KAYROS'S POV
221 Lashes
I stay on my knees as the final strike lands, tearing another ragged stripe across my back. Pain shoots down my spine like lightning. My skin is shredded, raw and bloody—like a beast clawed straight through to the bone.
Across the room, Killian Volkov looks like he's about to be sick. My father's personal executioner steps back, his hands stained with my blood, his eyes strangely hollow. He didn't enjoy this.
Funny, how these men seem to care for me more than my own father, who sent them here to carry out my punishment.
Alexander rushes forward, his voice frantic. "Hold still."
I let out a tired, pained laugh. It doesn't help. Nothing does. The dark basement of the Nathaniel estate reeks of old smoke and fresh blood, the smell thick enough to make my head spin and my stomach churn.
"The Boss believes you sent assassins after Madam Helen and the young ladies," Uncle Killian says, unable to look at me as Alexander and three other medics begin working on my back.
I bite down on my tongue, my eyes squeezed shut against the searing agony as needles pierce my torn flesh.
Only after Alexander finishes stitching and bandaging do I find my voice again.
"Who told him that?"My words are rough, stripped of their usual edge.
Uncle Killian runs a hand through his hair, his sigh long and weary. "The Boss didn't give a name. But as far as I know, Madam's older brother met with him privately after the incident."
I don't know which piece of information burns worse.
The fact that my first move against Ophelia and the Blackwoods failed so spectacularly that I'm lying here flayed open.
Or that my step-uncle—the man I despise—flew all the way to my father's Monaco estate just to whisper poison in his ear.
Alexander grips my shoulder. "Don't move."
I shrug him off and stand. My spine screams in protest, my body begging me to collapse.
"Interesting,"I say, my voice flat.
Uncle Killian shifts uneasily. "Kayros, what are you planning?"
I don't know what he sees in my eyes as I straighten up, blood seeping through the bandages and soaking into my pants. The pain isn't a weakness now—it's fuel.
"Nothing, Uncle," I reply with a cold smile.
He steps back instinctively, his face pale. I turn my gaze to the executioner, who stands with his head bowed, hands clasped behind his back.
"I won't kill you.Don't worry."
He flinches, then exhales deeply, as if he'd been preparing for his own funeral.
My father is playing the same treacherous game he played in our past life—the one that got him, his precious wife, and his darling daughters killed in the end.
Helen Nathaniel. The woman for whom my father abandoned my mother to die.
Everyone says it was a gang war that left my mother paralyzed.
They're wrong.
It was my own fucking father, making his choice. Helen was his first love, but their families couldn't agree on the marriage. So he married my mother and had me.
People in the mansion whisper that he adored her. That he was devoted through her pregnancy. The old butler claims, "Your father never strayed, not like the others."
But when attackers stormed the Berlin New Year's Ball, my father chose to save his first love instead.
I was only three years old when I lost my mother to a coma… and my father to her.
And since that day, a cold, simmering rage has lived inside me. A thirst for revenge that forged me into the monster I am.
"Kay… you need to rest," Alexander whispers cautiously.
I ignore him.
Barefoot, I walk across the cold marble floor, leaving faint, bloody footprints behind me. My body is a map of pain, but the cold barely registers.
Czar is waiting at the top of the stairs. His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle ticking. His eyes track the blood soaking through my pants.
"Do you want me to kill him?"
The ice in Czar's voice is unusual. He's always been the calm one, the one who never loses his cool. But right now, the rims of his eyes are red, and his hands are curled into fists at his sides.
Czar Volkov's anger isn't loud. It's the quiet before the tsunami.
"Unless you want the entire Volkov family labeled as traitors," I mutter, shaking my head.
Czar curses under his breath and falls into step beside me.
"Your father is a bastard."
I almost smile. Few would dare call the Mafia King a bastard to his son's face.
"Did you find out who stopped the hit?" I ask.
Czar nods, leaning closer. "Thomas Ivanov. Capo of the 34th Regiment of White Rose."
I stop walking.
The 34th Regiment. Thirty elite fighters. Four master hackers. White Rose's sharpest blade, the ones who leave a "7" as their calling card.
The pain in my body suddenly feels distant.
Czar continues, "Raphael Blackwood had Thomas shadowing Ophelia that day. They intercepted the assassins from the mobile towers before they could get close."
And it clicks.
It wasn't my step-uncle who snitched.
It was Raphael Blackwood.
Or, more accurately… the woman wearing Ophelia's face.
A rough, humorless laugh escapes me.
She's good.
In our past life, Raphael would never have deployed Thomas and the 34th to protect Ophelia in secret. He didn't care enough.
"Why are you laughing?" Czar frowns, looking me over as if I've lost my mind.
My back is on fire.
My skin is screaming.
But I don't feel hate for her.
Only a sharp,grudging respect.
"Seems my little fiancée is in play mode," I say softly.
"Ophelia? What does she have to do with this?" Czar's confusion is genuine. The Ophelia he knows is a quiet, overlooked girl, unloved by her own family.
But the truth is, I know it without doubt:
In this generation of mafia heirs,she is the true mastermind. A cold, tactical queen who doesn't fire guns—she makes empires fight for her.
But I am no one's pawn.
"How are the engagement preparations?" I ask, changing the subject.
"Smooth. But the Dimitri family wasn't invited—"
"Invite them.The Dimitris and the Jonas family," I cut in, a cruel smirk touching my lips.
"Why?" Czar asks, rubbing his palms together before shoving them into his pockets.
Outside, snow falls silently, blanketing the world in a deceptive calm. The contrast between the peace outside and the storm in my mind is almost poetic.
What a delicious irony.
"Consider it a little gift," I say quietly. "For my dear father… and my beautiful fiancée."
A gift that will leave them trembling with rage and drowning in humiliation.