22 — Fault

The smoke had barely settled after the Widow vanished, but the silence she left behind was louder than the Civic Shadow battering the building below.

Eirwen stood in the center of the ruined safehouse, chest rising and falling too fast. Domenik didn’t touch her this time. He just watched her—jaw tight, pupils blown wide with something that was not fear.

Something worse.

“Say it,” she whispered, voice a blade. “Tell me what happened the night my family died.”

Domenik didn’t look away.

He was too smart to lie. Too guilty to speak. Too obsessed to step toward her and risk her stepping back.

“You already know,” he said quietly.

“No,” she hissed. “I know what the cameras showed. I know what the records didn’t. I know you were there.”

His breath left him in a slow exhale. “I was.”

It hit her like a slap she refused to flinch from.

Talia looked between them, face pale, half-conscious, knowing this wasn’t a conversation anyone survived clean.

Eirwen took one step, closing the distance between them, her voice low and trembling with rage she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing break.

“Did you kill them?”

“No.”

“But you let them die.”

Domenik’s throat worked.

He didn’t nod.

He didn’t deny it.

He simply stepped closer.

“I was not the one who gave the order,” he said. “But I knew it was coming. And I stood there. And I didn’t stop it.”

The room tilted.

“You watched my father die?” Eirwen whispered.

Domenik’s jaw tightened—not in anger. In shame.

“I watched,” he said. “Because my brother stood in front of that same fire a week earlier, trying to protect another family. He defied the Covenant. And they killed him for it.”

Eirwen went still.

“You let them burn my family,” she said, “because they burned yours.”

His voice broke like old stone. “Because they burned him. And I needed the Crown to survive what they did. I needed to prove I could hold it.”

Eirwen’s laugh was a knife.

“And you chose silence over saving them.”

“I chose survival,” he said.

“And it’s the sin I wake up with every morning.”

She stepped into him, close enough that her breath brushed his lips, close enough that hatred felt like hunger.

“Do you know what I dreamed about for ten years?”

Domenik swallowed. “Tell me.”

“That if I ever found the man who let that fire happen, I would put a knife in his throat and watch him choke on his own blood.”

He didn’t flinch.

He lifted her wrist, guided her hand to his throat.

Her pulse jumped.

So did his.

“Do it,” he murmured. “If that’s what you want—kill me. Now.”

Her fingers trembled against his skin.

Not with hesitation.

With fury.

With trauma.

With the unbearable, intoxicating weight of wanting the man she should have murdered years ago.

“You think this is absolution?” she whispered. “Letting me touch your throat?”

“No,” he said softly.

“It’s truth.”

His hand slid to the small of her back—slowly, deliberately—pulling her against him until her entire body fit to his like a threat that wanted to become a kiss.

Eirwen’s breath hitched.

“Letting you kill me,” he whispered, lips brushing her cheek, “is the only power I’ve never given anyone else.”

Her eyes burned.

He tilted her chin up with cruel gentleness.

“I didn’t save your family,” he said. “And I will never forgive myself for that. But I will burn this city to ash before I let it take you.”

Her hand dropped from his throat.

She pushed him back—hard—but he caught her wrists, pinning them above her head against the cracked wall.

“You don’t get to—”

Her voice broke.

She hated that.

He heard it.

Domenik’s mouth hovered at her ear, breath warm and wicked.

“I get to do nothing,” he murmured. “Not unless you let me.”

Her heart slammed.

Her anger collided with want so violent it felt like another form of grief.

“You are the monster I hunted,” she whispered.

“Then hunt me,” he growled.

His thigh pressed between hers.

Her breath shattered.

He pinned her wrists harder—not painful, just undeniable.

“Fight me,” he murmured. “Hate me. Take from me. But don’t lie about what you want, Eirwen.”

She turned her head, lips brushing his jaw despite every part of her screaming to stop.

“I want to hurt you,” she said.

“Then do it,” he breathed. “You’re the only one I’d bleed for.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“But I don’t want your blood, Domenik.”

His eyes widened—not with relief.

With hunger.

“What do you want?” he asked.

She kissed him.

Hard.

Bruising.

Punishment disguised as desire.

He shoved her against the wall, mouth devouring hers, hands gripping her hips with a desperation he couldn’t hide.

She moaned into his mouth—anger and need twisted together until she couldn’t tell which one she hated more.

He broke the kiss first, forehead pressed to hers, breath uneven.

“You should kill me,” he whispered.

“I will,” she whispered back.

“But not tonight.”

A deep boom shook the building.

Shadows swarmed the stairwell.

The Civic Shadow was inside.

Domenik pulled Eirwen behind him, body shielding hers completely.

“We finish this later,” he said.

Her voice was a dark promise. “Count on it.”

They moved as one—

through smoke,

through danger,

through the wreckage of their truth—

toward whatever fresh hell waited upstairs.

⟅━━━━━⟆ ⚜ ⟅━━━━━⟆

Next: 23 — Path

Domenik won’t let her go.

The Widow expects her to come.

And the path Eirwen chooses next will decide which empire burns first.