Chapter 122

EMILIA

The rage comes in waves—sharp, hot, impossible to swallow. Diana doesn’t even flinch. She sips her water like we’re talking about the weather, eyes locked on me like she’s measuring the exact second I’ll snap.

And suddenly, I’m not here anymore. I’m thirteen again, watching a younger Diana scream because the housekeeper trampled her strawberry garden. She’d nearly burned the woman with a curling iron. She didn’t cry, didn’t throw a tantrum. Just calmly cornered her and flipped the switch.

Mum and Dad sent her to therapy. She came back quieter. Smarter. But she never stopped believing she was right.

“Bad actions should have bad consequences,” she used to say, like it was simple math. “Good actions should have good ones. That’s fair.”

She was never cruel for no reason. That’s what made her dangerous.

“It must be the curse of brilliance,” Luther used to joke. “Her brain works too fast to make room for empathy.”

He didn’t know how right h