Page 199 of Inevitable Endings
“Lorenzo,” I say, my voice a sneer. “You especially. Salvatore’s shadow. His rat bastard little brother. You climbed a throne soaked in your brother’s blood and handed his daughter to strangers like she was nothing but meat.”
Lorenzo’s mouth opens. His hand twitches.
I draw and fire.
His pinky finger explodes. Bone and nail and blood.
He screams.
The rest flinch.
“You draw again,” I say, calm, almost bored, “and I start taking things slower. Inch by inch. You have ten fingers. We can count together,Russianmethod.”
I step up onto the stone platform, elevated slightly above the council table. It feels like an altar. Or a gallows.
It feels right.
I look down at them all.
“You thought the underworld was yours,” I say, softly. “But you forgot what it’s built on.”
I tap my chest once.
“Rage.”
I turn my eyes on the Vor v Zakone.
“Vy predali nas. Bratstvo. Chest.”
You betrayed us. Brotherhood. Honor.
They shift.
One dares to speak, Vetrov. I knew he’d be the one. He was always the one who thought his tongue could save him.
“This is madness,” he spits. “You were gone, how were we supposed to know—”
I shoot him through the mouth.
Teeth shatter.
His jaw disintegrates.
He drops.
No scream. No plea.
Just blood.
“I was everything before you were anything,” I snarl, my voice dropping into something feral. “I was the name they whispered in cells before they knew what a king was. I was the monster beneath the code you pretended to understand.”
I turn back to the others.
“Now you sit here; rats in stolen coats, choking on titles you don’t deserve.”
My eyes sweep them again.
“And you will all die.”
