of eyes turn toward me.
Ryland is in the room too, even though I didn’t hear him speak before. He’s leaning against the wall just inside the doorway, his arms crossed and a dark look on his face. Instead of his usual button-up shirt and dark slacks, he’s got on workout clothes just like I do.
Marcus’s parents are the only ones seated, which tells me a lot about how this conversation is going already. Theo stands off to one side, and Marcus is standing in front of his parents where they sit on the couch, his hands stuffed into his pockets and his shoulders tense.
His mother was in the middle of answering his question when I barged in, but whatever she said got lost in the roar of blood in my ears. I don’t really care what it was anyway.
I don’t really give a shit what she thinks. About any of this.
“Fuck you.”
The words slip past my lips before I can stop them, coated in the same deadly calm Marcus’s voice held earlier.
His mother’s eyes widen until I can see the whites all around her irises. I remember her from the wake, but I’m not sure she remembers me. Her hair is a bit lighter than her son’s, her features delicate and elegant. The perfection of her appearance contrasts almost comically with her scandalized expression.
Honestly, I can’t tell if she’s shocked by what I said, or by the fact that I was the one to say it.
Gideon Constantine narrows his eyes at me before turning to his son. “What the hell is she—”
“Fuck you,” I say again, cutting him off as I raise my voice. “Want me to say it again? Fuck. You.”
His wife has recovered enough to stop looking scandalized. Now she just looks angry. She straightens on the couch, her back so rigid it’s like someone shoved a pole up her ass. “There is no need for—”
“Yes. There is.”
My voice is shaking a little. I’m shaking a little, my body so full of wild fury that I don’t know how to contain it. I feel the same way I did right before I beat Natalie’s face to a pulp, and I have a fleeting thought that maybe I’m about to punch Marcus’s mother.
I don’t look at him as I step forward, keeping my gaze focused on his parents. I might be overstepping horribly right now, but I can’t even bring myself to care if he’s mad at me.
There are things I’ve wanted to say to these two assholes ever since the day I attended Marcus’s wake with grief eating a hole in my heart.
And I may never get another chance, so I’m fucking taking this one.
“I never had a family.” My voice is harsh and strained, and my fingers curl into a fist. “I never knew my parents. I had some shitty foster parents over the years, but even the worst of them was a thousand times better than either of you. Because none of them ever sold my life away to get ahead in the world. None of them used me as a fucking pawn to further their own ends.”
Gideon’s face darkens, his brows lowering. He looks a lot like his son, and it’s strange to see features that are so dear to me on a face I hate so much. “Excuse me, but who the hell are you?”
“I’m the reason your son is still alive.” I take another step forward, tilting my head to look down at them both. “And I’m the reason he’ll stay alive. You can call this thing you signed him up for a ‘game’ as much as you want. Try to pretty it up by making it sound sportsmanlike or some shit. But that doesn’t change what it really is. A fucked up trap. A sentence. Kill or be killed.”
“We wouldn’t have signed him up if we didn’t believe in him. If we didn’t think he could win.”
Marcus’s mother—Norah, I think her name is—has the decency to look a little abashed as she glances from me to Marcus, but I don’t let that weaken the fire burning hot in my chest.
Just from hearing her speak before I entered the room, I have a pretty good idea of how this woman operates. She looks and sounds soft, but it’s all a fucking act. She’s nothing but sharp edges and harsh pragmatism, weighing her son’s life against her own possible gain.
And I hate her for it. I hate her even more than his father.
Because she