Page 162 of Ruthless God

I want to watch the light fade from his eyes. To hear the last breath rattle out of him. To know without a doubt that the man who tried to erase me, who killed my brother, who sold out his own people, is rotting six feet under.

And yet I don’t pull the trigger.

Blanc’s smirk widens.

“See? You're just like me. You talk a big game, but when it comes down to it?—”

I cut him off by slamming the butt of the gun across his face. His head whips to the side, blood splattering onto the floor. His body jerks, but he laughs through the pain. The sound is wet and weak, but still full of arrogance.

I grind my foot harder into his chest. “I’m nothing like you.”

I look down at him. This pathetic excuse of a man. A man who has built his empire on manipulation, control, and betrayal.

He wants me to kill him. Because if I do, he wins.

He dies on his terms, not mine.

I feel the eyes on me. Cecely’s. Millie’s. They’re waiting for me to make the call. To decide if I become the monster Blanc always believed me to be.

I take a slow breath. And then I step back. Blanc sucks in air like a drowning man. His relief is short-lived. Because I kneel, gripping his jaw so tight his teeth grind together.

“You don’t get to die yet, old man. No. No, that’d be too easy.” I smirk. “I want you alive to watch everything you’ve built burn.”

I stand, straightening as I turn to Cecely. She’s watching me. Her gaze is searching, calculating, like she’s looking for something beneath my words.

I don’t let her find it.

“The Elite Members are on their way,” I say, my voice even. “They’ll arrive two hours before the news breaks. It’ll be enough time for them to salvage their own reputations.”

Her eyes narrow. She’s piecing it together, I can see it. She’s always been too damn smart for her own good.

“What about you?” Her voice is careful. Suspicious.

“Me? I’m going to put Blanc in a cell.”

Blanc lets out a strangled laugh from the floor. I don’t look at him. He’s already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.

“Then I’m going to wait for the Elite Members to discover what I’ve done.”

And then I’m going to let them kill me. I don’t say this part out loud. Cecely will try to fight me on this. But this is how the story ends. How it was always meant to end.

Her brows pull together, and I know she’s sensing it. The finality. I don’t give her a chance to question it.

“You and Millie should go. Make sure the others are safe.”

Her mouth opens. Closes. She’s not convinced. Not yet. So she tries a different angle.

“Where’s Agnes?”

I snort before I can stop myself. “She's in the basement, waiting for me.”

A flicker of something crosses Cecely’s face. Doubt. Caution.

“You…didn’t hurt her, did you?”

Her tone is hesitant, like she’s not sure she wants the answer.

And for some fucking reason, it stings.

---