CHAPTER 250
**DAMIEN**
**PRESENT**
He leaned closer, the light catching in his eyes. “
“You loved him, but he was a useless asshole. Impatient. Careless. He’d have fucked up the whole plan if you let him stick around. The guy was a goddamn liability.”
I bared my teeth, claws raking at the air as if I could shred the words themselves.
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t you dare say that!” My voice cracked, low and venomous.
“No matter what, I loved him! I fucked up because of her—because of Winter! She had to be there, on his lips, always in his damn thoughts! I didn’t mean to kill him, goddammit. Not at first. Not until… until she pushed me too far, until her name burned like fire in every thought, every goddamn move he made!”
My hands shook as I clenched the knife at my belt, the rage and grief coiling tight in my chest.
“It was her fault! Winter! She made him… she made me do it!”
The man chuckled darkly, the sound crawling over me like a snake.
“Yeah… you loved him so much that you stabbed him because he breathed her name one too many times. Fucking brilliant logic there, Damien.”
I slammed my hand against the table.
“You weren’t there! You don’t know what it felt like! He wouldn’t stop talking about her, thinking he was so clever, so untouchable. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t stop myself! And then—when he was dead—I realised what I’d done. And I—I… I couldn’t even… I just…”
I slumped to the floor, dragging my knees to my chest, pressing the knife to the wood beside me.
Memories clawed at me.
My chest heaved with ragged breaths.
I pressed the rag to my side again, shivering from the memory.
My chest heaved with ragged breaths.
“And now he’s dead. Because of her. If it hadn’t been for her name, if it hadn’t been for that bitch… Ethan would be alive.”
The man across the room set his glass down, the crystal clinking against wood, his voice slicing the silence—smooth, cold, venomous.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. You and I—we want the same thing. Her dead. Winter ruined everything. My home, my life, my reputation—gone, because that little bitch couldn’t keep her mouth shut. My wife threw me out like garbage. Disposable. Forgettable. I had nothing. And when I thought I’d at least have you… Fate spat in my face. I was in the car with your mother, on the way to collect you, to figure out what the hell we’d do next. And then—”
He laughed, sharp, unhinged.
“Maybe luck was on my side. Some fucking highway thief stopped us, dragged me out, and drove off with her in the fucking car. I can still hear her screaming. Tires screeching. Metal twisting. And then the cliff swallowed her whole.”
He leaned back, eyes glinting, smile stretched too wide.
“They all thought I died too,” he hissed, a low, ugly laugh rattling out of his chest.
“Perfect, wasn’t it? I let them. I let the whole world bury me while I waited in the dark, plotting, bleeding time like it was blood out of a vein. Every day rotting, every night sharpening the blade in my head. All because of her. Because of Winter.”
His hands curled into fists, knuckles bone-white.
“Do you even know what it feels like to be thrown out of heaven and dropped face-first into filth? To go from luxury, from power, from my name—to nothing. No roof. No money. No respect. Just scraps. Just survival. I clawed my way through rats and gutters while she walked around untouched, adored, worshipped.”
His voice cracked into a snarl.
“Do you know how many nights I made ends meet by selling off pieces of myself? How many days I kept breathing on nothing but one thought—that girl will pay. She will choke on everything she took from me. She will know exactly what it means to crawl.”
I felt the words hit me like a hammer.
Each syllable dripping with venom, echoing the fire I’d been nursing in my own chest. All because of Winter.
The way he said it, like she’d cursed both our lives, stirred something dark and raw inside me. My pulse hammered in my ears.
I kicked the table in front of me, wood splintering under the force.
“Yeah,” I spat, my voice low and trembling, the sound of it scraping my own throat raw.
“Because of her. Every. Fucking. Thing. I’ve lost.” My jaw locked so tight I thought my teeth might crack. Rage sat heavy on my tongue, metallic, like blood.
“Ethan’s gone because of her. Mom’s dead because of her. Everything we were supposed to have, everything we could’ve been—she poisoned it, burned it down, left me standing in the ashes.”
My fists curled, nails biting my palms.
“Mom didn’t just die in that crash. She was stolen from me. Ripped out of my life like she was disposable, like we were disposable. And Ethan—fuck, Ethan—he wouldn’t even look at me without her shadow hanging over us. She’s been in my head, my hands, my blood for years. Every nightmare, every plan, every wound comes back to her.”
I felt my voice crack but I didn’t care.
Everything I ever loved, everything that was mine, ripped out of my hands because of her. Because she couldn’t keep her fucking mouth shut. Because she had to be the centre of everything.”
