Chapter 354
Chapter 354:
She grabbed another laptop, turning it toward Camille. On the screen, Victoria sat in her lake house, looking frail but determined as she spoke with someone off-camera.
“Look at her. So weak already. Cancer eating her from the inside.” Rose’s words dripped with venom. “She doesn’t need much help dying, does she? Just a little push.”
Camille pulled against her restraints, feeling the rope cut deeper into her wrists. The pain helped her focus, helped her push down the terror threatening to overwhelm her.
“Victoria is stronger than you’ll ever be,” Camille said. “Even dying, she’s more alive than you are right now.”
Rose stared at her, momentarily speechless. Then she laughed, high and brittle. “Look at you. Still fighting. Still thinking there’s a way out of this.” She walked around the room, touching each screen. “Alexander will die knowing he failed to save you. Victoria will die believing you’re already gone. Your parents?” She shrugged. “Collateral damage. They chose you, so they get your fate.”
“And then what?” Camille asked. “When everyone is gone, what do you have? Who will be left to care that you won?”
Rose froze, her back to Camille. For a long moment, she stood absolutely still. When she turned, something had shifted in her expression.
“I’ll have everything I deserved from the beginning. Everything you stole from me.” But her voice wavered slightly.
“You’ll have nothing,” Camille said softly. “No one to witness your victory. No one to fear you. No one to love you.”
“Shut up!” Rose grabbed a glass of water from the table and threw it at the wall, where it shattered. “You don’t understand anything! You never did!”
“I understand that you’re alone, Rose. That you’ve always been alone, even when you were surrounded by people. Even when you had Stefan. Even now, with all your plans.”
“I’m not alone! I have…” Rose stopped, as if realizing something for the first time.
“You have what? Hired men? People you pay to help you? People you’ll dispose of when they’re no longer useful?” Camille leaned forward as far as her restraints would allow. “That’s not family. That’s not love.”
Rose’s face twisted. “Love? What did love ever get you? A husband who cheated? Parents who doubted you? Love is weakness. I learned that in foster care, long before your parents took me in.”
She moved suddenly to Camille’s side, pulling a knife from her pocket. The blade gleamed in the blue light of the screens.
“You think you’re so strong?” Rose whispered, tracing the flat of the blade along Camille’s cheek. “Let’s see how strong you are when Alexander is bleeding out in front of you. When Victoria takes her last breath while you watch, helpless.”
Camille stared straight ahead, refusing to show fear even as the cold metal pressed against her skin. “Killing them won’t make you stronger, Rose. It won’t heal whatever’s broken inside you.”
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