Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
The plans, the sacrifices, everything had been orchestrated with the precision of a war strategy.
And yet. . .as I looked at her, that nagging ache in my chest only grew.
But what if. . .
Song stepped closer.
I put my view back on him.
His jaw tightened. “Get her out of your bed. Now.”
I felt a growl rise in my throat, a dangerous sound that I swallowed down before it could ever boom out. “Do not push me, brother.”
Song narrowed his eyes and he leaned into my space, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him. “We didn’t do all of this for you.”
My teeth ground together.
Those damn words slammed into the hollowness in my chest.
“I understand that.”
“Do you, Leo?”
“You have forgot the last part of our plan.”
“And what is that?”
“Lei will still have to kill me tomorrow. I won’t make it easy for him.”
Song tilted his head to the side. “And if he doesn’t kill you?”
“Well. . .” I turned my gaze to Monique.
The thought of tomorrow, of Lei’s choice and what it meant, dug into me.
Could my son kill me? And even more. . .could I kill him?
“No. Do not look at her.” Song’s voice shifted to an almost pleading tone. “Whatever is going on in your mind. . .that is not part of the plan. We didn’t do all of this for you. We did it for Lei.”
“Still. . .I will not hand him this legacy.” I turned back to my brother and sneered. “He must take it, right from my bloodied hands.”
Song’s fists clenched at his sides. “Do not push me, Leo.”
“How could I push you?”
“You are to go into that battle and die.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m to go in that battle and fight. Lei is supposed to kill me. We all agreed. You and our sisters knew I would not make it easy on him. That is not our way.”
“Yet, nowhere in the plan was Monique sleeping in your bed—”
“I’m protecting her—”
“You or your cock?”
I deepened my sneer.
“As I said before, Leo, do not push me.”
“And if I did?” I took a step forward, daring him, testing the unspoken boundaries we both knew too well.
“You would be alone, Leo. Even our sisters are ready to kill you.”
“Good.” I formed my lips into a smile one that tasted like ashes pulling at my lips. “It would take all of you to do it.”
"You may keep that illusion of being a monster strong for everyone else but do not forget that I helped you breathe all your illusions into life.” Song glared at me. “Tomorrow, you go home to your wife. You die. That is it. Either Lei does it. Or I will do it.”
Those words struck me, unexpected and sharp.
I blinked.
My wife. . .yes. . .she is waiting. . .
I dropped my gaze to the floor.
I’m sorry, my love.
Still, I couldn’t help but whisper. “And what if Lei is right?”
“About what?”
“What if. . .when I die. . .I don’t go to heaven? What if my future is hell?”
Song sighed. “Leo, you are a soldier of God.”
"Can you guarantee that I go to heaven?”
“Only God can do that.”
“I don’t want to go to hell, brother.”
“You won’t.”
A bitter laugh clawed its way up my throat, but I swallowed it down. “If I am going to hell, then why would I want to leave tomorrow? Why not stay here and—”
“What?” Song’s voice went sharp. “Kill your son and take his future wife? No. We won’t let you.”
The silence that followed was thick, stifling, and I felt the weight of every choice I’d made pressing down on me.
I looked past Song and focused on Monique. Her chest rose and fell in a peaceful rhythm that mocked the storm in my own.
“No. . .you won’t let me.” I whispered more to myself than to him. “And. . .I should stick to the plan.”
“You should.”
“She’s not for me.”
“She’s for Lei.”
“And. . .I’ll go to heaven.”
“You will.”
But the doubt was there, like a splinter festering beneath the skin. The conflict of doing what was necessary versus what was selfish burned through me, twisting everything into an unbearable knot.
Song stepped back. “We end this tomorrow, Leo.”
"Tomorrow.” I nodded.
Soon, the dawn would come, and with it, a reckoning.
“Turn around, brother.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And do what?”
“Walk to her tent and go to sleep there.”
“I could sleep in here—”
“Next to her? No.” And to my shock, Song pulled out his blade. “Turn around, Leo. The night is over.”
My heart pounded in my chest, a rhythm as relentless as the seconds dwindling towards sunrise.
I watched as Song’s blade glinted under the dim lantern light.
Sharp.
Unforgiving.
Fear gripped me, not of the blade itself, but of what it represented—an irrevocable severance.
A finality.
Song meant business, and he would kill me if necessary.
And my sisters would surely help.
“Leo. . .I stood by you. . .watched you slice my niece’s head for the purpose of a better future for our family. . .but I will not let you cross this line.” Song lifted the blade.