(Alessandro’s POV)
Confusion, a fleeting but deeply satisfying emotion, flickered across my brother’s face. He had built his entire strategy around a binary choice: his death, which would trigger the apocalypse of my empire, or my retreat, which would be his victory. The idea that I would choose a third path, one not accounted for in his meticulous, hateful calculations, had clearly not occurred to him. His smug smile faltered.
“Take your life back?” Cassian scoffed, though the sound lacked its earlier conviction. “It’s a bit late for that, brother. My roots are in too deep. You can’t pull them out without killing the tree.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, my voice a low, chillingly calm counterpoint to the silent hum of his stolen empire around us. “You think these screens, this d
