CHAPTER 420: CRACK

SARAH

The bones of Niko’s fingers were a cage around my arm, but the real prison was the sight of her—Aria—fleeing from me. Her name was a silent scream in my skull, over and over, a frantic, desperate rhythm.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

And she was getting away.

My nails were claws in Niko’s sleeve, digging, searching for the soft give of his flesh. I wanted to feel him bleed. He didn’t move. A statue. A sentinel for a love that was a sickness.

"Let go of me!" The sound was not my own. It was the shriek of something cornered, something wild.

I threw my weight against him, a frantic, useless bird beating against glass. Once. Twice. My shoulders screamed with the impact. On the third try, his grip loosened. He let me go.

I staggered back, air sawing into my lungs like broken glass. The space where she’d been was a vacuum, sucking all the light from the world.

"You fucking BASTARD! You have no right—"

"You have done enough damage, Ms. Brown."

The words did not feel like sound. They felt like a physical violation, a cold, sharp twist deep inside my gut. My breath hitched, stuck. The edges of the hallway swam in a blinding, white static.

Then it came. A heat, starting in the pit of my stomach, uncoiling, spreading through my limbs like a fever. It was more than anger. It was a chemical fire, burning away the last pretense of the woman I pretended to be. My hands trembled, not with fear, but with a need to break, to ruin.

"Stay out of my way," I snarled, the words a low, venomous drip.

I shoved past him, my body humming, every nerve ending exposed and shrieking. Niko. Another name for the list. Another obstacle to be removed. The list was getting long. It didn’t matter. I would burn them all.

My heels were hammers on the tile, each strike a punctuation mark in my fury. Click. Click. Click. The rhythm was a countdown. The buzzing under my skin was a swarm of wasps, demanding release.

But beneath the fire, a colder, older ache opened up. A hollow space that only ever had one name.

Aria.

I’d searched for a month. I’d called every forgotten friend, driven to every pathetic hovel she might hide in. I’d lain awake at night, my mind painting pictures of her alone, scared, needing me. I had imagined her return a thousand times. The tears. The relief. The way she would fall into my arms and finally understand that I was her only sanctuary.

She came back for him.

Not for me. Never for me.

The thought was a spike of ice through the fire. It stole the air from my lungs. My hands curled into fists, the sharp, sweet pain of my nails in my palms a grounding, familiar sting.

She was supposed to be mine. We were a perfect, closed circle. Just us. I had carved out a space for her in my world, a clean, well-lit place, and she kept crawling back to the filth and the darkness. To him.

The car door was a slam that rocked the chassis. The sound was a gunshot. Final.

Then, I screamed, fist slamming into the steering.

My voice not a human sound. It was the rending of metal, the death cry of an animal. It tore from a place of pure, ungovernable need, shredding my throat, rattling my teeth. I screamed until my stomach muscles cramped, until my voice was a ruined, rasping thing, until the silence that followed was a physical weight.

My hands on the wheel were bone-white talons.

I drove. Speed was a blur, a punishment for the world outside my windows. A shape... a person... leaped from the crosswalk. Their mouth was a round O of shock. I felt nothing. The roar in my ears was the only thing that mattered.

The mask was gone. The sweet, concerned friend had shattered. I felt the pieces of her fall away, and what was left was raw, pulsing, and real. I didn’t care. Let them see.

The Roman villa rose from the earth, a tombstone for my hopes.

Inside, the silence was a mockery. I sat, tapping my heels on the ground without stop, and biting the skin around my thumbnail. The coppery taste of my own blood filled my mouth. My blood was not blood anymore; it was gasoline, and I was the match.

Voices that belonged to Andrew and Sabrina came in shortly.

"—can’t that old bastard just stay dead already?"

"He’s already dying. It’s only a matter of time."

"I can’t wait that long. The jet was supposed to kill him."

"Hush, Andrew."

They were discussing a man’s death like it was a spoiled menu. A logistical problem.

He saw me, his brows furrowing immediately. "Sarah? Why did you leave the hospital so early? You were supposed to.."

It snapped. The last, frayed thread of my control.

I launched from the chair, crossing the room in a frenzy. My hands were on his collar, twisting, yanking him down to my level. The fabric strained.

"YOU PROMISED ME!" The scream was ragged, torn from a bleeding place. "YOU SAID YOU’D GET RID OF HIM! AND YOU’VE DONE NOTHING! NOTHING!"

His face shifted from surprise to a weary disgust. "Kael isn’t some minor obstacle you can just remove—"

"I DID EVERYTHING YOU ASKED!" I was shaking, a violent, full-body tremor. My vision swam. "EVERYTHING! AND I’M STILL LOSING! SHE’S STILL GOING BACK TO HIM! EVEN WITH THIS... THIS THING GROWING INSIDE ME!"

My hand slapped against my stomach, against the hard, unwelcome curve. It felt like a parasite. A betrayal of my own body.

Andrew smiled. That thin, cruel curl of his lips. "Are you having a little breakdown, Sarah? How pathetic."

Pathetic.

The word was the key that unlocked the final door.

A laugh bubbled up from my throat, a dry, crackling sound, like dead leaves.

"Pathetic?" I leaned closer, my voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "You want to talk about pathetic? You are a shadow. A pale, weak imitation of your brother. You have to use me because you are too insignificant to fight him yourself. You hate yourself because you know. You know your father will always look at you and see a placeholder. A failure. You will always, always be second best."

The smile didn’t just drop from Andrew’s face. It was wiped clean, replaced by a blank, terrifying slate. Then his hand moved. A flash of motion, a crack that wasn’t just sound but an earth shattering shift inside my skull.

The pain was sharp. A star going supernova behind my eyes.