Zavier’s eyes never left mine, his gaze tense and fixed.
The moment I reached into my pocket, his muscles tightened in alert, but when I pulled out the cemetery order, his guard eased at last.
“I intended to move the child closer to us, but… it seems unnecessary now.”
Pain flickered in his eyes as he obediently held out his hand.
The next second, my dagger cut through his index finger, sending it to the floor.
I pressed it under my foot and let out a wild laugh.
“Do you think you deserve this? Zavier, this is what you owe me! I’ll reclaim it, piece by piece… slowly!”
I toyed with the dagger and leaned close to Evie.
Zavier, who hadn’t flinched even when his finger was cut off, instantly panicked and threw himself over her protectively.
“Don’t touch her! Tiffany, don’t force me to fight you with my life!”
That look, that tone, dragged me back to the bloody night five years ago.
That night, when the enemies came, all ten bodyguards in the villa were killed. Their leader demanded that Xavier hand me over, promising that if they had their fun, he would be spared.
His eyes were red as he shielded me, forcing himself to stand against them all. And he had said the exact same words. “Don’t force me to risk my life. I’m afraid there aren’t enough of you to die.”
Then he had turned, gently covering my eyes with a silk scarf. “Don’t look. Your brother is here. To bleed for you, I’m willing.”
Too many people had died that night. By the end, I had grown numb to the screams echoing around me.
At dawn, I discovered he had already prepared a plane ticket for me, one way, and only for me.
Blood dripped slowly from his severed finger, each drop striking my ears like a drum.
He tore a piece of his shirt and expertly bound the wound. “Tiffany, don’t force me to hate you.”
The memory overlapped with eight years ago.
When he had chopped off my boyfriend’s hands, he had smiled at me and whispered, “Tiffany, hate me. If you can’t love me, at least hate will make you remember me.”
Perhaps our relationship had twisted from that very moment, a wrong beginning, destined never to have a good ending.
Evie pulled the gun from Zavier’s waist, trembling so violently her movements were chaotic.
“If you dare hurt Zavier, I won’t let you live!”
Too bad the fool hadn’t even known how to pull the trigger.