She looked up at him, and her eyes were empty, hollowed out by years of guilt.

"You want to kill me? Do it. Please, God, do it. End this. Because living with what I did to you has been worse than any death you could give me."

Jorghan stood frozen, his mind churning.

This wasn't the confrontation he'd expected. He'd anticipated denial, justification, maybe rage. But this raw, broken honesty—this complete collapse of the woman he'd once loved unconditionally—he didn't know how to process it.

Maybe I should have just killed her.

Jamie—his uncle—finally spoke, his voice rough. "She's not lying. The guilt has eaten her alive. There hasn't been a single day in eighteen years where she hasn't mentioned you, hasn't questioned what she did. Some nights she drinks herself unconscious trying to forget. Other nights she stares at your old photos until dawn."

"And you?" Jorghan turned his attention to the man who'd helped orchestrate his death. "What's your excuse? What justification do you have for murdering your nephew?"

Jamie met his gaze steadily, and there was no weakness in his expression. "I don't have one. I did it because Grace asked me to, because I loved her and wanted to give her what she needed. And because some part of me resented you—resented that you got to be the heir while I was always just the brother, always second. You want to call it greed? Call it greed. You want to call it weakness? Call it that too. I'm not going to dress it up or pretend I had noble motives."

"At least you're honest," Jorghan said bitterly.

"What's the point of lying?" Jamie shrugged, a gesture of weary acceptance.

"You came back from the dead with supernatural powers. You killed a dozen trained guards without breaking a sweat. You clearly have the capability to end us whenever you want. Lying would just waste time."

Scarlett had been silent throughout this exchange, but now she moved closer to Jorghan. "What are you going to do?"

It was the central question.

He'd come here for justice, for reckoning, for revenge. He'd imagined confronting his killers, making them suffer, and ending them the way they'd ended him.

But this—this broken woman who'd murdered out of fear and trauma, this man who'd enabled it out of love and resentment—what justice was appropriate?

For a moment, as they stared at him, they all thought he was going to forgive them.

Grace's eyes held something fragile and desperate—hope, perhaps, or the shadow of it.

Jamie's jaw was clenched tight, his body rigid with tension he refused to name as fear. Even Lukas had stopped moving, frozen in the aftermath of revelations that had shattered his understanding of his family.

Jorghan raised his head slowly, his gaze settling on Grace with an intensity that made the air feel heavy. "Will you do anything if I ask?"

The question hung in the silence like a blade suspended by a thread.

Grace swallowed hard, her throat working.

"I... what do you mean?"

"Simple question," Jorghan said, his voice carrying a terrible calm.

"You say you're sorry. You say the guilt has eaten you alive for eighteen years. You say you'd do anything to make amends. So I'm asking—will you do anything if I ask you to?"

Lukas felt something shift in his gut, a premonition of disaster that made his skin crawl.

"Mom, don't—" he tried to warn her.

"Yes," Grace whispered, cutting her son off.

"Yes, I'll do anything. Anything to make this right, anything to earn even a fraction of forgiveness."

Jorghan nodded slowly, as if he'd expected nothing less.

"Then leave your son and come with me."

The words fell like stones into still water, ripples of shock spreading across every face in the room.

"What?" Grace's voice was barely audible.

"You heard me," Jorghan said, taking a step closer.

"You want forgiveness? You want to atone for murdering your child? Then abandon the child you kept. Leave Lukas here, walk away from this life you built on my grave, and come with me. Right now. No goodbyes, no preparations, no conditions."

Grace looked like she'd been physically struck. Her gaze darted between Jorghan and Lukas, between the son she'd killed and the son she'd raised, between the past and the present.

"I... I can't," she said, her voice breaking.

"He's just a boy. He needs me. I can't just—"

Just a boy!? Something inside Jorghan snapped.

"You can't?" Jorghan's tone didn't change, but something cold entered his eyes.

"Interesting. When it was me, when it was your first son, you had no problem making permanent decisions. But now, when it's Lukas, suddenly you're a devoted mother who can't bear to leave?"

"That's not fair," Grace protested, tears streaming down her face.

"You're asking me to choose between—"

"I'm asking you to prove your remorse is real," Jorghan interrupted.

"To show that your guilt is more than just words. Because right now, it sounds like you're sorry you feel bad, not sorry for what you actually did."

Jamie moved forward, placing himself partially between Grace and Jorghan.

"This is enough. You've made your point. You've shown us how powerless we are against you. But leave her alone. She's suffered enough."

"Has she?" Jorghan's gaze didn't leave Grace.

"I suffered and died in utmost pain. I died confused and betrayed, wondering why my mother—the person I loved most in the world—was killing me. So tell me, Faggot, has she really suffered enough?"

Grace was shaking now, her whole body trembling with the weight of the impossible choice. "Please," she whispered.

"Please don't make me do this. I'll do anything else. Money, property, my own life—take it all. But don't make me leave my son."

HAHAHAHA! Jorghan laughed. "Really, you want to buy forgiveness with my money. My fucking money, which I made from killing people, which you so despise."

"Ha, you are all really something."

Grace pleaded.

"Then you choose him over forgiveness," Jorghan said simply.

"You choose the comfort of your guilt over actual atonement. That's your right. But don't pretend your remorse means anything if you won't sacrifice for it."

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