Page 67 of Decimation

Peace. The word is an obscenity in his mouth. I know it’s a lie. The Esau’s ambitions have always been clear; to dismantle my family’s legacy, to seize our power, to rewrite all the rules. Ines’s death changes nothing. If anything, it makes them more dangerous, a predator with a fresh taste of triumph. But I don’t say that. Instead I tilt my head, feigning curiosity, letting the hint of a mocking tone ring out.

“And what would that look like?” I ask.

Ezekiel spreads his hands, ever the showman, even when he doesn’t have an audience to witness it. “Unity. Strength. The Heseltine’s and the Esau, united under one banner once more. Think of what we could achieve. The power we could wield.”

I step closer to him, my gaze hard. I let the distance between us shrink until I can see the tiny, dilated vessels in his eyes, the faint sheen of sweat on his brow. I wonder if any of her tears dried on this skin, I wonder if he ever made her scream until her voice broke. I wonder what it would feel like to peel the flesh from his bones in long, careful, deliberate strips.

“And what price would you ask for this unity?”

He hesitates just for a moment, just for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough. I see the calculation in his eyes, the hunger. Oh, he wants something. Something more than unity. Something more than just power. Perhaps a new toy. Perhaps he has no idea that I’ve already taken his broken bird into my keeping, that I’ve pressed my mouth to the very wounds he carved into her soul.

Before he can answer, the sound of something echoes in the corridor outside. Ezekiel’s smile falters.

“Think about it,” he says, his voice low. “You have everything to gain and nothing to lose, Lazarus.”

And then he’s gone, disappearing into the darkness as if he were never there, leaving only an aftertaste of rage. I turn to see Zayn approaching, his expression serious.

“Grand Master,” he says, bowing his head slightly. “I’ve just received a message from Antonio. There’s been an incident. His castle has been attacked. He is flying to the US as we speak, and he is bringing the boy with him.”

Ezra. Ezra was in danger, no, is in danger.

Did Ezekiel know this, was this part of his plan, attack Antonio while whispering pretty poison into my ear? No, he couldn’t have known Ezra was there. No one knows Ezra is there. No one but me, Konstantine, and Zayn. It’s a coincidence, a lucky one but a coincidence nonetheless.

“We need to leave.” I state. Thank God this meeting is done, and I can fly back without having any lingering issues to resolve.

The engine of the car hums softly beneath me, a low, steady vibration that does nothing to calm the storm brewing in my chest. The private airstrip stretches out before me. I landed barely an hour ago and have been sat here waiting ever since, my body a cathedral of old festering wounds, my mind a confessional I can never quite leave.

My breath fogs in front of me as I watch the door of the plane open. The first to descend is Mateus, Antonio’s younger brother. His face is grim, his usual stoicism replaced by a tension that makes my jaw tighten until my teeth creak. He turns back toward the plane, extending a hand to guide someone down the steps and my pulse becomes a slow, dreadful drumbeat as he steps out.

Ezra.

My breath catches in my throat as I see him for the first time in so many years. The boy is taller than I remember, but that is to be expected. His frame is lean but strong, like a willow that has learned to bend so it will not break. His dark hair is tousled, his eyes wide and cautious as he takes in his surroundings, and in them I see the ghost of my own terror reflected back at me, the terror of a child who learned too early what this world is capable of. He looks so much like my father that it’s almost painful to look at him but there’s something else there too, her influence. Ines’s darker skin, her sharp cheekbones, the architecture of her face rising beneath his like the ruins of a temple built over a place of sacrifice. He’s a blend of both worlds, a living testament to the union that almost destroyed us all, a child made flesh from the particular hell she crafted with my body as her cursed altar.

The word ’union’ is a lie my mind offers to protect itself. There was no union. There was only the hot press of her will, the invasion, the way she took what she wanted while I lay bound in the dark, my own desire twisted into something poison-sweet that still curdles at the back of my throat when I let myself remember.

She forged him inside me. No, inside the hollowed-out shell of the boy I used to be, using my body as a vessel for a future I never consented to carry.

And yet he is here, and the sight of him fills me not with the revulsion I should feel, but with something far more terrifying; a love so fierce it feels like possession, an awe so profound it borders on worship.

Mateus helps him down the steps, his hand resting lightly on his shoulder, and my fists clench at my sides. I don’t trust Mateus. Not now, not ever. He’s always been too eager to ingratiate himself, too quick to offer favours that stink of ambition. He’s ridden the coattails of his brother for long enough that he thinks it makes him equal, but Mateus is not Antonio and he never will be. He is a pale imitation at best.

I shake my head, shake those thoughts away because I don’t have time to dwell on that now. My focus is on Ezra. On my… no, I don’t know it for sure. I don’t, no matter what I suspect the case to be.

One of my men opens the car door, and Mateus guides Ezra toward it. The boy hesitates for a moment, his eyes darting toward me, and I feel that look like a hand pressed to the back of my neck, intimate and threatening. I sit forward, my voice as calm as I can manage considering the circumstances.

“Ezra. Come here.”

He obeys, his movements tentative but steady, and something in the way he approaches chokes me. It’s the trust of the condemned, the muscle memory of a child who has learned to walk toward his fate without flinching, because flinching only ever made it worse.

Mateus helps him into the car and I do my best to ignore him entirely as he gets in after him, treating his presence like a foul smell I refuse to acknowledge.

“How are you, Ezra?” I ask, my voice softer now. “Are you tired? Hungry?”

He doesn’t answer. His eyes meet mine, but there’s no recognition there, no warmth, just a guarded stillness that makes my chest ache like a bruise pressed in confession. In those eyes I see the echo of my own silence, the years I spent locked inside myself because of what she did, the words burned out of me by shame and pain until only the hollow chamber remained.

But Ezra’s silence is different; it isn’t absence, it’s a sealed vault, a sacred container for horrors too vast to be spoken.

Mateus clears his throat beside him. “He still doesn’t speak,” he says, his tone almost apologetic, as if he’s giving me weather news and not confirmation of the damage carved into my child’s soul.