Page 198 of Adam
“Look at you,” my father says, voice curling with contempt. “Crying, shaking, leaking all over my floor. You were born useless, and you’re going to die useless. You’re just the mess that refused to stay buried.”
He raises the remote. “Let’s finish this.”
He presses the button.
The blade vibrates violently in my hand. Heat surges through it. I move before I can think.
I slam the knife into the exposed joint of his mechanical leg and drive my full weight behind it.
His body locks. Then convulses. His hands claw at the knife, but his fingers won’t close right. Smoke curls up from the seam of the prosthetic.
“Fucking—” he chokes, foam and spit spraying. “You?—”
I shove the knife deeper. The metal screams. Something inside the leg pops. The smell changes. Burned wiring. Burned meat.
He collapses sideways, slamming into the floor, body jerking uncontrollably.
“Isa-Isabella?—”
I push the knife in until the handle hits metal.
“Feel that,” I whisper, leaning in close as he twitches. “That’s every fucking thing you did rotting its way back through your bones.”
His eyes roll. His body spasms one last time.
Then nothing.
The room is silent except for Adam trying to breathe.
His men look at each other. No one moves. No one speaks.
Without him, there’s no command, no reason to keep going. He kept them in line through fear, not loyalty. And now he’s a smoking corpse with a knife wound through the metal he was so proud of.
One of them steps back. Another drops his weapons.
They’re not soldiers. They were never going to die for him.
Behind me, Adam coughs. I turn back to him and drop to my knees beside the chair.
His head lolls toward me, blood still running from the side of his mouth.
Then he smirks. Again.
“Damn, little orchid,” he rasps, voice shredded. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
I let out this broken, choking sound that’s half laugh, half sob.
“You’re an idiot,” I whisper, brushing blood off his face.
His smile softens. “Yeah. But I’m your fucking idiot.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“You’re stuck with me,” he says, smug as ever. “After all that? Kind of rude to die now.”
I press my forehead to his and close my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
