“But know if you hurt her,” Silas continued, his tone sharpening, “we won’t take you in. We won’t question you. We won’t give you a second of breath.”
“We’ll kill you where you stand,” I finished. “And then you won’t ever get the chance to see Lena again.”
His eyes flashed at the sound of her name. Something about our omega fed his obsession in a way nothing else could. I knew that in dangling her in front of him, by offering even the possibility of seeing her again, he would surrender.
The last omega let out a broken sob in his arms. Marco’s grip on her tightened, then loosened. His eyes flicked to the doorways, to the men surrounding him, to the guns trained on his chest. He was outnumbered and outplayed. Deep down, he knew it.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, his arm dropped away from her. She stumbled forward immediately, scrambling out of his hold, collapsing toward us. One of our men caught her, pulling her back and securing her safely behind the line. Marco stood there, empty-handed now.
He turned, placing his wrists together in front of him, waiting. It didn’t matter that he was cooperating. One of our men surged forward anyway, slamming into him hard enough to drive him to the ground. His arms were wrenched back, restrained with brutal efficiency.
As they hauled him outside, he twisted, looking back at Silas and me,reallylooking at us. It was the first time we had stood in front of each other since the day he killed our mother. And in his eyes, I saw it.
Regret.
Not the kind born from guilt. Marco Bellini didn't regret anything he'd done. Not what he did to Lena, to us, to our mother, or to anyone else caught in the wake of his greed and violence.
No, he regretted what he hadn't finished.
The realization that he should have killed us when he had the chance, must have struck him hard and fast as he cranedhis neck backward, studying us intensely. When he twisted our mother’s neck like she was nothing, we slipped out of his house before he could do the same to us. Two kids fleeing into the dark, loose ends in the aftermath of his killing spree.
But we stayed hidden and eventually, his hit on us expired.
He chose to let us go.
Not out of mercy. Out of arrogance.
And now he knew it.
He should have hunted us down. Should have torn Falcon City apart piece by piece. Looked under every rock, scoured every slum, dragged every shadow into the light until he found us.
But he didn't.
He underestimated what we would become.
Perhaps he always knew, somewhere deep down, that this was a possibility. That the twin boys he left breathing might come back as something far more dangerous. Violent men with a debt to settle. That his end might not come from a mafia enemy across the table, but from a loose end left untied.
If he hadn't considered it, hecertainlydid now.
Marco held my gaze for one last second as they forced him into one of the waiting vehicles.
And for the first time since we had known him, Marco didn't look untouchable.
He looked like a man who finally understood exactly how this would end.
Atourhands.
Chapter 27: Lena
"You can do this," Silas said, locking eyes with me as I hesitated outside the basement door.
Knox stood beside him, shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, giving me space but never drifting far. He didn’t rush me. He never did.
It had taken me a week to get to this point, just opening the basement door.
I’d heard them down there. Not just voices or questions, but screams. They carried through the vents, dulled by distance but impossible to ignore. The first time I heard Marco scream, I froze halfway down the hall, every instinct telling me to run, to shut it out, to ignore what was happening beneath my feet. I pressed my hands over my ears and forced myself to keep walking.
The next time, I didn’t.
