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I watch from the eyrie as Eli’s Porsche takes off down the road, followed by Noah’s Lambo, Gabriel’s arm hanging over the passenger door.
I swipe angrily at my eyes, blotting away the tears before they fall.
They left.
I can’t believe they left.
This is all Eli’s doing. He can't leave anything alone, even after everything he’s been through. Doesn't he think I've considered all possible solutions? He's too busy trying to push his own moral code on me that he can’t see that his own is jammed as fuck.
As if he has some kind of high ground with his father the illegal body broker – the man who helped make my father disappear.
He said I was as bad as his father. As all their fathers. How can we ever come back from that?
And Noah and Gabriel… Don’t they see that everything I’ve done has been for them?
Noah's always stood by me. His hands are stained with the blood of my enemies. So why is he going to die on a hill for a bunch of old documents?
And Gabriel…
He got what he wanted. I’ll give him his child, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
I sniff back the pain bubbling inside me, that terrible yearning void in my chest, like I’m one of Aristotle’s beach-ball, doll-legged people torn down the middle.
If they’re so weak-willed that they’ll stand with him against me, then good riddance. I thought they understood me. I thought when they tattooed my mark on their skin, they were agreeing to be mine. To trust me.
I thought I’d finally found a family.
But I forgot.
I forgot that only those you love can truly betray you.
Daddy’s words echo in my head. And even though I’ve lived through the aftermath of his own betrayal, even though he’s not really my daddy at all, I never for a moment imagined that I'd feel the same sting from my three princes.
They’ve kept me strong through this hellish year and now… and now I’m right back where I started from. Alone in an empty house, caged by a legacy I wanted to escape.
My phone beeps. It's Livvie. The drop is set up. You good?
I’ll never be good again. I brace my hand against the glass, suck in a few shuddering breaths.
I'm good, I text back.
I'm Claudia August. I have to be good. I don’t have time to fall apart.
Claudia
It’s the Ides of March.
Not an auspicious day for a plot to capture my sister, but I’ve already been betrayed by the people I loved most, so what’s the worst that can happen?
I pace across the ballroom, flicking my knife from my sleeve, barely noticing the blade nicking my skin. Blood trickles from my palm, dotting the marble with specks of claret.
It’s five days after the boys walked out, George and Yara at their heels. I haven’t left the house, haven’t showered, barely slept. All I do is drag furniture and statues into the rage room to smash and scroll through videos on my phone of the fighting in the street.
A bunch of Cali’s haters blew up Constantine’s gym. Luckily, Cali and her assassins were out on jobs, but the workers in the Korean restaurant downstairs all died. I stare at the footage of the smoldering wreckage and feel nothing but a giant, gaping hole in my chest.
I’m made of glass. Cold and hard and as if one wrong move will shatter me to pieces.
I look at the clock again, even though it hasn’t changed since ten seconds ago when I last looked at it. Today is the big day. The day of the drop. The day I lure my sister out of her cave. I should feel triumphant, nervous, something.
