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I press my mouth to the top of Zaiya’s head.

“I’m sorry.” My voice breaks. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

I squeeze her as if I can bring her into my body and keep her there. Make us one thing the world can’t separate.

Her hands twist in my shirt.

“I don’t want to leave you.” It comes out as a sob. All that strength finally cracking.

I pull her back to see her face. Tears make clean tracks through the soot on her cheeks. Her eyes are red-rimmed, fury and pain sitting there.

“I love you, Zaiya,” I say, the confession ripping out of me. “I’m not letting you go.”

A smile tries to form on her mouth.

“I love you too.”

My chest aches, my ribs expanding with the fullness of my heart.

Then Marcus appears next to us, the timing cruel as always.

He looks at Zaiya with startled delight. “Hey, Edwin told us you were dead.”

Her brow furrows, but he doesn’t give her a chance to ask questions.

“This reunion is touching, but do you want a piece of Frank before we fucking kill him?”

My spine straightens. “What? I thought he ran.”

Marcus points towards the cemetery. “Yeah, he ran out. Right into my arms.”

By the flare of the burning church, I see my brothers holding Frank against our family mausoleum.

And then, as if the world wants to give me a gift for surviving, the roof of the church caves in with a thunderous crash. Sparks plume up into the night like confetti.

Beautiful.

I grin as I look down at Zaiya. But she’s changed. In her eyes, a new darkness has taken root. Still, she looks up at me through her lashes, no longer soft enough to mistake for harmless.

“Kill him.”

Two words, and purpose surges through me.

I obey her. Gladly. I need to make him suffer. For touching her. For hurting my mother. For killing my father.

I take Zaiya’s hand so she feels that I’m here. She’s not alone in this.

We hurry across the cemetery, weaving through crooked stones. The air is clearer over here, though smoke still drifts low over the graves.

Frank’s face is swollen and bloody. Busted lip. Two black eyes. Lucian drives a fist into his gut, and Frank coughs, folding forward, but Reese and Tristan hold him up, keeping him pinned against the white marble.

“Brother,” I say matter-of-factly. “We’ve gathered here to offer you a chance to confess your sins. Atone and beg our forgiveness.”

Frank lifts his head with effort. His mouth twists.

“We came out of the same whore, but we are not brothers.”

My hand curls. It takes everything I have not to hit him until he forgets his birth name.