nail into our coffin.
“I was looking for something different, and up until now, you provided that.”
“You mean up until I let you—” She looked ready to collapse right then and there. “Until I let you fuck me.”
My eyes narrowed at the sorrow in her tone. I might be ending this now, but I didn’t regret a single moment. Unlike her. “Let’s not forget,” I said, wanting to hurt her for a different reason now, “you begged me not to stop.”
“I thought maybe—” She looked away, her guilt and shame overshadowing her pain. “I thought maybe you’d change your mind.”
My nostrils flared at her confession. I wanted to shake her for her stupidity. It seemed my father hadn’t been the only one with an agenda. “You mean you thought you could manipulate my feelings with sex?” I scoffed at that to hide my own hurt. “While you were a phenomenal fuck, Bradley, no pussy is that good.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“Finally, something we can agree on,” I heard myself say and none too gently. I was starting to feel like a spectator and not a participant—as if I’d locked away the part of me that wanted to take it all back and threw away the key. “No, it doesn’t matter now.”
Tyra seemed to stare right through me as I held her gaze, listening to music above us and the waves crashing behind us. I wondered what she was thinking. I reminded myself it didn’t matter.
“Just tell me one thing,” she pleaded, and it was all I could do not to deny her as a lone tear slipped down her cheek. For some reason, that single tear cut me deeper than all the rest. The determination in her gaze told me I’d won, and it ripped my fucking heart out. “Of all the girls you could have screwed, why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be my sister?”
A thousand truths screamed at me at once, needing to be heard. I ignored them all—except one.
“Because she helped me see who I’ve been all along. With her, I could finally stop running.”
Tyra stilled at what sounded like a confession of love, and then her eyes drifted shut as she inhaled. When she finally opened them, the warmth I’d grown used to seeing in her whiskey gaze was gone. “Good for you. Good for you both. I hope the two of you are very happy burning in hell together.”
It was all I could do not to snatch her ass back when she stepped around me. Instead, I stood rooted to the spot, staring at the small footprints she’d left in the sand. Watching Tyra walk away forever was too huge a risk to my willpower. I’d done the impossible and rewritten our stars, and I knew she would never forgive me for it.
Feeling my hands shake, I took a deep breath and balled them into fists before checking my watch. Ten minutes. Finding my car, I abandoned my party and sped all the way home. When I walked through the iron doors, my father was there to greet me with a small army of men prepared to do his bidding if I’d been even a second late.
“Is it done?”
“It’s done.”
“Good.” Reaching inside his suit jacket, my father removed a small, blue box. He’d found it in my room yesterday after he’d gone looking for proof of Selena’s claim. It was the same blue box containing Wren’s engagement ring. The ring my father assumed I’d intended for Tyra.
It was all the proof he needed that he’d found his perfect pawn.
“You won’t be needing this anymore,” he said as he handed it over. “So consider this a show of mercy. Son or not, it’s the only one you’ll get from me.” As soon I took it from him, he looked over his shoulder. A man I’d only met once and already loathed appeared. “You remember Jeremy Antonov. My most promising protégé.” The malice I detected in my father’s tone was due to what Antonov really represented. Not the preservation of Thirteen, but the ruin of my father’s coveted dynasty. “Jeremy here is going to make sure you keep your word.”
Five months later
HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED HOW the stillness of a room could make your thoughts feel a little less private? It was as if suddenly you were thinking through a megaphone, and the people around you could hear every word. It was all I could do not to look up and