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A prickle of rage sparked inside me along with a tremor of confusion. “How did I drag you through the mud or anything else? I’m not even competing using my actual last name! No one has any idea that you have anything to do with Luna Garcia—or, at least, they’d never have known anything about my mother if you hadn’t kept lashing out. You should have let me go quietly.”
Mom jabbed her finger at me. “No. You belong to me. You’re mine, Luciana, and you don’t get to just wander off. After all the time I spent preparing you—everything I invested in you—this is how it’s supposed to be. You’re not allowed to walk away.”
She was really raving now. Did her underlings hear how unhinged she sounded?
“I didn’t ask for any of that,” I retorted. “And I’ve investedmytime in the things I care about—skating and people who support me in my dream. You could have chosen anyone else out of all the people who actually want the job to be your heir.”
“That’s not how this works! You’re a Cordova—you’re the heir to the Deadly Rose. I shouldn’t have to settle for some pendejo off the street. But you’re too stupid to see that. I never should have let you get wrapped up in skating in the first place. It’s warped your brain.”
I couldn’t restrain a snort even as my hackles rose at her insults. “The only warped brain around here is yours. You sound like a lunatic. Why would I have wanted to stay with you, to keep learning the things you wanted me to learn? I chose my path, and you’ve turned it into a shitshow, not me.”
She bared her teeth at me. “I won’t take the blame for this. You and everyone you roped into your pointless dream are going to pay for ittoday. Or did you think you could beg for mercy?”
There was my perfect opening. I squared my shoulders, ignoring the chalkiness of my mouth and the thunder of my pulse, and took a step forward.
Quentin and Jasper stirred uneasily as I moved away from them, but they didn’t stop me. They knew this part of the plan, as much as they’d hated it.
The men who’d shielded me parted to let me through. I took another steady step forward onto the stage, holding my mother’s gaze. Then another, and another.
A nervous quiver ran down my spine. With every additional distance I put between myself and my supporters, I felt increasingly naked. But we weren’t going to get anywhere I needed to go unless I put myself on the line like this.
Mom stared at me, her eyes narrowing as if expecting this move to be some kind of trick. Which maybe it was, but it didn’t have to be. I was giving her one more chance to do right by me, to let it simply be over.
Not that I had any real hope she’d take that chance.
When I reached the middle of the stage, where a pool of starker spotlight fell across the polished boards, I stopped. As I held Mom’s gaze, I lifted my voice to carry through the large room.
“Mom, this is your last chance to listen to me. The Deadly Rose was always a role you were trying to force me into, not something I wanted. I’d have been pretending the whole time, not really living, because it isn’t what I’m meant to do. Ruling through terror, dealing out violence—it makes me sick to my stomach. It always did. That’s just who I am; I can’t help it.”
I tossed my gun off the side of the stage, letting it land amid the empty seats, well beyond reach. Then I unsheathed my knife and chucked it in the same direction, leaving me totally unarmed. If I’d felt naked before, now I might as well have been bared to the bone.
Mom’s lips parted with the slightest hint of shock.
I didn’t let my gaze waver. “I’m making my stand. I don’t want any more blood on my hands. You can accept who I am and let go of this idea that you have to use me as a puppet, or you can do whatever else you want to with me. How we end this stand-off is up to you.”
I held my arms out, offering myself up as I was.
Mom’s eyes burned into mine, those two dark brown orbs that were so like my own. Her jaw worked. She might even have considered going with the first option I’d given her.
But if she did, it was only for a second before the sneer crossed her lips again. She lifted her head at a haughty angle and let out a bitter laugh.
Then she twitched her gun where she held it by her thigh. “A disappointment right until the end. At least you’ve made this final moment as easy for me as it could possibly be. I’ll take care of the problem I raised myself.”
She jerked her hand toward her men. “Make sure we’re not interrupted.”
At her gesture, the men around her surged forward—past me, to stand between us and my allies so no one could rush to my aid. Mom stalked forward in their wake, her fingers tightening around her gun. My body shook with the drumming of my heartbeat, but I held myself still and firm, while every nerve screamed at me to run.
Mom halted just a couple of steps away. She started to raise her pistol to point it at me, probably planning to shoot the bullet right through the middle of my forehead.
But she didn’t get that far.
With a swift hiss, a figure plunged down from above. Rafael plummeted toward my mother, fixed to a cable like the kind I’d used when practicing the hardest figure skating jumps and lifts for the first time.
It worked just as Niko and the two men who’d helped him set it up had promised. My bodyguard soared through the air, dropping straight to the stage in the space of a blink.
Mom didn’t even have time to glance up before he’d rammed the heavy knife he was holding right into the top of her skull.
A croaking sound escaped Mom’s throat as her eyes fogged over. She crumpled to the floor of the stage. Her limbs shuddered and sagged. Blood pooled through the scattered strands of her dark hair.
