Page 119 of Scarred in Silence
“Fucking idiot. Rookie mistake. I wanted revenge, but I couldn’t finish the fucking job. I just wanted him gone.”
Her hand finds my leg, tentative.
I flinch.
My voice drops, rough around the edges. “I wasn’t supposed to bethe favorite. I wasn’t supposed to take the crown. Damien was Dad’s masterpiece. I was just the blade he kept sharp in case shit got messy.”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat.
“But I was the one who got my hands dirty. Not him. I was the one who cleaned up everyone else’s mistakes. And he—he went behind our backs. Sold our fucking name to traffickers. Signed off on rival drug routes. Killed kids with his pills and smiled while doing it.”
Astra’s hand tightens.
“I tried to fix it,” I whisper. “I pulled the trigger and left my brother to rot in the dark. And he’s still alive.”
I grit my teeth.
“He’s still winning.”
“You saved me,” she says. “That has to count for something.”
I can’t meet her eyes. “I didn’t save you for you.”
That gets her attention. I can feel her body stiffen beside me.
“I saved you because I wanted to be better than him,” I admit. “I wanted to prove I wasn’t the monster they made. That I could build something, not just destroy it.”
I glance at her then. “But I don’t think I can. Not really.”
I pause, then say it. The truth that’s been rotting in the pit of me for years.
“I don’t think I know how to be anything except him.”
The silence in the car turns suffocating.
Then, she speaks.
“Lucien, you’re not him. You didn’t leave me in that fucking trailer. You didn’t sell me.”
I look at her, and it cuts because she believes it.
She believes I’m good. Somewhere deep down, she still wantsto believe I’m redeemable.
That I’m not a mirror image of the man who destroyed both of us.
I pull the car over suddenly, dust kicking up around the tires, engine idling in the quiet heat.
Astra blinks at me, confused. “What are you doing?”
I turn to her fully, breathing hard. “I need you to hear me.”
She nods.
“If he comes near you again—if he even breathes your name—I’ll put a bullet in his eye and carve my name into his ribs. I’ll go full fucking psycho and I won’t stop until there’s nothing left of him but ash and echo.”
Her mouth opens, then closes again.
I press a hand to her jaw, thumb brushing her cheek.
