Everything spiraled out of control so fast it's hard to explain, but you have to understand, girl, that the Longfields had stayed off the press's radar for years because of their mother, Diana. She had a journalist friend—one of the good ones, practically family, who had even been a bridesmaid at her wedding. But later, they found out she was selling information to the tabloids. And not just to them, but also to the empire's enemies, who were trying to figure out the couple's next moves. They weren't trying to beat them in business; they were trying to assassinate them.
Lucius and I were right on the verge of a passionate night together when Killian called again.
"Moetia is panicking," he said. "The back exit is swarming with press too, so she can't help me. She has to protect her identity. She can't risk a media investigation or they'll find out who she really is, and her quiet life will be over. I'm going to have to walk right out the front door, alone. Get to the hangar. The second I get there, we take off. There are dozens of them out there, and they're going to try to follow me."
When Lucius explained what was happening, I asked him, "Why don't you just give a press conference, calm them down, and then we can leave? Try to make a deal with the journalists to leave you alone."
That was when he told me about his mother's friend, adding, "We have safe houses all over the world to run to the moment we suspect an attack. That usually happens whenever our empire makes aggressive moves or acquisitions. This isn't a game where the smartest person wins—it's won by the biggest and most ruthless. Believe me, Carmilla, in the world of big business, we are the bad guys. We're the boogeyman to thousands of entrepreneurs who spent their entire lives chasing a dream, only to lose everything over a single decision made by my father. The moment word gets out about the merger with Evangelina Bance, things are going to get incredibly hostile."
We did exactly what Killian ordered. We packed some things, and Lucius looked around his island home with heavy sadness, knowing he would never return, that it would never be his "secret sanctuary" again. Down at the hangar, standing by the plane, he called his father to give him the update. Mr. Longfield told them not to come back. He wanted us to wait it out in London for a few days; he had already spoken with the King, and we had royal clearance to land under strict secrecy.
But then things took a turn for the worse. He asked to speak with me directly.
"Carmilla, we have a problem regarding you," he said. "There are millions of people besieging the mansion and posting about us. I won't lie to you—this is fantastic for several of our business lines, but the merger with the Bances cannot leak yet. A woman named Amberd Stone is trying to blackmail us. She claims to be your aunt and is threatening to go to the press. Have you had any contact with her? My people tell me she doesn't seem stable."
I told him she was the monster who had made my childhood a living hell, and told him not to worry. She was probably just desperate for money. Anything she could actually say about me had already been dug up by the press anyway. But tears streamed down my face because just thinking about her made me feel like a helpless little girl again, forced to fight a witch just to survive. He understood, falling silent, and when he finally spoke... I heard something terrifying. Something, my friend, that is incredibly hard to accept. By the time Longfield hung up, I was shaking.
Lucius asked me, "What's wrong, Carmilla? What did he say to upset you like this?"
I looked him straight in the eye and answered, "Your father told me that piece-of-trash aunt of mine—the one I told you about—is trying to blackmail us. She's desperate for money, she's a woman unhinged by hatred, nothing more. But Mr. Longfield told me: 'We have people who handle these matters. Just say the word. Talk to Lucius, tell him you want a Code Samael order.' And those were the exact words you used when you were on the phone with your people who were meeting with Vandereck... and then he turned up dead. Do you murder people?"
"Yes," he said flatly. "But they were all vicious, heartless monsters who couldn't be reasoned with. Sometimes it's easier to just give them money, but sometimes money isn't enough to make them stop."
His eyes turned to steel. He reached out to comfort me, but I pulled away and screamed at him, "Are you insane?!"
He wrapped his arms around me, trying to calm me down, but I just wanted to kick him. I won't lie to you, girl, I was absolutely furious. I promise you'll understand why in a second.
Lucius wouldn't let me go until I promised to stop kicking and just listen to him. Then he tried to justify it.
"Believe me, Carmilla, there are some people you just can't reason with. They don't even understand brute force. The world is a better place without them, like Vandereck, or like..."
"Or like my aunt?" I sobbed, interrupting him. "She's just a sad woman eaten alive by hatred! I know better than anyone how much she hurt me over and over again, but I'm not going to let her destroy my humanity too. Do you know how dangerous this is? I have nightmares about her. And when I wake up, I'm so terrified that I know I would use that power you're trying to give me without a second thought. And then what?"
With a coldness that shattered my soul, he replied, "Then nothing. It gets done, with no scandal and no mistakes. When you issue a Code Samael order, you just move on with your life as if nothing happened. Believe me, the world is better off without people like her. Just say the word. You don't deserve those nightmares."
For the first time, I truly understood the warnings I had received before entering the mansion. We didn't even feel like the same species... and that phrase that had sounded so ridiculous to me just a moment ago—about them being the bad guys of their world—didn't seem so impossible anymore.
