CHAPTER 251
**DAMIEN**
“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.
The man’s smile stretched wider, slow and cruel, like he’d been waiting years to hear me spit those words. His eyes gleamed with something sharp and ugly, a glint of triumph behind the madness.
“Good,” he said softly, almost a purr.
“Let it eat you alive, son. That hatred — it’s the only honest thing left in this rotting world. The fire will keep you standing when everything else crumbles.”
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing like a predator sizing up prey.
“Zion was born soft. Fed, pampered, worshipped like a goddamn idol. They handed him everything, a silver spoon jammed in his mouth, and he grew up thinking it was his birthright. But strength?” His voice hardened, low and cutting.
“True strength comes from hunger. From being denied. From crawling through filth until your nails break and your skin rips and still dragging yourself forward.”
He leaned closer, his breath hot, words venomous.
“He’s always been a weakling. A pretender. A fucking dog guarding a bone that was never his. Even as a child, he was pathetic — chasing after fucking Winter with stars in his eyes like some lovesick mutt, drooling at her heels. They called it devotion. I called it a sickness. Weakness.”
A humourless laugh escaped him.
“And you know what he used to do when he was little? Sit there at home, staring at the clock like a good little boy, waiting for his father to return. Every night. Always waiting. I’d be gone for days, weeks sometimes — business, women, money — and when I came home, there he’d be. All dressed up, hair combed, eyes bright like I was some hero come back from war. Like a puppy who’s been left all day. He’d cling to my sleeve, desperate for a scrap of my time, desperate for approval.. A ‘look at me, Dad’ smile. And all I could see was how soft he was. Too eager. Too clean. Too righteous. Just like his mother. Pathetic. ”
His sneer deepened, curling his lip like he was spitting a taste he couldn’t stand.
“But you…”
His voice dropped lower, darker.
“You’re not weak. You don’t beg. You take. You carve what’s yours out of the world with your teeth if you have to. You don’t whine for scraps; you bleed the world dry if it doesn’t hand you what you want. That’s why I knew the second I found you — you were mine. My blood. My true son.”
He chuckled then, a low, humourless sound.
“And one day, when this is over, the world will know it too. They’ll know what we built out of the ashes they left us in. You’ll be the fire, Damien. My fire. And we’ll burn everything she ever touched to the ground.”
I stared at him, something bitter crawling up my throat.
“So what, you don’t love him?” The words came out cracked, low, ugly.
His eyes snapped to mine.
“Of course I f**king love him,” he said, almost shouting.
“He’s my fucking son.” He leaned back, jaw tight, fingers drumming on the arm of the chair.
“But he’s too much like his mother — all that righteousness, all that goddamn decency. Always trying to save people, always bleeding for everyone but himself. She ruined him with that. She made him soft.”
His lip curled, eyes glinting like a knife edge.
“Love doesn’t mean I don’t see the truth. Zion’s heart bleeds, but it won’t kill. It won’t do what needs to be done. That’s why he’ll always fail.
He leaned closer, voice dropping,
“Zion is weak. Pathetic. He struts around, blinded by a name he never earned, too stupid to understand sacrifice. He’ll never grasp the blood-price of survival. But you, Damien… you understand. You know what it costs to carve your place into the world. You know what it means to take. You and I—we’re the same.”
Fucking Zion.
The name tasted like bile in my mouth. My chest tightened and something hot and ugly unfurled inside me.
Zion — the golden boy, the one everyone ooh-ed and ahhed over; the one who’d never had to scrape for anything because the world bent under his name.
My brother, the smiling public face, the reckless kid who played at danger and always walked away with applause. I hated him for the ease of him, for the way people forgave his messes because he had a throne handed to him.
The man nodded.
“Weak. Pathetic,” he hissed, voice low but razor sharp.
“Zion could’ve stood by me that night. He could’ve taken my side, defended me, told his mother Winter was lying. He could’ve raised hell, thrown a fit, screamed the house down to keep me there. Anything. But no…” his lip curled, disgust twisting his face.
“He just stood there, eyes wide, crying like a little boy while Winter tore our family apart."
He leaned in, his breath hot and sour, voice dropping to a venomous growl that crawled under my skin like oil.
“He let them throw me out like trash,” he snarled.
“Jenny stood there screaming, spitting her poison, and Zion? He didn’t say a damn word. No fire. No loyalty. No guts. All that ‘love’ he paraded around meant nothing when it counted. Nothing.”
