Page 165 of Incoronate
Almost.
Don’t you dare, angel. Dominic’s voice slid through my mind like cold steel.
I drew in a breath that didn’t reach the bottom of my lungs.
“You are a small, frightened man, William,” I said, the words leaving me low and almost soft, the way you spoke to something that didn’t deserve the volume of your voice.
“I am only doing what your father would not.”
“You don’t get to say his name.”
“I have made my peace with what I am, Jemma.” His voice was almost gentle. “I am asking you to do the same.”
I took a step toward the desk.
Trace’s hand tightened on my arm, but I shook him off without looking back at him.
“You think you’ve outplayed me,” I said, taking another step toward him. “You think because you’ve got a knife to forty thousand throats, I’m going to walk out of this room and let you live.”
“I am asking you to be the better version of yourself.”
“There is no better version of me, William. That girl died a long fucking time ago.” My hand was at my side, my fingers curling into my palms. “You should know. You’re the one who killed her.”
He didn’t answer.
Angel. Dominic’s voice this time, low and behind me. He’s not bluffing. The sigils are real. I can feel them.
I knew they were real. I’d felt them the moment William’s eyes had cut to the wall. Felt them with the same clarity with which I felt the pull of the throne and the shape of my army outside and the talisman at the back of my neck.
He’d won. Or he thought he had.
I drew another breath. Longer this time. I let it fill me up.
“Tell me something,” I said, rolling my shoulders back like I was settling into a longer conversation than he’d been planning to have. “Where exactly were you planning to be when all of this went off?”
William’s brows furrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“The sigils. The water. The forty thousand bodies.” I tilted my head. “Where were you going to be when they dropped?”
A pause.
“I do not understand the question.”
“Sure you do.” I took another step toward the desk. “See, my whole life, I’ve watched you give speeches about sacrifice. About the smaller part for the wellbeing of the whole. About how you’ve made your peace with terrible things in service of the greater good. And I watched you sit behind this desk and order them. And every single time, William, every single time, the sacrifice was somebody else.”
His jaw moved once.
“My father,” I said. “My mother. Tessa. Trace. Nikki. The baby. Forty thousand strangers in a town you’re supposed to protect.” I was at the edge of the desk now. “All of them, William. Every last one of them was the smaller part. Never you, though. Right?”
“This is not the time for—”
“So tell me.” I planted both hands flat on the desk and leaned in. “When that water hits those taps. When those forty thousand people start dying. Are you going to be in this chair? Or are you going to be at the back of the building running for the safehouse you undoubtably set up for yourself?”
His silence was the only answer I needed.
I straightened. “That’s what I thought.”
“Jemma—”
