Vicent Blackwood
I was never the kind of person who knew how to hate. Maybe because I'd never seen that emotion up close, not until I lost Reily.
Reily was everything to me. I've never been someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, never the man to open up or let anyone in. But she was different. She was the only woman I ever let see me… the real me. She understood me in ways no one ever had. She stood by me when no one else did. She saved me from myself and helped me become the man I am today.
So, when she was taken from me so suddenly, so cruelly – I finally understood what hate truly feels like.
I went from a man who thought hate was a pointless emotion to someone who breathes it, lives it, and is consumed by it.
And I have never hated anyone more in my life than Aria Grace.
The woman who killed my Reily.
"So you really did it, huh? You actually hired Reily's killer?" Nikolai's voice trembled, barely more than a rasp as he stared into his coffee. He would not meet my eyes. He never did when the memory of her was fresh.
We had been in my office for a business meeting, but somewhere between contracts and figures, we had paused for coffee. He had taken the break and then asked the question, as if he needed the answer to anchor him to the present. He cradled the cup like it might burn him. His knuckles were pale.
Nik has always loved his little sister more than reason allowed. When Reily died, he fell apart. He stopped showing up. When he did return, he looked hollowed out, like the light had gone from him. He was weak and tired and raw in a way that made my chest ache every time I thought of it.
He had been one of the few who urged me to let the law handle Aria Grace. Nik wanted her to rot. He wanted justice, clean and official. I told him I could be worse. I told him I would make her suffer in a way the courts could not. I crafted the deal knowing she would take it. I dug into her life, found every weakness, then built a sentence that fit the crime only in my court.
When I first told Nik what I planned, he would not speak to me for days. Weeks. He disappeared into himself and left me with my plotting and my rage. When he finally returned, he did not argue anymore. He listened and answered with silence or a heavy sigh. Today, forty days later, he asked about her for the first time.
He lifted his eyes at last, and they were wet, but not with tears. "How can you live with this?" he asked, the question raw and small. There was no accusation in it, only a broken plea.
I set my own cup down and watched him. There are things I have given up to make sure she pays. There are parts of me that hollow out when I think of her face. I stared at the steam rising from the coffee and said as plainly as I could, "Because she killed Reily. And because letting the law handle her would have been mercy."
His jaw clenched. He wanted retribution wrapped in statute, but he would not say the words that would let me know he thought I had gone too far. Instead, he looked away and pressed his thumb into the rim of the cup until the porcelain creaked.
We sat in that silence for a long time, two men bound by the same loss and divided by the choices we had made in its name. Nik went quiet for a moment, his eyes fixed on the untouched coffee cup between his hands. Then his voice dropped, softer, almost haunted.
"I still remember what she said at the courthouse," he murmured.
The words pulled me back, too… to that grim, echoing courtroom filled with whispers and judgment. Nik's hands trembled as he spoke, his gaze unfocused like he was standing there all over again.
"She looked right at me, Vince," he said. "Her eyes were swollen, red… she was crying so hard she could barely speak, but she still looked at me and said, 'I didn't kill her. Please believe me.'"
He swallowed hard, his knuckles whitening around the coffee cup. "She said it over and over, as if she said it enough times, I'd believe her. I didn't say a word back then. I just... stood there and watched them take her away."
The memory clearly unsettled him. It unsettled me too, but not the way it did him.
"And you believe her?" I asked sharply, my voice low but cold enough to slice through the silence.
He hesitated. The flicker in his eyes made my blood boil. "I don't want to," he said finally, exhaling hard.
"Of course, that's what she said," I spat, anger pulsing beneath my calm tone. "What else do you expect from a killer? You think she'd tell the truth while standing over Reily's body?"
He shook his head, voice barely above a whisper. "No, but… It's strange, Vince. The way she said it. The way she looked. I just…"
"Nothing about her is strange," I cut him off, my patience wearing thin. "They found her with Reily. Covered in her blood. Every piece of evidence points to her. What other proof do you need?"
Nik's jaw tensed. "I'm not saying she's innocent," he said quietly. "I just... I don't want to live in a world where someone could lose everything for something they didn't do. Even if it's her."
He looked up at me then, and for the first time, I saw something in his eyes that shook me… a doubt I couldn't tolerate.
I leaned back, trying to steady the fury burning in my chest. "You're letting guilt cloud your memory, Nik. She killed your sister. Don't forget that."
He looked away, his silence saying more than words ever could. After a long breath, he pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a tired, hollow laugh. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Maybe I am overthinking this."
Then he met my eyes again, wary and wounded. "So what are you doing with her, Vince? What exactly is your plan that you think will be worse than prison?" He leaned forward, voice low. "And why only one year? The court could have given her twenty-five. Why offer her a year, pay her, and let her see her family? That sounds nothing like punishment."
I could hear the accusation under every question. He had every right to ask. Reily was his sister. He had every right to want the law to do its work.
I let the steam from my coffee fog for a second before I answered, keeping my voice even and quiet. "Because one year is all I need to break her," I said. My words were measured, cold with intention.
He blinked, disbelief written across his face. "What do you mean?"
There were truths I could not say, at least not yet. I leaned back and folded my hands on the table. "I can't explain everything over coffee, Nik. If you want to see how this plays out, come to dinner on Saturday. Watch. See for yourself." I leaned forward when Nik didn't respond, resting my elbows on the desk. "She took everything from me, Nik. I'm not giving her the peace of a cell. I want her to remember Reily every time she breathes. I want her to live with what she did."
He didn't respond right away. Then, slowly, he nodded, though something flickered in his eyes. "You've changed, Vincent. You used to be the calm one between us. The rational one."
"I still am," I replied coldly.
He studied me for a long time, as if searching for the man I used to be. Then he sighed and got up. "You want me to believe this is justice, but it sounds like revenge." I didn't reply to him. After a few seconds of silence, he heaved a sigh. The conflict in him was obvious. Then he nodded slowly. "Fine," he said at last. "I'll be there."
That night, I did not return until well past midnight. I was in no hurry to get home, not that it would have mattered. I had rules for Aria Grace that most would call inhumane. They were that and more, and I accepted the weight of that judgment. But those rules were not cruel for cruelty's sake. They were deliberate, carved from loss and a need to make sure no one could ever take from me what Reily had taken.
She was not a servant in my mind. She was my sentence, given by her own choice. I did not punish her because I enjoyed it. I punished her because of her crime against my loved one. I needed her to understand the cost of what she has done.
I wanted her to know that when I love, I give my soul. But when I hate, in the name of the one I lost, I burn with every atom of me.
Tonight, I had dinner with a client and returned late on purpose. I did not tell the household where I had been. I liked the small authority of making her wait, of letting hunger settle into her until the moment I decided she could eat. It was a small thing, but it was mine.
When I entered the kitchen, she was there, worn and pale, moving mechanically among the pots. The instant she heard my steps, she brightened in a way that almost made something inside me falter. Her tired eyes lit up with the kind of small, grateful hope… hope for a meal and finally some rest, and for a second, the heat behind my anger thinned into something dangerous and soft.
I did not let that softness stay, "I have already eaten," I said, and was quick to turn around and walk away. My voice was flat. I walked upstairs to my room and closed the door behind me.
I could feel her there below, waiting. I could have looked back, given her a scrap of mercy, a glance that would have meant everything. I did not. Not because I did not notice, but because I could not allow myself to notice.