Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

DAMIEN ..I slammed my boot against the first door, the flimsy wood groaning in protest before splintering inward with a violent crack.Two hulking figures, built like brick frame, charged at me, their eyes promising a brutal fight.They looked like the kind of muscle Alvin would hire, thinking brute force could stop me.I didn't even break my stride, my gun already spitting fire, two quick bursts taking them down before they could even reach me. Their heavy bodies thudded onto the polished floor, the sound barely audible over the terrified screams of the women huddled in the corner, their hands clamped over their ears.They were mostly naked, just scraps of fabric clinging to them, their eyes wide with a fear that mirrored Leila's in my nightmares.I hated that sound, the sound of pure terror, it clawed at something inside me, a primal protectiveness for what was mine.That raw sound, the sheer vulnerability in their screams, only fueled the boiling rage inside me.I shoved the li

LEILA ..My thighs were throbbing even through the thick bandages I had managed to wrap around them. It was a grim skill I’d picked up in this life, knowing how to treat wounds, especially after seeing Alvin shoot that poor nurse without a second thought, it has resurfaced within me, it hasn’t been me who’d had the knitting pin yanked out, Gerald had handled that, his face grim as he’d worked.We had left that burning hellhole behind, and as we drove further away, a deafening boom echoed in the distance. I turned to see Alvin’s estate engulfed in flames, a raging inferno against the dark sky.“We need your help,” Gerald said, his clothes looking fresh, like he’d changed into something new.He seemed to have regained his composure, but my mind was still racing, fixated on Damien.“How’s he feeling?”They had called someone else for medical assistance to oversee his injured area.“He needs to be stitched up and bandaged properly,” he scratched his head like some confused child. “N

LEILA ..Maybe everything I had ever thought about Damien, the darkness that clung to him like a second skin, the ruthlessness that could chill you to the bone, all seemed to trace back to my mother’s actions.All this time, all he had wanted, deep down, was to exact the same kind of revenge, a bitter truth that settled in my stomach like a lead weight.I could feel it in the air, a lingering tension that even Gerald, who usually bounced back from anything with a grin, couldn't completely dispel but Damien… Damien wasn’t wired that way.He didn’t simply get over things, not even for a little while.He would make sure you understood the depth of his pain, would rip your heart out if you didn’t feel it too.He truly lived by that twisted code of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” a philosophy that painted his world in shades of vengeance and retribution.The kiss deepened, becoming a slow, deliberate claim, he controlled the way we shifted on the bed, a subtle yet

DAMIEN ..That same day, my father had returned home, as if some instinct had warned him what was happening.He walked into the house, his face etched with a weary resignation, and then he saw a letter lying on their bed.I hadn’t touched it.I had gone into their room earlier, a knot of dread tightening in my stomach, to see if she had packed her things. And yes, everything was gone.She was gone.Leila was goneShe left without even looking back at us.He was a shadow of himself for a long time after that, a ghost haunting the halls of our once happy home. He was always complaining, his words laced with bitterness, and he stopped looking after us, lost in his own grief. He loved her more than he loved us, more than he had even loved my birth mother, who had died years earlier, two years after giving birth to Gerald.I watched him drink himself into a stupor night after night, embarrassing us at every turn, racking up more and more debt.Then, he fell ill, his body finally succum

DAMIEN ..I moved to the other end of it, the cold granite of the tombstone pressing against my hand for just a second long before I pulled it away, throwing the flower in my hand to the floor, watching the petals scattered like littler pieces of something broken.It felt like it was just a few months ago, not fourteen, since we stood here for the first time, the raw gaping wound of losing him still fresh and the invisible bone in my throat didn’t seem to want to go off, stuck right there, all of this was a reminder of the day the world shifted on its axis.I fixed my shades back to where they were, shield my eyes from the weak sunlight that somehow felt too bright that day, moving towards my brother who had both hand crossed in front of him, a silent sentinel staring at the grave.It had been fourteen years already, etched into the stone was a number that felt both impossibly long and horrifically short.It felt like he just did it yesterday, the act that brought us here, the act