Rule and Ruin

seven; the dead cold truth

chapter seven.

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THE GUNSHOT SUNK the room into silence. It wasn't until she turned to aim her gun at Dino that the guards came to their senses and shifted their target to her.

It was such a strange feeling being at the end of all those loaded guns.

"Selene?" Dino let out. "What are you doing?"

"I warned you," she said quietly, "that it was a trap."

Dino's dark eyes narrowed in angry confusion.

"I have a question," she said. She was surprised how steady her own voice was when the rest of her was screaming.

"Right now?" Dino ground out. His eyes darted back and forth from Selene to the dead guard.

"How did my father die?"

Dino frowned.

Nix laughed.

"An accident," Dino said simply, but both he and Selene knew there was no truth in that.

"Is that what it was? An accident?"

Her voice was quiet, laced with trembling anger that bubbled beneath her careful words. She remembered the despair she felt the night before when she saw the pictures, the phone records, and all the other evidence Nix had left her.

"You killed him," she said. "You lied to me all this time. You killed him. Your best friend."

Dino did not react. He just stared back at her while the accusation hung in the air. Selene's body felt like it was about to explode. She didn't want to believe the words that came out of her mouth, just as she didn't want to believe the words on the file Nix had given her, but she knew they were all true just from the blank look on Dino's face.

And then Dino had the audacity to smile. "Oh Selene, so what if I did? Are you going to kill me for it?" He took a step forward, watching her with those gleaming eyes. "It doesn't change the fact that I raised you."

"You lied to me," she said again. "You made a fool of me. Was it fun for you? For everyone here? Watching me prance around with my father's murderer?"

Dino just scoffed. "Stop this foolishness now. I don't have time for this."

"Neither do I," she hissed. "You stole twelve years from me. Twelve years under a lie."

"Twelve years of power," he shot back. "I saved you, just as I saved that traitor behind you. You would have been nothing without me."

"Do you know why I followed you all this time?" Selene asked quietly. "It certainly wasn't because of your leadership or your capabilities. In fact, you are perhaps the most incompetent man I've ever known. You are lazy and foolish, but I stayed because I thought that's what my father would have wanted. I stayed by your side, picking after your careless decisions and your sloppy plans in honor of my father. It was the only way I could pay respect to him. That traitor behind me is right. You are pathetic. You may have raised me, but I raised this little empire of yours. The empire you stole from my father."

"Your father was a powerful man," Dino replied slowly. "But I killed him, so doesn't that make me far more powerful?"

Selene really felt like she could kill him right then.

Her grip on the gun tightened, but before she could do anything, Nix suddenly had a knife held against her throat. In her anger, she had nearly forgotten about his presence.

"I can't let you do that," he whispered to her. "He's mine to kill."

His breath was soft against her ear as he stood behind her, using her as a human shield between him and Dino's men. Somehow, he had snuck up on her again.

"This shitty family drama is boring me," he announced. "If you don't mind, I'd like to leave now."

Dino's gaze hardened. "You're not getting out of here alive."

Nix began backing away with Selene in tow. With that cursed knife against her skin again, she had no choice but to let him take her.

"Yeah? Well then neither is your precious daughter," Nix threatened. "If I slit her throat right now,  she would bleed such a pretty shade of red, wouldn't she?"

Selene grit her teeth.

Nix kept backing away until they were standing in the shadows of the towering cargo boxes while Dino's line of men continued to slowly advance towards them.

The knife against her throat was not nearly as cold as the glimmer in Dino's eyes.

"She is no more my daughter than you are my son," he growled. "Kill them both."