“What?”
Chaos lifts his head now and continues.
“Your father killed my Pa's brother, my uncle Vadim Petrov.
“And he was also my father's right-hand man at the time.”
When Reign says that, my face scrunches up, my body experiencing a shudder run through it, and I don’t know what to think.
“But it was more to spite Maddox.”
My eyes snap to Chaos as soon as he speaks the name.
“Who the hell is that?”
“It’s who you were promised to be with, Charley. It’s who you are supposed to marry. That is what the bloodline says.”
My eyes fly to Reign, before I shake my head, throwing my hands up with the scissors still in one, finally had enough.
“I don’t want anything to fucking do with this. I want to leave!”
Reign takes a cautious step forward.
“You fucking can't; you don’t understand.”
I point the scissors at him, rage boiling inside of me, and I respond through clenched teeth.
“Don’t tell me what to do! All this for revenge, blood, and spite? I had no fucking clue about any of this and I am somehow the target of your families! What my family or father did had nothing to do with me, Reign!”
His eyes ease as he responds calmly.
“We fucking know that now, Char. We were blinded with revenge from a young age. We were taking orders from our fathers. Our traditions and values are strict.”
Tears flow from my eyes as I squeeze them shut, deceit making my stomach churn with knots, my heart bleeding from the pain I feel.
“You both used me.”
My eyes snap open and I glare at Chaos before screaming at him.
“I gave you my fucking innocence because I trusted you!”
I see the guilt flicker through his brown orbs, but I am too enraged to give a shit.
“Was that your goal all along?”
“The goal was to make you even more vulnerable to Maddox and to us. To everything in this world and everyone. We couldn’t allow you to be powerful in any shape or form.”
Reign's blunt words pierce through me like a dagger shattering my heart into a million pieces. It's the final blow that ignites thefury within me, and my teeth grind together so hard that I feel like I could kill them both. The sense of betrayal wraps around me like a vice, squeezing tighter with each passing moment.
“We don’t want to anymore, Charley, and we want you to know the truth because shit has changed. Shit has changed for us with you.”
My eyes close again from Reign’s protest, and I let them carry on with their groveling, because I can’t speak; my body is numb and hurting because of how tense it is.
“We’re not the enemy anymore. We’re trying to fix this; we’ve gone against our father’s wishes and family values, even if it means we die for you.”
My watery lenses lift to Chaos, his voice carrying the weight of his conviction and they rake down him, observing, but hardly recognizing who he is.
“We always watched over you; yeah, with wrongdoing on our minds to begin with, but, when we had you around us for real, we both stopped the stalking shit and when we got to know you, we both knew deep down that this was all wrong. Think about it, Char; during the entire time we were with you, we weren’t making you vulnerable; we were building you up to be strong.”
