To ruin an Omega novel Chapter 437

Chapter 437: The One Left Behind

GABRIEL

The cell door slammed shut behind me, and the sound rang through the stone walls like a final judgment. I stood there for a moment, hands clenched at my sides, trying to ground myself in the cold bite of the floor beneath my bare feet. Blood still dripped from my nose, warm and sticky as it trailed over my lips.

My body didn’t feel like mine anymore, even though I had regained a lot of control back, thanks to that girl’s gifts.

But I could still feel him there, lurking just beneath the surface of my thoughts. Aldric. My brother. The presence pressed against the inside of my skull, patient and deliberate, like he was waiting for me to slip.

I moved to the far corner of the cell and sank down against the wall, resting my head back against the stone. The impact sent a dull throb through my skull, but I welcomed it. Pain meant I was still here. Still fighting.

"You cannot keep this up forever, Gabriel."

His voice slithered through my mind, smooth and familiar in the worst possible way. It carried the same tone he had used when we were younger, when he would explain something to me like I was slow to understand.

I didn’t answer him. Talking to him felt like giving ground, and I had so little left to give.

"Nothing to say?" he continued, his voice threading deeper into my thoughts. "That is unlike you. You always had something clever on your tongue. Some quip. Some observation meant to cut without drawing blood."

My fingers dug into my palms, nails biting into skin.

"Why?" The word tore out of me before I could stop it. "Just tell me why. What was all of this for? Forget the bullshit you said to Cian and just be honest here."

Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. Then he laughed, and the sound reverberated through my head until I thought my skull would crack open.

"You want to understand?" His voice dropped lower, intimate in a way that made my stomach turn. "You want me to explain it to you like we are still brothers sharing secrets in the dark?"

"We were brothers," I said, the words scraping past my throat. "We were family, for fuck’s sake."

"Family." He turned the word over like something rotten. "Is that what you think we were? How touching. How utterly naive."

The pressure in my head increased, pushing against my temples until black spots danced across my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

"Do you know what it is like," he began, his voice taking on a quality I had never heard before, something that might have been vulnerability if it were not wrapped in so much venom, "to be told from birth that you are not enough? That you are the spare of the spare. The backup plan of the backup plan. The one that exists and was kept around in case something happens to the important sons, and even at that, they feared you would never live up to what you were quite literally made for because you still weren’t born in the right position."

My jaw tightened. "I was a spare too. You know that. I lived it the same way you did."

"No." The word cracked through my thoughts like a whip. "You did not. You were closer to power and privilege than I ever was. You stood one step behind our brother while I stood three steps behind you. Because even Cian was closer to that power than I ever was going to be. Mother and even father did not have the conversations that they had with me, glad that you two were competent and strong enough that they did not have to worry about me. Because I could be the small unachiever they believed I was destined to be. You were the beloved second son. I was the forgotten third."

I opened my eyes and stared at the opposite wall, focusing on the rough texture of the stone. Anything to anchor myself.

"That is not true," I said quietly. "Father loved you. Mother loved you."

"Love." He spat the word like poison. "They loved the idea of a complete family. Three strong sons to carry on the bloodline. But when it came down to it, when decisions needed to be made, when power needed to be distributed, where was I? Always on the outside. Always watching. Always hearing the whispers."

The memories came then, not mine but his, bleeding through the connection between us. I saw flashes of overheard conversations, servants muttering about the spare who would never amount to anything. Council members dismissing his ideas before he finished speaking. Our parents exchanging glances when he entered a room, the kind that said they were hoping he would leave soon.

My chest tightened.

"I should have noticed," I said, the words coming out rough. "I should have seen you were struggling. I could have helped you. I could have saved you from this."

"Saved me?" His laughter filled my head again, colder this time. "Oh, Gabriel. You still do not understand. I did not need saving. I needed purpose. And I found it."

I pushed myself forward, away from the wall, and wrapped my arms around my knees. The cell felt smaller now, the walls pressing in.

"Cian will find Fia," I said, forcing conviction into my voice. "Whatever you have planned, it will not work. He will save her."

"Will he?" Aldric’s voice turned contemplative. "I wonder. Northern Ridge has already received my letter. Lily of the Valley, too. And though that one may take a bit longer to bear fruit... No matter what happens now, that girl has a target on her back. She will become property, or she will die. Those are her only options."

My hands curled into fists against my legs.

"The runes are half broken," I said. "Your plan is falling apart. You are trapped in here with me, and when this is over, you will die knowing you failed."

"Failed?" He sounded almost amused. "Even if I die today, I die a happy man. I set things in motion that cannot be stopped. I showed them all what a spare of a spare could do when properly motivated."

I leaned my head back against the wall again and stared at the ceiling. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify