Chapter 114
“So what?” My voice shakes. “My ex–husbands? Eric? Were those just the scraps I left behind? Should I thank you for sleeping with every single man I ever loved? With the man I was going to build a life with? A family?”
Céline flinches like the words slap her – but she doesn’t stop.
“You would’ve moved on!” she screams. “You always do! You’d cry, you’d spiral, you’d burn for a bit but then you’d land on your feet like you always do. Another guy would come along, another ring, another perfect chapter in the Lacey Show – and I‘ d be right back where I always am. Watching. Waiting. Forgotten.”
My voice is ice. “And you would’ve fucked him too, wouldn’t you? Just to feel like you’d won. Because you don’t want them. You just want whatever I have.”
Céline doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t blink.
“Yes.”
The silence that follows is violent.
And I think that hurts more than anything she’s ever said.
Because there it is. No excuses. No denial. Just the raw, ugly truth.
She never wanted them.
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She just wanted to ruin me.
“You always thought you were better than me,” she spits. “That‘ s what you think now, right? That I’m pathetic. Trash. Gum under your fucking designer shoe. But I don’t care anymore, Lacey. You took everything. And then you made me say thank you for it.”
I blink. My brain stutters over her words like they don’t make
sense.
“Is that really what you believe?” My voice comes out low. Dangerous. “That I got here because life just handed me everything on a silver platter? That I haven’t scraped and clawed for every inch of peace I’ve ever had?”
She falters – but not for long.
My laugh cuts through the air like broken glass. Even I flinch at how cruel it sounds.
“I’ve never been a natural. Not once. I’ve failed more times than you’ve bothered to try. But I got up. Over and over. While you were too busy sniffing around my exes or stealing opportunities like a goddamn parasite. Maybe if you’d spent half as much time building something of your own as you did tearing down what was mine, you’d have something left to stand on now.”
Her face tightens, but I’m not done.
“You told me you were getting a part–time job,” I say, voice cracking. “Turns out it was aiding a sexual predator and leaking lies to the press. That’s not survival, Céline. That’s betrayal. That’s being a coward.”
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I take a step forward.
“And what was all that money for, huh? Were you going to buy a statue of me and piss on it to prove you finally won?”
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. Just stares at me like she doesn’t know me anymore.
“I loved you,” I say, and the words burn all the way up. “I loved you, Céline. Do you understand what that means? Do you have any idea what it cost me to let you in?”
My voice breaks.
“God, I loved you.”
“No,” she says, like she’s correcting a child. “You pitied me.”
It lands like a slap. A final one. The kind that doesn’t sting so much as hollow you out.
But I’m done clinging to ghosts. My baby. Eric. Now Céline.
Everything I hold onto rots in my hands.
“Fuck you,” I say, smiling like it’s the punchline to a long, cruel joke. “You want money, right? Hundred thousand? Fifty?” I close the distance, until I can smell her perfume – the one she let me borrow just days ago. Apricot, almost. Sweet with something sour beneath. Like her.
I grab her collar and yank her close. There’s fire in my veins now. It burns hotter than tequila, purer than rage.
“Let’s do this the old way, shall we?”
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Her eyes flicker – recognition, then fear. She remembers. Our favourite little game. It was never serious, not really. Not when we were younger. Not when I had something to lose.
But my father didn’t teach me for fun. He taught me how to survive. How to end a life if I had to.
And I think, maybe for the first time… I want to.
“Russian roulette,” I say, calm as ice. “If you’re lucky, you take Stone and leave this ship. I’ll wire fifteen million to a Swiss account of your choosing. More than enough for plastic surgery, a new passport, a new face so I never have to see your
―
rotting soul behind those pretty eyes again.“.
Céline exhales, sharp and shallow. “And if I’m not lucky?”
I smile.
Madness curls at the edges of my mind like smoke, sweet and slow.
“Then I put a bullet between your eyes,” I say. “And for the first time in your miserable life, you won’t be able to lie your way out of it.”
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