Page 28 of Inside the Wicked

“Because they didn’t,” he says, his tone taking a harsh edge. “They coddled you and reprimanded you.”

“That’s what parents fucking do.”

“No. They would have smothered you, and your dark side would have landed you in places that would try tofixyou. Don’t you see? Isavedyou.”

“You took everything from me!”

The plates and glasses around me shatter with the rage that has me swiping my hand across the table. Men shift toward me, but Alistair raises a hand, and they don’t touch me.

“Look in the mirror, Everett. You know we’re not so different.”

“You killed them.”

“Yes.”

I’ve waited eighteen years to hear that confirmation. One single word with the weight of the world attached to it. Now I have it, that crushing force sinks me back into the chair.

I want to fight the defeat threatening my resilience. It’s not like I didn’t already know in my heart the truth, but I guess this suffering is proof I’ve clung to denial all this time.

It’s not that I’m shocked or that I believed it above Alistair. This is the sort of heinous crime he’ll stoop to, killing his own brother and wife. It’s that I wish it wasn’t true for how despicably my life was shredded by one calculated, evil person my parentstrusted.

My eyes are dead when they lift to Alistair. I didn’t think I could hate him more, nor wish his death in their stead more powerfully, but I do. It’s the type of loathing that tunes out humanity completely. Cancels out the whole fucking world.

I don’t really judge movement or feel what I’m doing; I see blood and know my hand holds the knife plunged into the neck of one guy. Then I jab someone else with my elbow, my fist cracks against someone’s jaw, and the rest is just blind violence.

Until I can’t make another move, because something strikes hard against my temple, blackening my vision enough that I can’t catch my fall. When the pain returns, I guess my adrenaline-fueled rage is starting to wear off.

I come to in slow blinks that bring a round of agony pounding in my head.

Somehow I’m sitting against the wall, and I manage to lift my head. Alistair crouches down as I peel my eyes open.

“You are remarkable, Everett. You just need to allow me to guide your potential.”

CHAPTER 11

Anastasia

Isit opposite Silas Balenheizer for the second time, thinking it doesn’t matter how prepared I come, he’ll always make me feel like he can see under my skin. When he looks at me, his dark eyes are all intrigue and business. Frequently, though, his attention is on Kenna, who doesn’t hide her reluctance to be here as she tries to stay out of our conversation, leaning on the back of the sofa behind me.

“I find your back as enthralling as your front, if your intention is not to distract me,” Silas says to her. His ankle is crossed over his knee and his elbow is propped on the arm of the chair.

I swivel my head enough to peer up at her side profile. She’s watching the venue below us. She doesn’t give him a flicker of a reaction, but I’ve come to notice he enjoys that about her.

His eyes are back on me as he drawls, “So when do I hear the proposal?”

My hands start to clam up, and I reach for my martini. “I’m not interested in a man with wandering eyes,” I play along.

“As you shouldn’t be. You’re a stunning, intelligent woman, Anastasia. You deserve no less than a man who will boast his riches not in material things, but in having you by his side.”

I believe his words aren’t just pretty and hollow. Unexpectedly, I think I might be finding a trickle of respect for him. Though I can’t forget I have a lot to learn about him. I don’t doubt his cruelty could switch as fast as the likes of Jacob Forthson. Both he and Alistair fear and respect Silas’s family name, and I remember the evil his half-brother committed and had planned for me too.

“Then won’t you entertain the idea of us?” I ask.

Silas lights a cigarette, and I think it’s disappointment in the furrowing of his brow. “Before I decide, I want to know, what does Alistair Lanshall have over America’s most eligible bachelorette to make her such a bargaining chip to my father?”

“Nothing. I came to him.”

His head tilts as he takes a drag of his cigarette and contemplates each of my words as if he’s dissecting the layers of each one. “Some kind of guilty conscience for what happened to Rhett Kaiser?”

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