—The warmth of my mother, the taste of home—was ripped away in a heartbeat. One second she was there, soft and alive, and the next she was gone, gone with the screech of tyres and the twisted steel.
And me?
Thrown into a world I wasn’t ready for.
The orphanage was a cage dressed as charity.
Disinfectant and boiled cabbage.
Concrete floors and cot springs that poked at your ribs like tiny daggers.
No lullabies, no comfort, just rules and cold stares.
I learned fast: hunger could wait, shame could be swallowed, and if you let your guard down, someone would take whatever little you had left.
“I grew up with nothing. No father, no mother, no love. Just a name on a file and cold fucking silence. Everything I lost, everything I am now, every dark fucking thing I’ve done—”
My throat closed, but I forced the words out.
“It’s all because of her.”
The man’s smile spread slowly, deliberately, cruel—like he was tasting my anger and finding it sweet.
“That’s it,” he murmured, voice low, velvet over steel.
“That’s the fire I always knew was in you. And yes, I’m still fucking sorry. Sorry you had to grow up without me. Sorry, I had to stay away. But don’t fool yourself, son—” his smile sharpened, eyes glinting like a blade catching light,
“—I never stopped watching. Not once. I was always there, even when you thought I wasn’t.”
I gave a tight nod, but it was more reflex than agreement.
He’d already told me this.
The words had become a chant, a story I’d been fed enough times that part of me wanted to believe it, even as another part recoiled.
His eyes didn’t flicker, didn’t soften.
There was something cold and precise in them, a calm so unnatural it made my skin crawl.
“I couldn’t keep you,” he went on, the words slow, heavy, almost ritualistic.
“Not then. Not when everything was burning down around me. I had to give you up. When the Blacks came to adopt you…”
He paused, eyes narrowing like he was staring into the past,
“It was the best fucking thing that could’ve happened to you. You don’t even realise it. They had money. Power. They gave you everything money could buy. All the tools you’d ever need to become what you are now.”
His voice dropped lower, proud and venomous at once.
“And that mind of yours—fast, cunning, a goddamn blade. A computer genius by fifteen. Do you know how fucking proud I was watching you become that? Watching you take all the scraps life gave you and forge them into weapons?”
Then his tone shifted, softer but somehow more dangerous.
“And you helped me too, Damien. All those quiet bank transfers, all those systems you cracked—Your hacks. Your money. It kept me alive when the world thought I was dead.”
I’d known all along.
Every quiet transfer, every whispered instruction—I’d been in touch with him since the Blacks signed the papers.
He didn’t just watch me grow; he guided me, shaped me, and fed the fire I already had. Every plan I drew, every system I cracked, every ounce of skill I honed—it wasn’t for me alone. It was for him.
For us.
For Winter.
For the girl who tore everything from us, who splintered what should have been a family, he made sure I never forgot.
From the shadows of my foster life, through the sterile corridors of the Blacks’ mansion,
I plotted.
I learned.
I prepared.
And every time she smiled, every time she thought she had a victory, it stoked the rage we shared.
I wasn’t a lost boy anymore. I was his son. And together, we’d make her pay for every stolen moment, every shattered plan, every fragment of a life we were denied.
He leaned forward, eyes bright with something unholy.
“But when I finally stood in front of you at fifteen…” his voice dropped, low and almost reverent, “I knew. Instantly. You weren’t just my son — you were me. My blood. You had the same hunger in your eyes, the same necessary ruthlessness. The same ability to do what had to be done without flinching.
The same cold fire in your veins. The same instinct to do what had to be done and not blink while the world screamed about it.
Unlike my other son—”
His lip curled.
“Zion.”
My stomach twisted, bile rising at the name. My brother. My fucking brother. The golden boy. The name I’d heard whispered like he was some fucking god.
“Fucking Zion,” I spat, venom dripping.
“My half-brother,” I spat, the word sour on my tongue.
“The golden boy. The one everyone fucking adores. The one who had it all without ever lifting a goddamn finger.” My voice rose, cracking into a near-growl.
“Born with a silver spoon shoved down his throat—his mother’s money, your name. He walked into every room like the world owed him something, and everyone bowed their heads like he was royalty.”
I laughed, harsh and hollow.
“And me? What did I have? Nothing. Not the name. Not the money. Not the love. I had scraps. Shadows. I was the mistake you gave away. While he lived fat on glory, I crawled in the dark, invisible, rotting in someone else’s house like I was their charity case.”
I fucking hated him.
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