The Black Swan's Final Revenge Pirouette: The 99th Game Was Mine All Along by Kylie Homme

Chapter 16

hapter 16

Finally, Ariana set down her cutlery with deliberate precision and picked up her phone. She typed quickly and turned the screen toward him

“Why do you keep staring at me like that?”

Caught in his scrutiny, Luigi seemed to return from somewhere distant. Every gesture she made–the particular way she tilted her head, how she held her fork, even how she dabbed her napkin at the corner of her mouth beneath the mask–intensified his growing certainty.

“You remind me of someone I lost,” he said, his voice barely audible

Rather than typing, she gestured to a passing server for paper. When it arrived, she scrawled a single word

Who?”

Luigi’s fingers tightened around his water glass until his knuckles went white. His voice, when it finally came, held a rawness she’d never heard before.

“My wife.”

Something in his expression–a naked vulnerability utterly foreign to the man she had known–seemed to break open a floodgate. Without prompting, words began pouring out of him.

“I never told her I loved her,” he confessed, eyes fixed on the space just past her shoulder. “Not once, not properly. I had this… this stupid idea that saying it would give her power over me. Now I’d give everything I own just to say it to her once.”

Ariana remained perfectly still, pen hovering over paper, as he continued speaking to her–or perhaps to the ghost he saw superimposed over her presence.

“She died thinking I hated her. Because of my pride and other people’s manipulation, I made choices that “his voice cracked, “that led directly to her death. There was a fire that should never have happened. That I helped create.”

His hands trembled slightly as he reached for his water.

“Every night, I have the same nightmare. I’m always able to reach her in the flames, but the moment I think we’re safe, she deliberately pulls away and walks back into the fire. She chooses death over me, and

I can’t blame her.”

He laughed bitterly. “I’ve become the person I used to mock–desperate enough to consult psychics,

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The Black Sawan’s Linal Revenge Pinuell

The

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Chapter 16:

tell me the same thing: her spirit refuses contact.

Maggiore in boardrooms and business journals disintegrated completely. The man who had built his reputation on cold calculation covered his face

stranger, she might have been moved by this display of apparent

might have offered comfort, reassurance,

he had conveniently omitted from his narrative–the deliberate cruelty, the ninety–eight humiliations, the calculated revenge for a crime she hadn’t committed. His tears now seemed like

loved him had died in that fire, just as he believed. The woman sitting across from him now felt nothing beyond mild irritation at

his emotional breakdown. He quickly wiped his eyes,

apologize,” he said stiffly. “That was completely inappropriate. Please, let me

restaurant into the hotel’s circular driveway, disaster struck without

the valet stand where they stood, its high beams momentarily

them both.

out!” Luigi shouted.

a split–second decision, he shoved her forcefully sideways, the momentum sending her sprawling across the pavement as the

mask dislodged on impact, skidding across the concrete with a hollow clatter.

Luigi thrown several feet by the impact,

erupted instantly–screaming guests, running valets, the sharp wail of

chaos, Luigi’s focus remained singular. Despite the blood seeping through his shirt, his wide eyes fixed on her now–exposed face with an expression

the name escaping

even as they wheeled him toward emergency surgery. Blood soaked through

The thi

seemed oblivious to his

he kept murmuring his grip painfully tight despite his weakening state. “Please. If this is another dream, F’ll let them hit me again if it means I get to see

fractures. and internal bleeding. His fingers communicated what drugs and shock prevented him from articulating–abject terror that if he let go, she would

need to release her,” a nurse insisted. “We need to get you into surgery

you’ll be here,” he pleaded, his eyes locked on Ariana’s face

couldn’t overcome severe blood loss and pre–surgical sedation. As the medications took hold outside the operating room, his fingers

impassively as the surgical doors swung closed between them. This complication was the last thing she needed–her carefully constructed new life now

calculating how quickly she could pack her belongings at the hotel and book a flight back to London. Her obligations to the company were secondary to maintaining the freedom she had sacrificed so much to obtain.

company excitedly departed for a night tour of Boston’s historic waterfront, Ariana declined with a vague gesture toward her

no desire to revisit places now tainted

goodnight, she settled into the town car headed back to their hotel, eager for the solitude of her

seemed determined to

a small group of

she could retreat, his voice carried across the

She fumbled frantically in her bag,

Chapter 16

his associates with a curt nod and approached her directly, studying her

observed, gesturing to her casual attire of jeans and an oversized sweater. “Why are

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