“Talk to me like I’m stupid, Claire,” Zade says dryly. “You want me to stop exposing the government? No, you want more than that. You want me to create some type of technology to implant in people’s brains and make them actual robots? Make it to where they have no fight?”
She raises her brows, a smile forming. “Now there’s an idea. I can create a new world with laws and consequences for breaking them. Your technology could advance us and make it easier to enforce these laws. We could force people to walk in a straight line, wherever we draw it. But taking away their ability to think for themselves? My God, that’d be wonderful.”
Her eyes alight with excitement. “Could you do that?”
I can only gape at her, utterly speechless. Does ending human trafficking sound like a dream? Absolutely. But in exchange for some fantastical idea to rip away people’s free will and turn them into zombies.
I’m not even sure what exactly she’d do with them all, but I don’t care to know. I want the same thing Zade has always wanted. To eradicate the skin trade. But that desire has never come with unrealistic expectations.
“Technology can do anything. Its only limitation is its creator,” Zade says.
She grins, and I see something twinkle in her eye that she’s stolen from so many. From me.
Hope.
But it doesn’t belong to her
-it belongs to the souls she’s responsible for breaking.
“You see? We can do anything,” she breathes. “I believe you have no limitations.”
Zade’s stare darkens, and the tightness in my chest eases.
“You’re right, Claire. I don’t.”
She completely misinterprets his meaning because her smile only widens, too blinded by the possibilities to see what’s lying in wait.
“You already have power,” I remind her. “You’re a shadow government that controls the entire country. More so now with your partners dead. That’s not enough for you? Now you want world domination?”
She leans forward, baring her teeth as she hisses, “Maybe your puny brain isn-“
“You know what your problem is?” Zade cuts in. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about forming an alliance. Do you really think insulting her is going to get you anywhere?” Zade stands, and though I can see Claire fighting with herself, she forces her spine straight. Her bodyguards take aim, but Zade moves as if he’s encased in bulletproof armor.
My heart picks up speed, adrenaline surfacing because the bozo does not, in fact, have on bulletproof armor, and if one bullet comes anywhere near him, I’m going to fucking lose it.
“Belittling those who support you isn’t smart. Haven’t you read the history books? Using fear to demand respect is a fragile construct. It doesn’t last because no one can trust you, and the first opportunity they have to betray you, they take.
Z isn’t built on fear, Claire. It’s built on the mutual desire to kill people like you. And you know what? My organization trusts me to do that.”
Her eyes widen, sensing the incoming doom before it happens. A line of bombs is planted along the front of the distillery, right below where Claire’s men are standing. In seconds, the explosives detonate, creating a deafening blast.
The force of the explosion sends us back a step or two, and I cover my face as debris flies around us. We made sure the bomb wasn’t so powerful that it’d send the building crashing down around us, but enough to blow someone-or someones-to pieces.
A few of her guards who were standing on the outskirts wriggle, missing limbs but still alive and set on going out in a blaze of glory. They’re shot dead before they can lift their guns towards Zade and me, his team behind us and hiding in the depths of the distillery.
Zade seizes Claire by the throat and lifts her in the air, a snarl overtaking his face. Her eyes bulge as fire rages behind her, washing her in the very glow her soul will forever be consumed in.
“You sent my world crashing down around me just like this, remember? Setting off bombs and then taking Addie from me. How does it feel, Claire? To have come so close to succeeding, only for your soul to be ripped away instead?”
She kicks her legs desperately, trying and failing to gain some type of footing to relieve the chokehold Zade has her in. Clawing his skin, she leaves trails as red as the paint on her nails.
“Would you like to do the honors, baby?” he asks, looking over his shoulder at me with eyes as bright as the fire before us. Something deep and carnal flickers in my stomach, and I can’t deny the excitement thrumming in my bloodstream any more than Zade can.
“Yes,” I smile, approaching the pair. He readjusts, gripping Claire by the nape and holding her in place, despite her desperate efforts to get away. Clutching my black and purple knife tightly, I lift it to her throat, pressing until blood sprouts beneath the blade.
This woman is responsible for every one of my demons. I was fairly normal before the Society laid eyes on me. And while fear and adrenaline always did something inexplicable to me, the thought of murdering someone was repulsive. It was something I rallied against when Zade came into my life, and even when I fell in love with him, it was something that I hadn’t fully accepted yet.
And now look-she’s faced with her own creation, an angel of death with a knife to her throat and intoxicated by the sight of her blood.
“Please!” she begs shrilly. “We can work something out!”
“You reap what you sow, Claire,” I say, then slowly slice the knife across her throat, cutting through sinew and muscle. Blood splatters across my face, but I rejoice in the feel of it. I stop right before the jugular, wanting her death to be a slow and painful one.
Will it be her own life flashing before her eyes or all the ones that she stole?
I hope they come down from paradise and personally drag her to fucking Hell.
Slowly suffocating on her blood, Zade drags her over to the raging fire in the front of the distillery, her men’s dead bodies scattered.
Claire’s fight increases, and even amid death, she can feel when it’s only going to get worse. Pausing before a fire, Zade grips her bloody throat in his fist and lifts her, staring into her wide, desperate eyes.
“Fucking burn, bitch,” he growls, then vaults her into it, her body instantly consumed in flames.
Choked screaming arises, but the sounds can hardly make it through. Her form convulses and thrashes, and I wrinkle my nose at the rancid stench that follows.
She walked into this place firmly believing she could conquer the world if only she gave Zade the one thing he’s been working so hard for.
Doesn’t she know?
Zade is a God.
And the only one who will conquer this world is him.
Chapter 43
The Diamond
Sibby dances in the living room, her polka-dot covered feet swirling across the checkered tile, rejoicing in our long-awaited success, while Zade is on the television, interrupting another broadcast.
He exposed the shadow government and their control over human trafficking, stealing children and women, and selling them off for sick people. In the ten minutes he’s been speaking, he gave the world hope that the sex trade will slowly begin to die.
“Claire Seinburg is not the first to contribute to the sickness that infects our world, nor is she the last. One by one, I will disinfect the pests from society, and only then will we find peace. I am Z, and I am watching.”
He cuts out, once more replaced by a wide-eyed reporter, a nervous laugh tinkling from her throat.
“Who’s going to take over Claire’s spot?” Daya asks from beside me, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.