Page 81 of His Black Onyx

"So, you acted up to get your father's attention?"

Her voice is lower this time, and she's slouching into the bench when I look at her. I can see a hint of fear fluttering across her face, regret even, a general wonderment whether she's overstepping with her line of questioning.

And if she was anybody else, I would probably say that she is. But for some reason, it comes easy to me to allow her this kind of transgression, especially because she has a point.

"I guess you could put it that way," I respond. "But more importantly, it's something I was always good at."

"You were good at what?" she asks. "Stealing? Killing?"

"Breaking the rules," I tell her. "A nice way to put it would be 'to think outside the box'. And contrary to what you may think, I've never killed a man."

She scoffs. "Because you let others do it for you—like Lailah? And now me."

I throw her a warning look, but this time she doesn't cower or let unease mark her facial expression. Instead, she juts her chin forward, holding my gaze with hers.

She's trying to challenge me, thinking she's poking into untouched territory and helping me to realize my own faults and misdeeds, as if I didn't already know all of that.

"It was a conscious choice to live outside the law," I tell her. "A choice that felt right to me, and in the end, a choice that saved my brother's ass and my family's business empire—even though I'm sure my father disagrees. But I'm done with it now. This is all I have left to do, this mission, this revenge for what the Scivolas tried to do to my family."

She shakes her head, and then she says something that truly makes my blood boil.

"I don't believe you."

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