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“I know,” I whisper, knowing without a doubt that I would trade my life for hers if it meant she got to live just one more day. My hand roams over her back as my other lays flat against her thigh, holding her to me. “If there was something I could do, anything, Firefly, I would have done it. I’ve been going through the old by-laws trying to find some kind of loophole, something that could offer even just a little bit of doubt to save us some time, but there’s nothing. I come up blank every fucking time.”
“Don’t bother,” Oakley scoffs. “Down in the cells, Sawyer’s dad told me there was a loophole way back in the day, but Zade’s grandfather had it scrubbed clean. He thought that if he had to sacrifice someone he loved, everyone following him should have to suffer the same fate.”
“Fuck.”
She pulls back and meets my stare, her watery eyes killing me. “I appreciate you looking though.”
I nod. “Do me a favor and don’t mention this to Zade. He wouldn’t like me searching through all of his father’s old shit. But I knew the second I saw you that I couldn’t stand the thought of you being offered up as Zade’s sacrifice. He warned me not to get too close to you. He knew you’d break me, and now look at me, ready to turn my back on it all just to see the light return to your eyes.”
Oakley’s gaze drops, the heaviness between us almost too intense to handle. “This can’t be it for me,” she says. “It’s not like I had my life planned out or knew where I would be in thirty years, but this isn’t it. There were so many things I wanted to do and see, so many things I wanted to try. I’m not ready to give up. I won’t.”
Reaching up, I brush the soft strands of golden hair off her face, hating how her wet cheeks affect me. “You’re so fucking strong. If things were different, you would have made an incredible leader for Empire. You would have risen in power and ruled over it all. Our people would have followed you blindly. But I don’t want you getting your hopes up,” I tell her. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I commend your determination to fight through this, to push through right to the end and set yourself free, but I know Zade. He is ruthless and cold. He would tear his own fucking heart out if it meant claiming power. He’s worked too hard and suffered silently through his father’s abuse to get him right where he is today. He’s not going to allow you to slip through his fingers again.”
“I just . . . I don’t get it,” she tells me with a heavy sigh, sitting back on my lap. “Why is he like this? It’s not normal for a person to be so . . . intense.”
I press my lips into a hard line, truly considering her question and wanting to be able to offer her an honest answer. “Zade is . . . he’s complicated. He wasn’t always the way he is now. He used to be a normal kid before Empire sunk its claws into him . . . into us. We were all just normal kids. We were put through training at a young age, had to see things not even those fighting our wars would have to endure. We were killers before we’d turned thirteen. That kind of shit leaves a mark. But Zade . . . his father pushed him harder. He knew he would take over as Empire’s leader one day, but the abuse he laid down on Zade broke something inside of him. He took away what little humanity he had left. Lawson strived to ensure Zade was going to be the kind of leader he could have only dreamed of. He turned Zade into his puppet, but Zade cut the strings and made his own plan.”
“He murdered his own father.”
“Trust me, if you knew the man, you wouldn’t see that as a loss,” I explain. “The day Lawson DeVil took his last breath was the day people all over the world celebrated, but not Zade. Even though he had the most to celebrate. He barely took a chance to process what he’d done before moving on. It was nothing but a business transaction to him.”
Her tongue rolls out over her bottom lip, another tear slowly trailing down her cheek. “If he can so easily slaughter his father, the man who raised him, I can only imagine how quickly he’d do the same to me.”
I’m almost hesitant to agree with her, not wanting her to know just how right she is, but I’m making a point of being honest with her. “It would destroy whatever goodness is left in him. But you’re right. He wouldn’t even think twice about it. He’d allow himself to become the monster he’s always secretly feared.”
