I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt, glaring at the drops of blood that stained it with red. Just the knowledge that my wife couldn’t see the color made me furious.
She couldn’t appreciate how stunning the brightness was against a pure background. She’d never know the shock of it against the snow in the winter. It had made it harder to appreciate my favorite color, to revel in the way it looked as it poured from my victims’ wounds.
My father glared at me in silence, cradling that broken hand to his chest as if he could save it. He was fortunate I hadn’t broken the other one preemptively, because the thought had crossed my mind. “You do not lay a hand on my wife, her sister, or my mother, ever again. Is that clear?” I asked, brushing at a perfect spot of blood on my sleeve.
“I am your father—”
“That doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me. I know you come from bygone times when it was important to respect our elders, but considering my elder was an abusive piece of shit who let his own foolishness get us banished from this city in the first place? Hard pass.” I rolled my eyes at his stupidity. He’d always had the brain of a goldfish; his lack of planning making him act far too impulsively for a man with the kind of power he’d been born into.
He would have seen our name burned to the ground if I hadn’t raised it from the ashes.
“You’d do anything for that stupid piece of ass. She’s got you so pussy-whipped you’d even turn on your own father, and you’re too stupid to see it for what it is. She will be your destruction, Calix. The council will not be pleased to have a woman sitting among them, and she’ll drag you down with her,” my father said, slapping his unbroken palm down on top of the counter. If I’d had the meat mallet in my hand, I might have broken it too.
“The council has determined that I will be the head of the Regas line going forward and sit in the council seat due to your incompetency. I suggest you find something to keep you occupied, because I can promise you there is no room for you in my business,” I said, tapping the top of his hand condescendingly.
I turned on my heel, making my way in the direction I’d seen Thalia go. I’d spent far too much time with a man who wasn’t worth my time, when I could have been watching Thalia flourish and love the only family member who loved her.
“Her mother was the same way, you know?” he asked, something dark in his voice making me pause. I turned to look back at him, and the cruel sneer that rode his face as he spoke about a woman who had died because of his stupidity. “Thought all men should fucking worship her like she was some saint, never letting anyone play with her when Origen wasn’t looking. You should teach Thalia a lesson the same way I taught her mother one. No woman is too good for a Regas cock, no matter what she seems to think about it.”
Everything in me froze, the confession hanging between us as I turned around the rest of the way to face him. To face the Ηλίθιος who had murdered a woman for his own pleasure. “Neri is dead because you raped her?” I asked, my fists clenching at my sides.
Fury for the girl who had lost the only real parent she’d ever known, in the most traumatic of ways, surged through me. As if Neri hadn’t already suffered enough, she’d been forced to kneel there before her husband and be punished for something that had been taken from her.
“Oh, don’t act so offended. If the stupid bitch had just done her part and kept her mouth shut and hidden the evidence, nobody would have needed to know anything at all. She got what she deserved for acting like I’d brutalized her,” Eugene grumbled, grimacing as he tried to move his fingers. “I need to see a doctor, thanks to you.”
“Make sure you see one outside of the city,” I said, my fury overriding my satisfaction that the shock was wearing off, allowing the pain of his hand to really settle in. The thought of telling Thalia what he’d done, that her mother had been a victim and never made a choice that led to her loss…
Fuck.
All of this could have been avoided. I would have never been taken away from Thalia in the first place and I could have remained in the city to protect her, if only my own father hadn’t raped her mother.
FUCK.
“Why? Too ashamed for anyone to know what you’ve done?” my father asked, as if he truly expected me to feel regret for hurting him.
“Because the moment you step foot back in my city is the moment I will kill you. I will lay you down on this very counter and carve out your organs one by one and feed them to you until you die. Get the fuck out of my city and don’t ever come back, unless you want to taste your own spleen.” My fury laced my voice as I glared at him, having never meant anything in the way I meant that.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Where am I supposed to go?”
“GET OUT!” I shouted, and for once, Eugene Regas did the smart thing.
He fucking left like the coward he was.
I grabbed the vase of flowers off the island counter, throwing it into the dining room with a roar. The glass shattered across the table, the flowers Thalia could never see the colors of spreading across the surface as the water flowed. I immediately regretted it when I thought of my mother having to clean up the mess or of Malva’s bare feet when she walked into the room.
But that didn’t stop me from picking up one of the counter stools and hurling it at the table. The wood cracked on the legs, buckling as the heavy table rocked from the assault.
“Calix?” Thalia asked, stepping into the room. Her face was the picture of shock, her mouth hanging open as she took a tentative move toward me. “What’s wrong?”
I pinched my brow between two fingers, squeezing as I tried to find a way around admitting this truth to her, but it always had a way of coming out. This was one secret she would never forgive.
“My father just admitted that he raped your mother all those years ago. She never wanted him, so he took what he wanted without any thought of the consequences for any of us. You were left without anyone to protect you, and your mother was killed for something she didn’t even do. He stood by and watched Origen slaughter her and never said a fucking word.” I knew why he hadn’t; he would have been executed. Banishment would have been the least of his concerns in the face of raping another man’s wife, even if it meant his entire family suffered for his actions.
“I never could make sense of it,” Thalia admitted, shaking her head slowly. “I was too young to understand back then, but whenever I look back; my mother was far too afraid of my father to risk something like that. It all makes sense now.”
“You aren’t angry?” I asked. This was one thing I would understand if she couldn’t forgive. It didn’t mean I would let her go, but I would get it all the same.
“Of course I am. I’m fucking furious, but not at you,” she said, stepping toward me. She pressed her chest against my stomach, wrapping her arms around my waist and laying her head against my torso. I folded her into my embrace, sighing in relief the moment I felt her tucked safely in my arms where she belonged.
She turned a rage-filled stare up to me, and I knew her next words would be just as bloodthirsty as any man’s. “But I want his fucking head for what he did to her.”
I stared down into my wife’s amber eyes, searching for any hint of doubt. There was none to be found, only the promise of vengeance—of death and the wickedness that she was learning to embrace.
I said the only thing I could while looking down at the woman I loved more than anything in this world. “Anything for you, Little One.”
