Page 62 of The Collector
"Fine," she said, voice cracking. "The truth is, I tried to use you. To control your father. He was rising through the Kings, and I—I thought if I gave them a son, they'd make me his equal. Let me be his wife, not the woman he married."
She looked at him then, eyes searching for something that might soften the blow. But he didn't react.
He'd already lived the consequences of that choice. Now his mother would, too.
"You only gave him one of his sons," he said, voice sharp with accusation. Why? So, you could use me as a weapon against him?"
He stepped closer, eyes locked on hers, daring her to look away.
"Tell me, Mother—how did you choose between us? Was I smaller? Weaker? Less perfect?"
She didn't answer. Her breath hitched, eyes flickering with something between guilt and fear. But The Collector didn't need her words to know the answer. He'd lived it. Every scar, every silence, every year spent in the shadows had already told him.
Her eyes flickered with old fire, then shame. "It wasn't supposed to be permanent."
"You threw me in with killers and thieves. And they turned me into something you didn't plan for?"
She looked up, blinking through tears. "I didn't mean for you to become— this. I didn't intend for you to be there forever. But when I tried to get you back, you had become too valuable to them. They wouldn't give you back."
"A valuable killer? That's rich," he said, stepping forward. "I became exactly what they needed, and did what I needed to survive that Hell. You forced me to become a part of it. Now I'm a monster at best."
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
"You know the irony? The best part—Mother," he continued. "They will never even realize who I am when I take them down, thanks to you. The coyote, the one that was your middleman in the sale. Dead. I left him in the desert to rot. I hope the real coyotes have ripped his flesh away to nothing by now. That's theonly thing I can be grateful to you for: that you kept my birth, my life, from ever being known by them. But you? You built me, you bartered my soul so you could position yourself as his Queen. Now it's time you pay for the kingdom you never got—by dying and never breathing a word of my existence."
"What will you do?" she whispered.
He studied her for a moment, then bent so they were eye to eye. "I'm going to kill you today. I'm not going to let you live long enough to watch it all burn—to watch the Kings fall, your empire crumble, and the boy you sold become the man who collects it all."
She stared at him. Disbelief etched into every line of her face. "You'll die," she said, voice trembling. "They'll kill you."
He didn't blink. Didn't flinch.
"They already tried," he said. "And they failed. I hope they try," he said softly. "I really do. I hope he kills his ONLY son."
"His only son?" Realization dawned in her eyes. "Are you going to kill your brother?"
Her words hung in the air broken and without hope, shimmering with the weight of sudden understanding.
His eyes were as cold as steel when he answered her.
"He's not my brother," the Collector said quietly. "He's the legacy that thrived while I rotted. The chosen son. He got everything you denied me. The heir to my father's name and position. Now he's going to find out what it feels like to rot until I'm ready for him to die too."
Her face paled.
"I'm curious what you thought would happen when I found out that you gave him a name. A future. And me nothing but a death sentence? That I would forgive you? And embrace him."
Her hands trembled. "I never thought that far ahead. I just knew you were both my sons. And I intended for you to be myway back to him and your father," she said, a cascade of tears dripping down her chest.
He stepped closer, the air thick with resentment. "No. He was a son. I was a tool."
"Please don't kill him. Kill me. I'm the one responsible. You can't punish him for what I did. I—I love you both in my own way, even though you don't think so. You are all that's left of the only love I've ever known."
The Collector didn't move. Didn't speak. The fire crackled behind him, casting flickers of light across her tear-streaked face.
He'd waited years for this moment—for truth, for reckoning, for the chance to choose what came next. But love? That word held no weight with him. Not anymore.
"You should've thought of that," he said, voice like ash. "Before you turned love into leverage.
