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,

1723

The Black Sawan’s Linal Revenge Pinuell

The

11.5%

Chapter 16:

flew to a monastery in Tibet. They all tell me the same thing: her spirit refuses contact.

and business journals disintegrated completely. The man who had built his reputation on cold calculation covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking with

stranger, she might have

offered comfort, reassurance,

calculated revenge for a crime she hadn’t committed. His tears now seemed like too little, too

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

continued silence eventually registered through his emotional breakdown. He quickly wiped his eyes, embarrassment replacing vulnerability as the mask of the

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

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

toward the valet stand where they stood, its high beams momentarily blinding

them both.

out!” Luigi shouted.

momentum sending her

impact, skidding across the concrete with

see Luigi thrown several feet by the

the sharp wail

seeping through his shirt, his wide eyes fixed on her now–exposed

the name escaping like

hospital corridor thirty minutes later, Luigi refused to release her hand even as they wheeled him toward emergency surgery. Blood soaked through pressure bandages, his

The thi

seemed oblivious to his

despite his weakening state. “Please. If this is another dream, F’ll let them hit me again if it means I get to see you.”

communicated what drugs

her,” a nurse insisted. “We

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

severe blood loss and pre–surgical sedation. As the medications took hold outside the operating room, his fingers finally slackened their death grip.

between them. This complication was the last thing she needed–her carefully constructed new life now threatened by an

and book a flight back to London. Her obligations to the company were secondary to maintaining the freedom she had

night tour of Boston’s historic waterfront, Ariana

desire to revisit places now tainted with memories of

settled into the town car headed back to their hotel, eager for the solitude of her room and a long, hot shower to wash away

determined

she nearly collided with a small group of men in expensive suits exiting the lobby–at their

instinct was immediate flight, but before she could retreat, his voice

“please” almost made her turn, but panic quickly overrode her surprise. She fumbled frantically in her

Chapter 16

a curt nod and approached her directly, studying her with that penetrating

of jeans and an oversized sweater. “Why are you still hiding

The Novel will be updated daily. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

Comments ()

0/255