I didn’t need a reply. She’d know soon enough.

Unlocking the collar, I held the two ends and bent over her. Wrapping it around her throat, I moved from front to back, positioning myself to fasten it. I kept my voice low and soothing, embracing my cold ruthlessness again. “It’s affectionately known as the Weaver Wailer.” Using the special clasp—an irreversible clasp—I murmured, “It’s your gift from us. Jewels from the best of our mines. You should be proud to wear such wealth.”

Nila shivered as the lock snapped into place.

My shoulders relaxed. It was on. It was done.

Her option to leave had just disappeared.

“You’re ours now. Want to know why?”

She whimpered, shaking her head.

Gathering her thick black hair, I ignored her plea for ignorance. I’d told her ignorance was bliss—which was true. But I meant to torment her. I wanted her to fully embrace her future.

Breathing gently on her neck, I whispered, “Because once the Weaver Wailer is in place…there’s only one way to get it back off.”

“ENOUGH PLAYING, JETHRO, bring her here.”

The command burned my ears, turning my false belief I could survive into dirty soot. The fire I’d nursed inside was gone. All the stupid pretending that I could block the worst from damaging my soul disappeared. My little claws had fully retracted into nothing once again.

I was cold. Cold as him.

Shut down. Same as him.

Silent. Same as him.

Only one way to get it off.

I swallowed. My head pounded. My hands flew up to tug at the jewelled collar. It was heavy and lifeless and ice. Pure ice. The perfect clarity and flawless sparkle of the diamonds leached into my skin, claiming me, marking me.

Only one way to get it off.

I thought I’d come to terms with my mortality. I thought I’d face the end with my head held high and dry eyes—but that was before they told me the method of my execution. When I thought of death I pictured…nothing…I had no image of how the end would come.

Now I did.

Only one way to get it off.

I was to be beheaded.

There’d be no sawing off the collar or picking the lock. The way the clasp snapped so resolutely hinted at a one way mechanism. The heavy noose was now mine…an accessory slowly strangling me by diamonds.

It wasn’t breakable. But I was. So fragile really, when a single sharp blade could cast me from life into the nether. Diamonds were nature’s hardest fortress—the quintessential marriage of unbreakable ice and power.

A new unwanted respect curdled in my stomach. Jethro said his mines. Their mines. Diamonds were pure but the method of collection had a chequered history of death and violence.

They didn’t just play the part of untouchables. They were untouchable.

No!

My tugging fingers turned frantic. I arched my neck, searching with an edge of insanity for a weakness in the soldered white gold and gemstones. It had to come off.

It has to.

I didn’t have the strength to die. I didn’t have the martyrdom to let them do this. Not for family. Not for fortune. I’m weak. I don’t want to die!

Jethro grabbed my wrists, effortlessly pulling my arms away from my throat. My eyes opened and all I saw was malevolent stone. There was no compassion in his light-brown eyes. No sympathy or even guilt. How did he have the power to be so close to me—to grow hard wanting me—and know all along my fate?

Only a special person could do that. A person who wasn’t born of this world but brimstone and fire. From hell.

I struggled in his hold, breathing hard. The collar settled heavily, still spreading its heinous ice. “I was wrong about you,” I hissed.

Jethro placed my hands by my sides, then let me go. He shrugged, running a palm through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I’ve been nothing but forthright and honest from the beginning. You’re the one who spun a lie from the truth. You’re the one who ignored everything I was telling you.”

Turning to face the table, he wrapped a cold arm around my waist. “And now it’s time to face the reality of everything you tried to ignore.”

Mr. Hawk, with his ridiculous tweed and leather outfit, stubbed out a smouldering cigar. “Did you tell her?”

Jethro stiffened. “I forgot.”

His father reclined into the high-backed chair and folded his hands on his stomach. “You were meant to tell her when you put it on. It’s called the Weaver Wailer and it belonged to…”

A loud screeching sound exploded in my ears. My stomach rolled. Vertigo spread its nullifying tentacles through my brain.

It’s the necklace. The one she wore when she came back the final time.

Jethro looked down, trying to capture my eyes, but I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I kept my vision blank, looking resolutely over his shoulder. “I think you’ve already guessed who it belonged to.” Lowering his voice, he whispered, “The last person to wear this collar was your mother. She wore it for two years and twenty-three days before it was…forcibly removed. It carries not only the diamonds of my bloodline but also blood from yours. We, of course, clean it thoroughly after every owner, but if you look closely, I’m sure you’ll see the tarnish of their lives given in return for their crimes.”

“Nila, when you’re a big girl, you can wear my clothes, shoes, and jewellery, but you have to grow a little taller before that day.” My mother laughed, looking down at me on the floor of her walk-in wardrobe. I’d not only raided her jewellery box and draped myself in gemstones but wore a feather boa with a baggy one piece swimming suit and giant high heels. I thought I looked incredible. For a seven-year-old.

Holding up the pearls around my neck, I said, “Promise? I can have these when I’m your size?”

She ducked, pulling me into a hug. “You can have everything of mine. Why?”

I smiled. I knew the answer to this. “Because you love me.”

She nodded. “Because I love you.”

The memory came and went, stealing the firm ground beneath my feet and sending me headfirst into nausea. Spirals, loop de loops, and spin-cycles all churned my brain until I didn’t know up from down.

It wasn’t vertigo this time but grief.

Crushing, crashing grief. A grief I hadn’t suffered because all my happy memories of her had been blocked by the wall of hatred. She was supposed to be the bad guy for leaving my father. I’d been safe from hurting. Safe from reliving everything with the knowledge of how precious she was. How tragic her life became and for two years after she’d left. Two years we didn’t try and save her.

The Hawks had stripped her from me and torn away any armour I had against missing her. She wasn’t the bad guy. They were. They would all die for this. They would rot for eternity. I would find a way.

Please, let me find a way.

I wore a necklace every firstborn woman in my family wore before they were murdered—I was owed serious revenge. Disgusting, painful revenge.

A sob escaped my mouth. I couldn’t fight the spinning anymore and doubled over. With a sickening splash, I threw up all over Jethro’s shiny black shoes.

“Fuck.” He jumped back, not that there was much mess. It’d been almost twenty-four hours since I’d eaten—I had nothing to waste or purge. But the dry heaves wouldn’t stop racking my frame.

“For fuck’s sake, Jet. Get her under control. We don’t have all day.” Mr. Hawk’s voice shouted across the room.

Cold hands grabbed my shoulders, jerking me from bowed to straight. I moaned as my head sloshed with pain.

“Stop embarrassing me,” Jethro snarled.