Chapter 212 You Look Pale
Chapter 212 You Look Pale
Chapter 212: You Look Pale
Lizzie
For a few seconds after Roman’s palm cracked across Reginald’s face, the manor grounds forgot how to move. No one breathed properly. No one shifted their weight.
The Almighty God of War had just been struck by his own son, in front of his men, in front of his remaining children, in front of the wives he had just finished insulting like we were stains on the family name.
The slap still seemed to hang in the air, brighter than the blood on the gravel, louder than the two shots that had already torn the crazy morning open.
Then the world caught up all at once.
Guns came out in a ripple. Guards. Hudson. Every barrel that had been hanging useless at someone’s side found Roman in the same heartbeat.
The geometry of the driveway changed. We were no longer a family standing in the wreckage of breakfast. We were a firing line with one man at the center of it.
But they had underestimated the man.
Roman did not panic. He did not raise his hands. He drew his own weapon with the same unhurried certainty he had used all morning and set the barrel against Reginald’s forehead.
The chuckle that left him was almost pleasant. “I’d like everyone to find out what the inside of Reginald’s head looks like.”
Hudson took a single careful step forward. “Put the gun down.”
Roman did not turn. He did not look frightened. He kept his eyes locked on his father’s, on the spreading red mark blooming across the old man’s cheek, on the calculation already forming behind that silence.
“You first, Hudson,” Roman said. “Or you can spend the rest of the day wiping pieces of your General off the drive. Your choice.”
I looked at Sav.
She had gone the color of paper. Both hands were locked together so tightly the knuckles had bleached. She looked one breath away from dropping to her knees and begging, and the sight of it made my stomach twist.
She had asked him not to kill. She had walked back onto this soil pregnant, carrying twins who still had headphones over their ears, and now her husband was offering to decorate the rose garden with his father’s skull.
Then I looked at Reese.
He stood with his arms folded, unaffected, watching the standoff as if he already knew the ending.
There was blood on his shirt, and a cut along one knuckle and none of it seemed to reach him. He looked like a man watching a show he'd already seen a million times and knew the finale.
If Reese was that still, that sure, then maybe this was not the moment the morning finally ate us alive.
“I’m going to count to five.” Roman stepped in until the muzzle pressed deeper against Reginald’s skin. “Those weapons come down before I finish.”
Reginald did not look afraid.
That was the worst part. He stared at Roman the way a man stares at a chessboard after an unexpected move—surprised, insulted, already mapping the counterstrike.
Not one word was uttered by him. Just that red-rimmed, narrowing gaze that promised the real punishment would not happen here, in public, with witnesses.
It would be later when no one expected it.
“One.”
The guns stayed up.
Savannah broke first. She surged forward and grabbed a fistful of Roman’s shirt, her voice cracking. “Roman—what are you doing? Are you trying to make me a widow? Are you insane?”
He did not look at her. The staring contest between father and son did not so much as flicker.
“Two.” His voice stayed level. “Seems you want to learn this the hard way. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The guards’ eyes started sliding toward one another. You could see the math happening in real time.
This was the same man who had driven onto the property, put Randall on the ground, put two bullets in his own blood, and then slapped the general in front of the entire household.
Bluffing did not live in that sequence. One wrong twitch and the old man would be gone.
“Three.”
Hudson’s gaze cut to Reginald. His weapon dipped a fraction. “General. Your order.”
Still nothing.
The silence frightened me more than his shouting would have. Reginald’s eyes had gone bloodshot at the edges.
Whatever he was building in that pause would not be kind. He'd demand blood.
I thought of Sav. Of Miles still tucked against Ramsey’s chest somewhere behind us. Of Andrea in Alex’s arms. Of the baby Sav was carrying that had no idea the world it was entering already wanted to devour its mother and father.
“Four.”
The remaining barrels began to fall. One, then another, then a scattered surrender of metal toward the ground until only Hudson’s gun was still trained on Roman.
Roman’s was still trained on Reginald.
Sav was shaking now. I could see it from where I stood. Roman smiled anyway.
“You should look closer at Hudson if I were you,” he told his father. “Your life is on the line and he still will not lower his weapon to save it. One number left.”
Reginald’s eyes slid, slow as ever, to Hudson.
“Put it down.”
Hudson obeyed immediately.
Roman’s laugh was short and bright. He lowered his own gun a beat later, as if the whole countdown had been a lesson instead of a near-execution.
“Good choice. Though I’m a little disappointed. I would have enjoyed showing everyone what lives in that evil head of yours.”
Reginald still said nothing.
A guard darted forward, snatched the fallen cane from the gravel, and pressed it back into the old man’s hand like the object itself might restore the order that had just been publicly dismantled.
River cleared her throat, small and brave in the wreckage. “My shoulders hurt. Can we please go back inside?”
Reginald turned first.
He walked toward the house with the same measured pace he used for everything, Hudson a shadow at his shoulder, close enough to intercept another slap if one came.
I did not miss the glance Hudson threw at River as they passed—brief, gone before anyone could name it.
Rosalie went next, already angled toward whatever room they were taking Randall to, her face set in the particular fury of a sister who had watched her brother get beaten, shot, and then used as a prop.
Ramsey followed with Miles still in his arms, holding the baby as if the child might shatter if he breathed wrong.
The rest of the household drifted after them in uneven clumps, the adrenaline leaking out of the morning and leaving only the mess.
Roman and Sav disappeared through the doors without looking back. Whatever they were going to say to each other would not be said on the steps.
Reese waited for me.
When the last of the others had gone in, he slipped an arm around my shoulders and drew me against his side. We walked slowly, the way people walk when their legs have not quite remembered they belong to them.
“Are you okay?” His voice was low. “You look pale.”
I folded my arms tight across my chest and nodded, the motion stiff. “Yeah. Just shaken. It’s been… a morning.”
“I’m sorry. I lost—”
“Don’t.” I stopped him before the apology could finish forming. “That’s not what this is. I’m proud you stood up for me.” I managed a smile that felt almost real. “I’m lucky to be your wife.”
The words landed in his face with a flicker of surprise and confusion, as if he had expected blame and found something else. Then the surprise eased into a quieter warmth.
He leaned in, mouth close to my ear so the words would not travel. “You told Sav about bringing the test, right?”
My body went cold in a single drop.
The manor’s chilly air suddenly felt too sharp against my fingertips. My mouth dried out. All I could do was nod, a small, jerky motion that did not belong to a woman who had just claimed she was fine.
“Yeah.” The sound came out thin.
He noticed. “You sure you’re all right?”
“Of course.”
He studied me a second longer, the same look he used when he knew I was holding something behind my teeth and had decided not to pry it loose in a hallway full of witnesses. Whatever else he wanted to say, he kept to himself.
“I’ll get it from her,” he said. “Once Roman’s people finish checking the rooms for anything else, we’ll take it.”
The promise should have been simple. A test. An answer. Instead my heart dropped straight through the floor.
It was happening.