Dazed, I tried to process everything. I was determined to talk to Killian, to make sure he wasn't the same way, and...
But Lucius reads me like nobody else. He knew exactly what I was thinking and cut me off with a clarification that tore through my heart.
"I know what you're thinking, Carmilla. Look at me. Killian knows, and he was actually the first of us to ever use a Code Samael order. Promise me one thing: talk to him, and you'll understand. Then you can judge us for playing by rules we didn't write. We were born into this, remember?"
The moment he used the word "game," I knew I had to get away from them. The second we got out of here, I would tell them. There was no going back. Goodbye to this downward spiral of madness forever. Just give me my garden, my flowers, and the sunshine so I can weep by the memorial for Carol and her daughter, mourning the lost loves I will never forget. My mind was made up. I was leaving.
Out on the water, a long line of lights appeared in the distance. It was Killian, tearing across the waves in a speedboat at full throttle, chased by dozens of local reporters and paparazzi who wouldn't stop snapping photos of his broad, muscular back at the helm. He looked like a mad captain fleeing pirates.
The moment he stepped off, he caught sight of me and said, "You can explain on the flight why you look like you've seen a ghost. Right now, we need to move."
The plane took off just as the press began to breach the runway. Destination: England, with a refueling stop somewhere I didn't quite catch. I stayed completely silent for miles while Killian and Lucius caught up on the situation. Only then did the younger Longfield brother ask me to sit right behind him. Without taking his eyes off the flight controls, he asked, "So, you think we're the bad guys?"
"You don't understand what I actually think."
He spoke softly, gently. "Can I tell you something about a keepsake you saw back at my father's estate? Something I'm sure you didn't miss."
"You don't understand," I repeated.
He continued, "Didn't you notice a small toy baseball bat in the room where my father honors everyone who sacrificed their life for us?"
"Yes, of course I saw it," I replied.
"Right. Back then, I was living in the US, not much older than you are now. I was in an office overlooking a massive park. My phone rang, and a voice on the line said, 'My name is Lord Whisper. You have thirty seconds to tell me which of the three major oil companies you're buying—the ones being announced this Thursday—or I will start killing people. Look out your window, right by the park fountain.'"
"There was a man standing there in a brown overcoat and dark sunglasses, waving up at me. I told him, 'Go to hell, you psycho.'"
"He told me, 'You have fifteen seconds left.' And while I arrogantly demanded, 'Who sent you? Who is the idiot brave enough to cross us? Why don't you go scare someone else...?' I watched him, with my own two eyes, pull out a suppressed pistol and fire. Just like that. He shot a little boy twice, a kid who was just walking along holding his mother's hand. He couldn't have been more than five years old, and he was carrying that little bat to play in the park. 'Now you have ten seconds, or I kill the mother too,' he told me. Desperate and crying, I screamed into the phone, 'We're buying all three, I swear to God!' The man just walked away and got into a gray car."
"Why are you telling me this?!" I screamed at him.
Killian replied, "So you can understand. A few hours later, someone made an astronomical fortune on the stock market using that information. We tracked the money. It turned out to be a prominent banker and stock consultant. Lord Whisper was none other than his own personal bodyguard—a former security guard with zero morality who had risen through the ranks by doing dirty work, a man who had already murdered for him. What do you expect us to do with that kind of absolute evil, especially when they have five billion dollars to escape justice whenever they please? No. You can't negotiate with people like that. With them, there is only one path: either you live at their mercy, or you handle it the hard way. So my father looked at me and said, 'Killian, you saw it all. You decide.' It didn't take me a fraction of a second to say, 'Issue the Code Samael order.' The newspapers reported it as a fatal dispute between them, claiming the bodyguard shot him in the head before committing suicide. And I would do it a thousand times over, Carmilla. That little boy's name was Henry Lloyd, and his mother was pregnant. She had taken him to the park that day to tell him he was going to have a little sister."
I cried, I wept bitterly, but he didn't understand. It wasn't the death of Mr. Vandereck or those child murderers that terrified me. It was my own power. I didn't want to have it. All I could think was: how long would it take before that monster of an aunt showed up at the mansion gates, or went on television spinning her version of the story, lying about how much she loved me? And right then, I knew down to my very bones that I would use that death code on her. I would justify it to myself, saying I was doing it so no other child would ever fall into her clutches. I was already telling myself that, already convincing myself at that very moment. It wasn't a question of if I would use it; it was a matter of when... and I didn't want that. I had already made up my mind.
The moment we arrived at that safe house in London, I was going to tell them I was leaving. I would go back to Mary Garden. I loved them with all my heart and would remember them always, but I would beg them not to call me, not to look for me...
Lucius read my mind yet again, looking over at his brother.
"Don't say another word, Killian," Lucius said softly. "She's already decided to walk out of our lives."