His eyes burned, a flash of something almost rabid in them.
"He just stood there, crying like a scared little boy. Watching. Letting her tear his father apart and do nothing.”
The man sneered, his lip curling.
“But you… You’re not weak. You don’t beg. You take. You cut the world open and bleed it dry if it doesn’t hand you what you want. That’s why I knew the second I found you—you were mine. My blood. My true son.”
A thrill shot through me.
“Then let’s finish it. Make her pay. Make her suffer for every damn thing she’s done.”
He chuckled, soft and low.
“Oh, we will. But patience, Damien. Timing is everything. The perfect moment will come, and when it does…”
I gritted my teeth, a manic light in my eyes.
“I’m ready. I’ll burn her world to ashes. Every last piece. She’ll pay for everything. For me, for Ethan, for all of it.”
He stepped closer, hand on my shoulder, grip iron-tight.
“Good. Together, we’ll make sure Winter never sees the light of day again.”
I nodded, knife in hand, pulse racing, obsession coursing through every vein.
My mind flicked through memories—Winter, Ethan, Zion—each one a fuel to the fire, each one a reason to continue.
I moved to the corner, pulling a small stack of photographs from my coat. Winter, Ethan, Zion—every angle, every moment captured. My hands lingered on Ethan’s face, lips trembling. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to, Ethan. I loved you,” I whispered, sobs threatening to break through again.
My arm throbbed like a live wire, pain lancing through me with every heartbeat, each pulse a reminder of everything I’d lost. Memories clawed up from the dark corners of my mind—Ethan’s voice, smug and careless, laughing about Winter, her name curling off his lips like a taunt.
Every word, every sound, poured gasoline over the fire raging in my chest—rage, obsession, grief, all tangled into a knot I couldn’t untie.
I clenched my fist so hard my nails bit into my palm, drawing blood I didn’t even notice. My teeth ground together, the taste of metal flooding my mouth, and I pressed my forehead against the table, rocking slightly, trembling, whispering curses under my breath.
“If it hadn’t been for her… Ethan would still be here!”
I hissed, voice breaking, low and raw, barely audible over the storm inside me. My body shook with it, a hunger for revenge that nothing could sate, and still, the memories wouldn’t stop—they fed the madness I could feel coiling tight in my gut, ready to snap.
The man’s voice cut through like a whip.
“It’s done. He’s gone. Focus. The girl. That’s what matters now.”
I nodded slowly, chest heaving, eyes wide and wild.
“Winter… we make her pay. For everything.”
He smiled, cruel and calculating, echoing through the small room.
“And this time, Damien… we finish it. No mistakes. No distractions. Just precision. Patience. Pain.”
I rose, knife in hand, the madness in me tempered by obsession and fury. Moonlight spilt through the window, casting long, jagged shadows.
Every memory, every loss, every betrayal had led to this.
“Soon,” I whispered to myself, almost reverently,
“She’ll learn what happens when you mess with us.”
A shiver rolled through me, not of guilt but of anticipation. I could see it already: Winter’s eyes wide, her perfect little world cracking under my hands.
And Zion—Zion.
My brother.
I sit back, letting the thought sink in, tasting it like blood on my tongue. Winter, trembling or screaming, it doesn’t matter.
What matters Zion… oh, Zion.
My perfect, pampered little brother, so certain he could always protect her. I can already see it: the second she falls, the second I make her world mine… his world crumbles.
Ripping her out of his life, tearing his precious heart in half, watching him break apart like glass under a hammer—God, that would be the sweetest part.
I wanted to watch him scramble.
Wanted to see the confusion turn to horror, then to rage, then to nothing.
Taking her from him wouldn’t just hurt him—it would unmake him.
Yes… Very soon, all of it will happen.
Winter dead.
Zion powerless, and the taste of it—oh, the taste of that exquisite helplessness-will burn through me like fire and ice.
And when he finally breaks, truly breaks…
I’ll smile.
I’ll savour it, slow, deliberate, a wine aged in pain, obsession, and fury.
Everything he pretended to be, every lie he wrapped himself in, would be gone in a heartbeat.
Winter’s end would be the act.
Zion’s destruction would be the encore.
The cherry on top of a revenge years in the making.
The man chuckled softly behind me, the sound cold, deadly, promising:
“And this time… there’s no turning back.”
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