Page 54 of Goldrage
“Julian—”
“No.” My voice is loud, and I watch him flinch. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to say, just… don’t. I’m tired of the bullshit.”
But Adrian leans forward anyway. His voice drops, like he’s sharing a secret that might kill us both. “You’re going to hear me, Julian. I’m going to say it as many times as necessary. She shot me. Our mother put a bullet in my chest and left me to die because I threatened her plans. She’s been manipulating you, manipulating us both?—”
“Stop.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s too raw, too broken, like something’s clawing its way up my throat. “I said no more lies!”
The room tilts. Or maybe that’s just me, swaying on my feet as my brain tries to process the impossible. Mother—who sacrificed everything—tried to murder Adrian?
It’s insane.
It’s impossible.
It’s…
I hold my head as an ache blooms behind my eyes. Just minutes before, Mother had said…Unfortunate.That’s what she’d called Adrian’s survival.
Unfortunate.
Suddenly, I’m seeing every interaction through a different lens—every gentle touch that guided me exactly where she wanted, every tear that fell at just the right moment, every word that drove wedges between Adrian and me.
No. No, I can’t?—
“Stop lying!” The shout tears from my chest. “She wouldn’t… she’s our mother. She loves us.”
Adrian’s expression doesn’t change, but the pity is replaced by sadness. Or resignation. “She loves what werepresent,” he says. “Power. Control. The Harrow legacy. But us? Julian, when’s the last time she asked how you’re feeling? When’s the last time she cared about your happiness instead of your usefulness?”
I step backward until I collapse into the nearest chair. My mind scrambles for an answer, for one fucking moment when she’s asked about me lately instead of the Consortium.
When I first took over, she was there. Every meeting, every decision, her hand on my shoulder like an anchor. Supporting me. Guiding me. But now? She’s always somewhere else, doing… what? Planning parties. Making calls. Whispering with Bianca.
She should be here with both her sons, trying to heal what’s broken. Instead, she keeps us separate.
Christ, is she not who I think she is?
Feels like there’s a hole opening beneath me that I’m dangerously close to falling into. Because accepting Adrian’s words means that everything—every memory, every moment of comfort, every time I chose her over anyone else—was built on quicksand. It means I’ve been dancing to someone else’s tune my whole fucking life, too stupid to hear the music.
“Even if that were true,” I hear myself say, grasping for anything solid in this shipwreck of a conversation, “even if she… did what you’re claiming… she… she was protecting our family. Protecting the Consortium. You were going to destroyeverythingwith your fucking obsession with that woman.”
Adrian’s face transforms at the mention of her name. The neutrality breaks and beneath it burns somethingfierce enough to light the whole fucking study on fire. His nostrils flare. His thigh muscles twitch like he’s ready to launch from the couch.
“Aurelia.” He says her name like she’s someone sacred I’ve defiled by reducing to ‘that woman.’ “She loved you. And our mother tried to have her killed too.”
“Because she’s a threat!” My words explode and then bounce off the study’s vaulted ceiling. My voice sounds like raw fury and desperation wrapped in whiskey-soaked pain. “Because she turned you against us! Made you forget your loyalty, your duty?—”
“She made me remember what it felt like to be human. She helped me remember that there’s more to life than…” He gestures broadly to the entire study, the entire mansion. The Consortium.
I hold my throbbing head. The fucking walls feel like they’re closing in. “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I grumble. “She made her choice when she came here. When she’s done carrying my child, I’m sending her away. Maybe I won’t kill her for your sake, but she can’t be here. I will be the one raising that child. No one else.”
I watch my brother’s face undergo a metamorphosis—shock to disbelief to rage so pure it’s almost holy. His blue eyes, usually so neutral, blaze with something that makes my spine straighten.
“You’ll do no such thing.” He struggles to his feet, and I can see what it costs him. The wound must pull on him because fresh pain tightens around his mouth. He stands anyway. His voice has gone deadly quiet, the kind of quiet that preceded Father’s worst violence. “You will not separate Aurelia from her child.”
“It’s not her child.” I’m on my feet too now, facing him across a chasm that feels wider than the few feet of bear-skin rug between us. “It’smine. A Harrow heir, not some bastard to be raised by a whore who seduced both of us.”
He moves like lightning—healed more than I’d realized—closing the distance before my drunken reflexes can react. Suddenly we’re chest to chest, his breath hot on my cheeks, those burning eyes boring into mine.
“Say that again,” he spits in my face. “Call her a whore and see what happens.”
