Chapter 247 Chapter 247: Zane's POV

Chapter 247 Chapter 247: Zane's POV
Chapter 247: Zane's POV
"So is this where you decide to give up on your little games?"
I said, pushing forward and sitting against the chair while I watched the look of amusement press through his lips.
"My games?"
He muttered, eyes twinkling.
"You think these are games, Zane Mercer. Or should I say Zane Volkov." He smirked. "That suits you more."
My face remained expressionless.
I wouldn't be surprised he knew about my true identity.
"You seem to be quite obsessed with me to know everything about me," I said. "Why. Are you gay or something?"
I smiled with my eyes, watching as he froze, and the sound his men made in the room suggested I'd hit a nerve.
I didn't come here to play. Neither did I come here to leave without answers.
"You sound so sarcastic," he said. "And you think this is a game. Killing Klaus. Making you choose."
My expression remained still.
Killing Klaus wasn't old news. But hearing it come out of his mouth so casually, like it was just another move on a board, made something in my chest go very cold.
"I just want to know." I crossed my legs, looking quite comfortable for someone who had come alone. "Why did you lie to Alonso? Why did you blow up our vehicle in that operation? Why did you rescue my friend and turn him into a puppet?"
I watched his face instantly go dark.
It didn't look that same amused anymore. It went dark instantly.
"And how are you so sure—"
"Shut up Simone and tell me why you are fucking with me when I haven't done shit to you," I said, my voice icily steady. "Why are you fucking with my family? What do you have against me? Or have you been so bored your whole life that you decided to choose someone to play your dirty shit with."
His men brought out their guns immediately and pointed them toward me.
I wasn't even any bit panicked or bothered.
I watched him wave at them, telling them to back off and leave the room.
"You want to know the truth, Zane. Why I'm doing all of this?"
He said.
"Why I had to kill my own brother because he was about to ruin what I had planned. When he discovered the truth."
I blinked.
Not surprised he was the one that killed his own brother, but noted that he was even more dangerous than I had thought. To kill his own blood. His own flesh.
"Because I've always loved your mother."
That got me.
That was enough for my brain to go blank.
"What."
"Allow me to fucking talk." He stopped me, eyes bloodshot, like what he was about to say had taken him years to get out.
"Serena was the love of my life."
He said it turning slightly, hands folded against each other, and his voice sounded like a broken man who had spent years chasing after something he could never have.
"The first time I saw her was in Italy. I was on a business trip with my father. I was sixteen. I fell so in love at one sight. It was a beautiful thing."
He chuckled softly. A hollow sound.
"I was so naive when I approached her. When I fell purposely on the patio and she lifted me up with those ocean blue eyes and tended to me with care. She was older, I knew. But yet I still loved her. I didn't care. Never cared. And we became friends. Until I finally confessed my feelings to her on my eighteenth birthday because I believed she wouldn't view me as a child anymore."
He stopped.
His voice got heavier with each word.
"And she surprisingly accepted. And she was so perfect. She was older but she never made me feel less. Until she got pregnant, and her father asked her to get rid of the baby. Our precious unborn baby. And she terminated it without informing me. Without letting me know. And she left afterwards. Without a word."
He turned.
His eyes looked dark. The truth of the matter became even clearer.
"I searched for her. Found her. Discovered she had moved to the US and had gotten married to someone else. Someone her father preferred and chose over me. And I hated her. I despised her and everything she had. And when she gave birth to you, I promised to ruin your life. To make you pay. And she would watch while I ruined everything."
He chuckled.
"But a plot twist came when I discovered you weren't even a Mercer. That she was something else entirely."
When he was done, I stared at him.
"So that's why. How long have you been after me?"
I asked.
"Long enough to make you suffer."
I nodded slowly. The pieces clicking in.
"So you had the dead body placed beside me at fifteen?"
I asked. Even though I knew the answer to it.
His eyes lit up. Maybe surprised I had caught that too.
"You are fast." He said. "But too bad that you aren't even mine."
I stood up.
"Now I understand your game, Simone. You have such a pathetic story. A sad little love story that made you ruin lives even after your lover is dead."
I said.
“Don’t you dare say that…”
"But I think I'm going to end this now."
I cut him off, and the room became silent for a second before he chuckled.
"End this? You are outnumbered. You can do nothing."
A chuckle came out from my lips and I realized how similar it sounded to Nikolai's.
"Your men are not in the same room with me," I said. "And I only came here to kill one man. I don't mind going down if you go down with me."
The room fell quiet.
Simone looked at me.
He must have seen the certainty in my eyes. That I meant it. That I was willing to leave this room unalive if it meant taking him with me.
"But you wouldn't do that."
He said.
I furrowed my brow.
"And what makes you think that?"
He instantly pressed a button.
A TV screen lit up on the wall across from us. First it was dark. Then followed by the sound of muffled struggling. Then the visuals became clearer.
And it wasn't hard to figure out who it was.
Olive.
Olive was on the screen, struggling against a chair she was tied unto, screaming into a room even with her mouth covered. She jerked so hard that someone came and struck their hand hard across her cheek and she crashed to the ground.
I froze.
I felt every single cell in my body go completely still in the way that happened before something broke entirely.
"Well," Simone said, watching my face carefully, savoring every second of it. "Your little princess couldn't understand the code red. Staying back in her little home and minding her business. She was coming to see you. Seems she can't resist a man as dangerous as you, even with everything I did to keep her away."
He tilted his head.
"So now she will have to see what happens."
I stared at the screen.
At Olive on the floor.
At the way she was still fighting, still struggling, and still refusing to just go still even with her hands bound and her cheek already bruising.
"So tell me, Zane," Simone said quietly. "You see now. I'm always ten steps ahead of you."
He leaned forward.
"Are you going to kill me? Or watch the very thing you love die the second you pull that trigger."