Page 141 of Goldsin

Tears blur my vision, my heart turning cold at the realization.

“I’m sorry.”

Glancing one last time at him, I close my eyes.

Before the sound of something jolts me toward the other door connected to the room. I didn’t notice it when I walked in—I was too preoccupied with Adrian’s strange attitude.

His earlier warning echoes in my mind, and I scramble toward the gun.

Picking it up with trembling hands, I stand back on my feet, pointing the gun at whoever is waiting behind the door.

At whoever killed Adrian.

I wait.

My chest rises and falls while fresh tears run down my cheeks, and I dry them with the sleeve of my shirt.

The door creaks open, the sound sending shivers down my spine as I steady my grip on the gun. My breath is heaving, but I hold it in, waiting for whoever is behind it to reveal themselves so I can exhale, aim, and shoot.

But a voice reaches me first, setting my nerves on fire. Stealing my breath altogether.

“Oh, look what you’ve done.”

I know this voice. I’ve heard it many times before.

The person steps forward, tsking at the body lying between us on the floor.

Not just a body. Her son.

Lady Harrow stares back at me. The playful smile curving her lips vanishes as her distant gaze drills into mine. “If only you’d never been born, none of this would have happened.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

AURELIA

The woman in front of me isn’t the same woman I grew up with. Gone is the obedient wife who took her husband’s beatings without protest. This woman here, staring at me with the most wicked of smiles, is a fighter. Someone finally ready for battle.

I wish I’d met this version of her under different circumstances. Maybe then I would feel proud of her.

Her stare is glacial, the complete opposite to how she presents herself with the gauze wrapped around her stomach and the slight wiggle of her knees.

I glance around the room and realize this is where she’s supposed to rest. Her sons took a whole floor and made her a new home far from the haunting memories of her husband, so she could recover in peace.

And yet she killed Adrian.

I know she did. The fact she isn’t running to him in complete agony or shedding tears tells me she pulled the trigger.

She killed her son.

“Why?” I ask her, still having a hard time believing a mother could ever do this. “Why would you do this to your own son?”

A chuckle parts her lips. Her hand falls to her chest as she looks at me like I’ve just asked her the most trivial of questions. “Oh, dear, everything happens for a reason. People believe God plans their destiny—I guess I’ve been playing God for quite a while now.”

My knuckles whiten as I jerk the gun at her. “Why. Did. You. Kill. Adrian?” I grit out, each word punctuated with poison.

She may feel like the most invincible person ever, having accomplished the impossible from the shadows. But right now light is shining on her. And I see her for who she is.

“For Julian, of course.”

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