"You have one job," Alistair seethed, backing his brother against the wall. "Stay out of my way. You've just failed."
The storm had broken. The quiet, wounded man from the library was gone, replaced by a vortex of pure, incandescent rage. He'd found Julian in the billiards room, pouring another drink, his hands still shaking from their earlier encounter. Alistair moved with a predator's speed, crossing the room in three long strides and slamming Julian back against the polished oak paneling. A rack of cues rattled precariously.
"Ali — wait —" Julian stammered, his face pale, the flask-induced courage evaporating under the heat of his brother's fury.
"You drunken fool," Alistair's voice was a low, venomous whisper, his forearm pressed against Julian's throat, not enough to choke, but enough to dominate, to imprint his absolute authority. "What did you say to her? What poison did you drip in her ear?"
"I didn't — I only told her the truth! That you're obsessed! That you're using her to fight a ghost!"
"The truth?" Alistair laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "You don't know the truth. You never had the stomach for it. You drowned it, gambled it away, buried it under a mountain of debt and self-pity." He leaned in closer, his face inches from his brother's. "The only job you had in this entire, miserable plan was to stay silent. To be the charming, useless brother. And you couldn't even do that."
"This isn't a plan anymore, Alistair! It's a sickness! Look at you! Look at what you're doing to her! To yourself!"
"She is mine!" The roar echoed in the high-ceilinged room. "My revenge. My ruin. Mine to break when and how I see fit! You do not get to interfere. You do not get to offer her your pathetic sympathy. You are nothing in this equation. Less than nothing."
The raw possession in his words, the complete erasure of her humanity, was a chilling testament to how far he'd fallen into his own design. He shoved away from Julian with a sound of disgust, leaving him slumped against the wall, gasping.
The rage didn't subside; it simply found a new target. It burned through him, a wildfire seeking fuel. He stormed through the hallways, a force of nature leaving destruction in his wake. Servants melted into doorways, sensing the danger. The very house seemed to hold its breath.
He found her in her room, standing by the window, watching the moon paint a silver path on the churning ocean. She turned as he entered, her face a pale oval in the dim light, her eyes wide but unyielding. She had asked the question. She had stood her ground. And in doing so, she had become more than a pawn; she had become a worthy adversary, a mirror reflecting back the monster he'd become.
He didn't speak. He just stalked toward her, his chest heaving, the chaos in his eyes a terrifying sight. He was a man coming undone, the carefully constructed fortress of his revenge crumbling under the weight of a truth he could no longer contain.
He stopped before her, so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell the whiskey on his breath and the faint, clean scent of his skin that was uniquely, painfully him.
"You want to know about the note?" he said, his voice trembling with a maelstrom of rage and a grief so profound it shook the very foundations of his being. He reached into his inner jacket pocket, his movements jerky, and pulled out a worn, creased piece of paper, folded and refolded so many times the edges were soft as cloth.
He didn't hand it to her gently. He thrust it at her, his knuckles white, his entire arm shaking.
"Read it," he snarled, the words a raw, broken confession. "Then tell me I don't have the right to hate you."