Page 29 of His to Destroy

My chest tightens. “You expected him to look a bit more like his father?”

He flinches, and I instantly regret it.

“I’m sorry...” I begin with a sigh.

“Don’t be.”

We sit in silence for a while.

“You know,” he says after a moment, “when I was his age, I thought my father was a god.”

His tone is quiet, but there’s a shadow in it.

I lower the book. “Did he treat you like a son?”

He laughs bitterly. “He treated me like a weapon.”

The words linger.

He sets his coffee down, and for a moment, I see something unguarded in his face.

“I was nine when he showed me my first execution,” he says. “He said, ‘This is what power looks like.’ And I didn’t blink. I didn’t cry. He called me a born leader.”

I swallow. “That’s not leadership.”

“I know that now.”

His voice is calm, but I see the war behind his eyes.

“By fifteen, I’d been trained to kill, negotiate, bribe, and blackmail. I knew which of our allies would betray us eventually, and how to make an example out of the ones who tried. But I didn’t know how to sleep without locking my bedroom door.”

I want to hate him. I want to hold onto that anger I’ve nurtured for years.

But I find myself leaning forward instead.

“You grew up in it,” I say quietly. “You didn’t get a choice.”

He meets my gaze. “You did. And that’s what makes you different. That’s why you’re good for him. Luca doesn’t know fear like we did. And I never want him to.”

A strange ache settles in my chest.

“I hated you,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“There were nights I dreamed about finding you, about screaming in your face. About asking you why. Why you read my diary and chose to believe I was a weapon. Why you dragged me out like I was filth.”

He closes his eyes, and I see it—that same shame I’ve seen flicker through him when he watches Luca too long.

“I was a coward,” he murmurs. “And I thought I was being clever. I thought you were sent to manipulate me. I couldn’t imagine anyone looking at me without an angle.”

My throat burns. “And then you left me there.”

He nods. “And someone else found you.”

“I told myself I didn’t need to know what happened next,” he says. “But the truth is, I’ve thought about it every day since. The alley. Your blood. Your silence.”

The tension between us crackles.