Page 93 of Midnight Wedding

I point my gun at my aunt’s head. “Doesn’t matter.”

She sneers. “Maybe not to you.”

“You brought this on yourself. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I’ve only been doing what I feel is right.”

“You tried to kill me. I wanted to negotiate, and you stabbed me instead.”

“I was defending myself.”

“Auntie, please. Don’t bullshit me. I have a gun pointed at your skull. You have no power anymore.”

Her stony expression wavers. There’s real fear in her eyes. She knows what’s going to happen. She understands this is the only way. Aunt Sona’s smart, and if our positions were reversed, she’d pull the trigger.

“How were we supposed to follow you after what you did to your father? You betrayed him, Arsen. You accepted the help from an outside crime syndicate, and you killed him.”

“Did you ever ask yourself why?”

“Power. Control. Money. I don’t care. The usual reasons.”

“No, Sona. I did it because of the scars.”

Her mouth twitches and she glances away. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. I did it because of the hell he put me through. You knew about it too, didn’t you?”

“Your father was a hard man,” she murmured. “I didn’t always agree with his disciplinary choices.”

“He had his soldiers beat me. They stabbed me, burned me, cut me. They treated me like a dog.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I killed him because he didn’t deserve to stand at the head of the Brotherhood. He viciously bullied and brutalized his own child. He wasn’t worthy of the titlepatron.”

And just like that, I could see myself clearly, as if I were standing across the room and watching this scene play out.

My father wasn’t worthy of running the Brotherhood because he treated his own family like cattle.

And I’m doing the same thing.

The circumstances aren’t exactly aligned. Aunt Sona and Uncle Garen betrayed me and started a war against me, whereas my father was on some kind of sick power trip. But still, it’s the same.

If I kill her now, I won’t be worthy of running the Brotherhood.

I might hate her. I might want to do it so badly it hurts.

But I also love her because she’s my blood.

I took over the Brotherhood because I wanted to be better than my father.

How can I say I’m changing things if I become just like him?

“You’re not going to do it,” she says quietly, her eyes going wide. “You can’t do it.”

“Sona—”

She lunges sideways, grabbing for her purse. She nearly pulls a gun before I kick her in the wrist and stomp down on her hand. She screams in pain, and I bring down the butt of my gun, bashing her in the head.

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