as if she heard the ticking clock of her own demise, she spat, “Fuck you and fuck your fucking company. You want to know the truth? FINE.” Tears ran down her cheeks as she gave in to insanity. “I still want to kill you but...after all this time and watching you pick us off one by one, I now have a sick fascination of knowing what it would feel like to trick the most powerful man alive into bed, then kill you when you’re at your most vulnerable. To do to you what you’ve done to all these women. To destroy you and your company. You’re nothing more than a caged dog and fuck, I want to put you down.”

Lucien sucked in a breath.

My temper surged.

How dare she say that? How dare she refer to him as a—

“And while I’m being honest.” Evelyn’s eyes darted to Lydia. “I’ll tell you what I really think of you too.”

“Me?” Lydia scowled. “What the hell did I do?”

“You’re an idiot, that’s what.” Evelyn’s mask well and truly came off. “I can’t stand you. Listening to you these past weeks has been torture. If you truly believe you can rule Brimstone Industries through this bastard’s children, you’re a fucking fool.”

“Hey!” Lydia stomped toward Evelyn. “I thought we were a team—”

“Shut up.” Evelyn spun back to Lucien and hissed, “I’m so done with all of this. I’m done living in a world where your existence is a threat to everything and everyone. You and that fucking blood inside you is an apocalypse waiting to happen.” She laughed with a brittle edge. “You should’ve been put down the moment you were born, and one day, when someone finally does manage to kill you, Brimstone Industries will die with you. The world will celebrate because you’ll no longer be around to destroy it.”

Silence fell as Lucien locked gazes with her. They stared at each other, wrapped in death and anticipation.

In a flash of black hair and black leggings, Evelyn screeched and launched herself at him.

Her dagger flashed.

Lucien planted himself in place as if begging the knife to land true—

Whisper snarled and surged forward. Pure muscle and shadow as he flew through the air and knocked Evelyn aside before she came close to stabbing him.

She moaned as the panther slammed her to the ground.

Whisper planted his giant paws on her chest, towered over her, and with a savage roar, ripped out her throat.

Lydia screamed and ran—

Lucien moved as fast as his panther had.

Leaping over the massacre on the floor, he charged after Lydia and grabbed her around the waist. Spinning her so her back pressed against his front, he clutched her close and murmured, “I’ll give my condolences to your father when I get out of here.” Then he dragged his blade over her neck, severing her flesh and trachea and—

I passed out as thick spurts of blood rained over everything.

Chapter Forty-Seven

I PLACED HER DOWN GENTLY ON the bed that was now officially unoccupied.

I’d made a mental note of which girl lived in each pavilion and this one no longer had a guest.

Rook’s old one—with its smashed furniture and inconvenient corpses, would be taken care of by Marcus’s cleaning crew and handy crematorium. But for now...she would stay here.

Gathering Rook’s long hair, I laid it over the pillow and brushed aside lingering strands from her red, slightly swollen cheek. My hands balled to resurrect the ones who’d hurt her and kill them all over again.

Whisper paced, his long tail lashing with impatience. He snapped his jaws, his muzzle coated with congealing crimson.

“Will you stop?” I hissed. “Go away if you can’t calm down.”

He dropped to his belly and glowered at me.

Ignoring the opinionated panther, I ran my fingers over the cut on Rook’s neck, the bruises on her arms, and the marks on her wrists.

My temper stayed dangerously high, my heart pounding.

I’d been able to fight my way through the flames of the vitalsync core while killing, but now...I groaned as yet another gush of fire pushed me closer to that excruciating edge.

I didn’t have long before I did exactly what Rook had done.

My lips thinned in a smirk.

What a pair we made. Both of us unable to stay conscious in times of pressure. Both of us crippled with agony we couldn’t stop.

At least her wounds weren’t serious and the ones who were responsible were dead.

Sitting by her side, I pulled out my dagger and fisted the hilt.

My jaw clenched.

I’d been a fool.

I thought I had more time. I’d plotted my escape for so long, it’d become more of a dream than a reality.

But...I was done.

It was now or never.

And I didn’t know how I felt about that.

On the one hand, I’d been begging for this moment for twenty years. But on the other, I wasn’t ready to face the outside world and all the carnage that would come with it.

My fingers throttled the knife as my need for vengeance turned violent.

If I survived the next few days, the slaughter would begin.

I would take what I was owed.

One screaming life at a time—

My gaze dropped to Rook’s face, and everything snuffed out.

This goddamn girl.

She had no place in my revenge. She wasn’t supposed to have affected me. I’d been fighting the feelings she’d awakened ever since she cowered like the rest of them in the ballroom yet somehow wasn’t like the rest at all.

She stood out.

She was different.

And it seemed my poisoned heart had quietly forsaken me every time she was near, but now...now my eyes turned traitor too.

My breath caught as I really, truly looked at her.

Black hair as dark as my nightmares, flawless skin almost luminous in the light. For the first time in my life, I noticed little things that’d never been important up till now: the softness of her cheek, the sweep of her lashes, the slight pout of her perfectly pink lips.