Justin stared at the man standing before him and for the first time in his life, the arrogance that had been his armor was stripped away. He looked at Jonathan and felt a primal urge to apologize to his parents. Not for his crimes, but for the monster he had become, a creature now facing a predator far more efficient than himself.
Despite the terror, a flicker of Vance pride remained. He hoped, perhaps delusionally that he might survive Jonathan’s brutality. But the physical reality was nothing compared to the agony throbbing in his leg. Painkillers were a luxury reserved for men who still had a future. He clamped his jaw shut, his hands instinctively coming up to clutch at his chest where the flesh was raw and oozing after a desperate, failed attempt to scrub out the mark of the Salvator
