“But can’t you make an exception?”
Mateo’s eyes slowly drifted back to the coin. Again, his expression seemed to change. The tenderness Irene had come to know well—gone. As if the humanity had been snatched from his soul.
“Give it to me.”
Irene’s grip on the coin tightened.
“Please,” she begged. “I did what you asked. I’ve been loyal.”
Mateo placed his hand upon Irene’s. He didn’t try to take the coin, but his grip tightened, almost pleadingly.
“It’ll be worth it, in the end.” His words tore a hole in Irene’s chest. A finality that stole the breath from her lungs. There was nochanging his mind. No saving Masika. Irene had made her bed…and now she’d have to lie in it. “Just…hand it over, Irene. Finish what you started. Join us…once and for all.”
Irene felt her restraint slipping. The last shred of hope.
She unfurled her fingers.
She watched, helplessly, as Mateo slowly slid the coin into hispalm.
“I’ll find you.” But even as he spoke, his eyes remained glued to the coin. It was as if she weren’t even there. As if everything—all the time spent between them—had never happened. “I promise.”
When he vanished from the room, Irene didn’t stir. She’d expected it. She saw it clearly now. Mateo had gotten what he wanted, and now…
An alarm blared in the distance. A sound Irene had never heard at Blackwood.
It was a dissonant gong. A chilling herald.
Then, as if the world had been drenched in the light of a bloodred moon, a scarlet haze floated from the nearby window. Irene staggered to the window. She stared, horrified, at the cost of her greed.
The sky burned crimson. A warning etched into the clouds as the protective dome surrounding Blackwood shattered, piece by piece.
WE ARE COMING.
What have I done?Irene thought, staggering backward.What have I done?
There was no fixing this now. She could go to Silas—but then what? He could fill her head with empty, pretty words…but was he any different than Mateo? Hadn’t they both simply told her what she wanted to hear?
She’d just wanted to be seen. To be heard.
To be fucking appreciated.
Her mother hadn’t seen her or appreciated her. She’d tossed Irene away as if she were nothing—and for so long, Irene had believed her. But Mateo and Silas had seen promise in her. The possibility of power. And they’d seen that helpless need inside her and manipulated her like a puppet. Tugging at her strings while she simply stood back and let them.
But not anymore.
Irene Manette Bamford was selfish. She was cruel. A heartless power-hungry bitch.
And she was done believing in the promises of wretched men.
42
WREN
Death danced against her tongue. It swam through her veins, syrupy and warm.
More.
Wren laughed and screams echoed around her. The snap of bones. The crack of skulls fracturing.
