Areston thinks he can shield me from his past, but what he doesn't realize is I'm already part of it.
The darkness that haunts him? It's the same one that's been chasing me for years.
I've given him everything-my body, my heart, my soul-and still...
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Annihilate.
Annihilate.
Annihilate.
Annihilation is how I handle anything that dares to challenge me or come in my path.
It's instinct. An impulse. A reflex as Adam labels it.
I was a born anarchist. Chaos thrills me. Instigating it and watching the obliteration is deeply therapeutic.
However, even the idea of wrecking extreme chaos does nothing to me this time.
Nothing and no amount of destruction would give my little rose the justice she deserves for what those motherfucking bastards put her through.
Two of those fucking rats are dead and two more... actually three more are still out there.
Deriding me with their filthy existence every second they breathe.
I used to think Nikolai is the mastermind, but he's not.
He's just a camouflage. An excellent one at that, and I've understood it by now, even if he's unwilling to spill despite the slow and consistent torture.
The man has an incredible will. Not to safeguard his own life of course.
I am not a fool to have not configured that by now.
His spirit to fight till the end and not confess is to protect someone else.
Even before we got that bastard, I had come to a conclusion that he's not the mastermind.
He might seem like the King with all the authority and power, but that's what makes him an excellent piece strategically placed to distract.
He's the person who makes things happen, not the one who pulled the strings from behind.
There's someone else who planned the whole thing, manipulated or bent everyone, including that filth Nikolai, to serve their own agenda.
Since I was a child, I have had a deep fascination with observing things. Dissecting beyond the layers. Never taking anything at face value. It helped me scrutinize things from angles no one would look at, analyze patterns, and predict the exact outcomes based on it. Althea would call me a rare kind of genius. So would my teachers at school, professors at Harvard, and friends and now my employees, business partners, and the world.
Observation is my modus operandi.
The only four times I've failed were when I deliberately ignored.
First time was when I had been long observing Althea and knowing there was something she was hiding about my life but chose to ignore.
The second time was when my Belle was drifting away from me Jennifer was making her with her exaggerated expectations, but I chose to trust her not to let it affect us just like I trusted Althea.
