Page 136 of The Arbiter
CHAPTER 28 - Madeline
I stand in the middle of Charles’s vast, silent library. The walls are lined with thousands of books, their leather spines smelling of history and dust. Outside, the sun is beginning to rise over the estate, casting long, golden shadows across the Persian rugs.
‘I am safe’. Lucy is two floors above me, sleeping in a medical suite that looks more expensive than any hospital room I’ve ever seen in my life. But as I stare at the encrypted files Charles left open on the mahogany desk, I feel the weight of the handcuffs I put on Deimos. I hurt the man who claimed to feel for me, and I aligned myself with the man who created him.
I know what Lucy said is true. I know Charles is the true evil of this misery. But as I reach out and touch the screen, beginning to sort through Deimos’s stolen data for his father, I realize the truth. I didn't choose the "good" man. I chose the man who could give me what I wanted. And now, I have to pay the bill.
I stare at the digital files on the monitor. Lines of code, encrypted blueprints, and psychological profiles. All of them belong to Deimos. Or rather, to the man Deimos used to be.
The realization I should have reached a long time ago finally surfaces. Deimos was the villain in my story, yes, but he was the hero in his own. He wasn't a serial killer hunting innocent for sport. He was a predator hunting other predators. He was burning down the empire of The Elite, casting men like Charles back into the abyss to save the lives of those they'd yet to destroy. To save women like me.
The heavy oak doors creak open. I don't have to turn around to know it is him. Charles. The air in the room shifts, becoming colder, more pressurized.
"You haven't slept, Madeline," Charles says, his voice a warm, cultured velvet that fills the vast space.
He walks toward me, stopping just a few feet away. He isn't wearing a suit anymore; he is in a dark silk robe, looking like a scholar in his private sanctuary. He places a crystal glass of amber liquid on the desk beside my hand.
As his hand retreats, the silk of his robe shifts, and my breath catches in a throat that's suddenly bone-dry. Nestled against his bare chest, sparkling in the bright light of the room, is a silver cross on a delicate chain. I'd know it anywhere. It's Deimos's.
The one he touched like a talisman when his thoughts turned dark, the only memory of the mother he'd lost to this man's world. It's an unholy sight, like seeing a holy relic draped around a demon's throat. He stripped his son of everything physical that connected him to his humanity.
My knuckles turn white as I grip the desk, my stomach churning. And it's my fault. I delivered the son to the slaughter, and the father is now wearing his trophies.
"I can't," I whisper, my eyes still fixed on the screen.
"Every time I close them, I see the look on Deimos’s face when the police tackled him. And I see Lucy’s chin..."
Charles sighs, a sound of genuine disappointment. He leans against the edge of the desk, looking down at the files of his son.
"You must stop blaming yourself for the inevitable, Madeline," he says softly.
"Deimos was always a tragedy in motion. Do you know why I had to be so hard on him?"
I look up at him, my pulse quickening.
"He said you turned him into a weapon."
Charles chuckles dryly, a sound devoid of mirth.
"I tried to contain a monster, Madeline. Even as a child, Deimos exhibited a chilling lack of empathy. He didn't play with toys; he dissected them. Including the people around him. I spent my life's fortune trying to build a cage of discipline aroundhis sociopathy. But as you saw with Lucy... the cage wasn't enough."
He reaches out, his hand hovering near mine, but he doesn't touch me.
"He manipulated you," Charles continues, his eyes boring into mine.
"He knew your kindness was your greatest strength, so he used it as a doorway. He never loved you, Madeline. He wanted a witness to his brilliance. He wanted a doctor to keep his pulse steady while he burned the world down."
I want to argue. I want to remember the way Deimos held me in the morgue, the tenderness in his thumb against my cheek. But then I remember Lucy tied to a metal grate in the dark, and my defenses crumble.
"There is something else you must understand," Charles says, his tone turning grave.
"The night you ran away with him... the night he turned his back on the Elite... you became a target. You know too much, Madeline. You witnessed the inner workings of an organization that does not permit desertion."
I feel a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck.
"Sterling and the police... they said I was safe."
"Sterling is a foot soldier," Charles scoffs, dismissively.
