Chapter 310: It’s Happening Again

David’s POV

My blood ran ice-cold as the realization slammed into me like a freight train with no brakes…over and over again.

All this time…it was a stupid, twisted plot.

Justin had been innocent the whole time.

The Dark Prince of Manhattan wasn’t me.

It wasn’t my brother either.

It was Rachel’s brother.

I worked for a crime my brother never committed?!

The room spun as my vision tunneled. Every single year of hatred, every punch I took for him, every curse my father spat at me, every night I lay awake wondering how my little brother could be a monster…it was all for nothing.

I’d been their fucking lap dog. Their scapegoat. Their puppet. I thought I was repaying Rachel’s father for “saving” us…new identities, new country, a fresh start after the murders. I thought I was protecting Justin. I thought I was the big brother doing the hard thing and helping my family out of a mess.

I was just cleaning up their family’s garbage.

Rage exploded out of me so hard my throat tore raw.

“YOU FUCKING MONSTERS!” I screamed, lunging forward with every ounce of strength left in my body.

The ropes bit harder into my skin, blood trickling down my wrists, but I didn’t care.

“You set my family up! You planted that shit in our basement! You made me hate my own brother for years! I served your family like a goddamn slave thinking I owed you…thinking I was repaying you for helping us escape, I did all the dirty work your father threw at me and it was all YOUR mess in the first place?! I was your lap dog! Your sacrificial lamb! For what?! For nothing?!”

Three of her men tackled me again, but I thrashed like a wild animal, headbutting one in the nose, kneeing another in the groin. “I’m gonna kill every single one of you! I’ll burn your whole cursed family to the ground!”

Justin’s voice cracked through the chaos…raw, broken, filled with a pain I’d never heard from him before.

“David…” His words came out choked, tears pouring down his face. “You…you really thought I was a murderer? All these years? You protected me…you took the blame…you let me call you the Dark Prince…because you believed I was killing girls? You hated me that much? You thought I was the monster who destroyed our family?”

His voice shattered completely. “I was just a kid, David! I didn’t tell my mother or our father to have an affair! I didn’t ask for any of this. I found out that I had a big brother and I was beyond thrilled. I loved you even before I met you! I wanted to look up to you! But you… You wouldn’t even let me come close to you. You wouldn’t even look in my direction. I tried everything but you just didn’t like me! So I turned it into hatred… and what fueled it the more? When my mother died, I was told by our father that it was because of you!”

The pain in his voice hit harder than any punch. My brother…sobbing like his heart was being ripped out because the one person who was supposed to protect him had believed the worst about him for over a decade.

Justin’s sadness flipped into pure, blinding fury in the next breath.

He turned on Rachel, eyes bloodshot, veins bulging in his neck. “And you! You and your sick fucking family destroyed everything! You made me think my brother was a murderer! You made him think I was one! You tore our family apart for your twisted games! I don’t give a shit anymore…I’ll be the murderer now! I’m gonna cut you open from throat to stomach, pull out your guts, and broadcast it live so the whole world sees what a psycho looks like on the inside! Your family is cursed! You’re all messed up in the head! Every last one of you is fucking sick!”

Rachel threw her head back and laughed…manic, wild, clapping her hands together like we were the best comedy act she’d ever seen.

The sound bounced off the walls, high and unhinged, while tears of pure delight streamed down her face.

“Oh my God, yes! Look at you two! Stupid boys finally figuring it out! Who are the losers now?” She shrieked.

“I love watching people get played like this! How do you like my father’s story? He made you the main characters…aren’t you just so thankful?” She added with a wicked glint in her eyes.

My rage clashed with Justin’s in the air like two storms colliding. Our eyes were both bloodshot, chests heaving, voices overlapping in raw screams.

“I’ll kill you!” I roared in anger.

“I’ll burn your whole damned family to the ground!” Justin cried, snot and tears mixing with the blood on his face.

Rachel kept laughing, clapping harder. “Who will believe you? The new murders in town? Even your neighbor Thelma? That was us! We staged it all to pin it on you…Justin. The evidence points straight to you. There’s no way out. Who would believe either of you now? I have money, power, connections…what do you two have? Aren’t you guys thankful that my father chose your family?”

“Call your men off,” I snarled through gritted teeth, still fighting the hands pinning me. “Let me up so I can show you exactly how grateful I am.”

Justin was crying openly now, voice hoarse and broken. “I’m going to kill you… I swear I’ll kill you and burn your family to ash…”

“Enough,” Rachel said, still giggling as she wiped tears from her eyes. “For the main game… Do you want to know why I set Justin up this time?”

She leaned forward, eyes locked on me. “I need you to be my man and the father of my children, David. To work by my side. If you refuse… I’ll take the evidence we’ve planted straight to the police. And that’s not all…we’ll reopen the investigation into the Manhattan murders.”

My stomach twisted with so much hatred and disgust that it could cover a whole state.

Justin spat blood onto the floor. “You’re all bark and no bite. You already destroyed our family. What else is left to do? You think your threat means anything?”

Rachel turned to me, ignoring him completely. “Is that how you feel about it, David? It turns out the brother you thought you’d been protecting all these years was innocent… but now he’s about to get into bigger trouble for real this time. Will you let him go to jail for a crime you know he didn’t commit? Or will you finally step up and be the big brother you’ve always pretended to be?”

Justin screamed at her, voice cracking with desperation. “Leave my brother alone! This is between you and me…David doesn’t have to do shit!”

Rachel’s eyes stayed on me. “David…is that what you really think?”

I exhaled slowly, chest still burning with rage.

Inside my head everything crashed together at once.

I’d hated Justin for years. Blamed him for every hard thing in my life. Thought I’d been serving Rachel’s family just to protect him.

I’d been the sacrificial lamb for a story that had nothing to do with my family. But now… Rachel had real leverage. Real evidence against him. Maybe this was my way of saying sorry. For all the years I’d wrongly blamed him. For turning my back on the one person who was supposed to be my blood.

The helplessness seeped into my bones and I went limp.

Justin’s voice cut through my thoughts, raw and pleading. “Whatever you’re thinking, drop it, David. I’m not a child who needs saving. I’m an adult and I can fucking take care of my own shit.”

I laughed…humorless, broken and exhausted. “Do you really expect me to sit back and do nothing while she ruins your life? I’m your big brother, Justin. And I’ll do what big brothers do. We protect.”

I turned to Rachel, voice flat but steady. “What do you want from me?”

Rachel grinned like a shark who’d just smelled blood.

“Good boy. Now we’re talking…”