I looked down at my dust-gray clothes.
Do I really not care for nice things?
Don't I like perfume? Don't I like silk? Don't I like bright, beautiful dresses?
I remembered the year Old Mr. Gilbert passed away. Barnaby was just a teenager then, and every faction in the city circled like vultures, hungry to seize the Governor's Residence.
During one assassination attempt, I took a blade meant for him.
I happened to be wearing a white cheongsam that day.
The blood turned it red.
Barnaby was terrified. For nights afterward, he burned with fever, thrashing through nightmares.
After that, I replaced everything in my wardrobe with dark military uniforms. Easier to fight in. And when you're wounded, the bloodstains don't show.
Later, as things stabilized, I'd sometimes think about dressing up again. I'd linger at the ladies' cosmetics counter in the department store, fingers hovering over compacts and lipsticks.
But then I'd remember the sweat and grime of the barracks, and I'd walk away.
It wasn't that I didn't want these things.
It was that I couldn't let myself want them.
Barnaby's voice drifted out from the room, mingled with the rustle of fabric.
"Women should act like women. The ones who have to prove themselves, who insist on outdoing men at everything—" He made a sound of disgust. "Revolting."
Carolyn giggled, a breathy, simpering sound.
In that moment, the three of us shared a perfect, unspoken understanding.
No name was mentioned.
But we all knew exactly which woman he found revolting.
I stepped back.
A chill spread through my chest.
He'd forgotten, apparently. Forgotten the night he burned with fever and no doctor would come—how I carried him on my back through ten miles of pouring rain to find one.
Forgotten the time he was captured by bandits. How I rode in alone, guns blazing, and dragged him out from a pile of corpses.
All those years of bullets and bloodshed, with me charging ahead to clear his path.
And this was my reward. Revolting.
My hands began to tremble.
Then I heard him say: "A woman who knows how to depend on a man—now that's a smart woman."
"She'll figure it out soon enough."
Carolyn asked why he was so certain.
Barnaby's voice dropped, smug and conspiratorial.
"I have a secret."
"I'll only tell you."
"The man who slaughtered her family? I found him five years ago."
"But I'll never tell her. She can spend her whole life searching and never know."
"She'll have to beg me—"
Whatever he said after that, I couldn't hear.
A deafening roar filled my skull, like something had detonated inside my head.
My whole body shook. I grabbed the corridor pillar just to stay upright.
When my family was massacred, I nearly died trying to take the killers down with me. If Old Mr. Gilbert hadn't saved me, I would have.
After I came to the Governor's Residence, Barnaby consumed most of my energy. In a way, he diluted my grief.
But I never forgot. Not for one day.
He knew this. He knew it was the wound that never healed.
When I woke screaming from nightmares, he would hold me. "Don't be afraid. I'm here."
"Your enemies are my enemies."
"I'll find whoever did this. I'll make them pay."
I still remember the way he looked when he said those words. His eyes rimmed red. His face twisted with anguish and rage on my behalf.
He searched relentlessly. He even dealt with gangs he despised, trading favors for the smallest lead.
But every trail went cold.
I thought it was fate.
I never imagined he was the one making sure I'd never find the truth.
I stumbled away from the main courtyard.
Only one thought pounded through my mind:
I will find that man myself. I will drag him back. And the Shen family will have their justice.
I used Nat's connections and tore through every corner of Port Haven.
But I never expected Barnaby to have hidden the man in the dungeon beneath the Governor's Residence.
So close. He'd been so close to me all along.
I stormed toward the dungeon.
Along the way, I imagined a thousand ways to take my revenge.
But when I arrived—
