Page 101 of Kings of Cruelty

“Tell me,” I say. “I’m listening.”

“They were torturing Silvano,” Kyran says tonelessly. “Right there.” He’s probably pointing, but I don’t open my eyes to look. “Beating the shit out of him. Cut his shoulder open, too.”

I shudder, hugging my arms against my belly.

“And I was there. I helped them, Sierra, because I thought it was the only thing I could do. Then Lom—” He catches himself. “It got bad. I saved Silvano, and… and Pa came in.”

Kyran goes silent.

I find myself looking up at him, trying to get a read on him, trying to imagine the whole situation and how it had to have felt. But one thing nags at me. Silvano’s shoulder had been cut open. Silvano had shot Pa. But that doesn’t make sense, does it?

“So Silvano was strung up,” I say, my eyes going to the chains dangling from the ceiling. “And being tortured.”

“Yeah,” Kyran agrees.

“And then after Pa arrived, he wrestled with Pa and shot him.” I watch Kyran’s reaction.

He waits too long to say, “Yeah.”

I bite my lip. “Did you try to stop him? Did you try to save Pa? Or were you already Silvano’s bitch then?”

Kyran lets out a low growl. “I am not hisbitch, Sierra. Unless you’re Konstantin’s bitch?” he retorts. “You look at him like you’re a lapdog. Did you know that? The way you look atall fucking three of them?”

My heart seizes in my chest.

“I’m not stupid, Sierra,” he says. “I’m not some dumb dog, not any more than you are. But if it came down to it, if it was between Pa and them, what would you have done?”

What would you have done?

That horrible dread keeps building and building. I don’t think he realizes what he’s admitting to, but I know. I know all too well. I can imagine what happened, now, as clearly as if I’d been there myself.

“None of them killed our brother,” I say bitterly. “None of them ordered a little girl murdered. If Kotya or Yura or Nikolai ever did that, I’d be done with them.”

“Silvano didn’t give that order,” Kyran says, his voice starting to rise in volume.

“Does it matter?” I retort. “He knew about it. He could’ve stopped?—”

“Do you really thinkIcould’ve stoppedPafrom killing someone?” Kyran demands, turning to face me. Before I can respond, he barrels on, “Because I couldn’t have. He never would’ve listened. Ever. Youknowthat.”

“So what?” I snap back. “It doesn’t excuse what Silvano Cresci has done! He watched while Neil and Diana and Mona were murdered! He stole everything from us!”

“He didn’t watch!” Kyran argues back. He reaches for me, but I take a few steps away, into the dank cell of a room. “He stopped me from being there!” Kyran lets out a small sob. “He made sure I wasn’t killed too.”

I clench my fists, suddenly even angrier. “That doesn’t excuse it! He—He murdered our father, Kyran, and you’re still there, licking his fucking boots?—”

Kyran’s face is an ugly shade of red as he shouts, “It wasn’t him! All right, Sierra? You can hate him all you want, but it wasn’t his fault.” Another sob wracks his body, but I’m too dazed by the admission to care.

I’d wanted to be wrong.

So badly, I’d wanted to be wrong.

Tears sting the corners of my eyes, but even as I try to blink them away, they start to fall anyway. “You stayed with him, youkilled for him, you go to him again and again and I don’t—” I clench my hands into fists. “If you hadn’t been with him, if you’d been with us, they never would’ve taken me! You don’t— You don’t understand what it was like!”

All of the pain and rage I’ve been holding in for all of these months boils over, and I stagger.

He’s there to catch me, and even as I beat my fists uselessly against his chest, he holds me against him.

“I’m sorry,” he says raggedly. “I’m so sorry, Sierra. I’m sorry we didn’t rescue you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I’m sorry I failed you.”

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