Arturo went pale as the night fog as he stared in horror at the blood pouring from his lips and nose. His face a mask of utter disbelief, he gaped at Darling.

“That’s right, you bastard. I don’t just take a punch. I can give one.” He pulled Arturo up like a rag doll and held his uncle in front of him. “And more than that, I can kill.”

The old familiar smug contempt returned to his uncle’s eyes. “You can’t kill me and you know it. If you do, you and your family die with me.”

Darling let out an evil laugh. “There, you’re wrong, old man. I finally thought of another way out. Too bad you won’t be around to see it.” He drove his blade straight into Arturo’s heart where it would keep him alive, but in pain for a few minutes longer. Let’s hear it for all the years you forced me to study human anatomy. It’d made him a much more proficient killer. “That’s for my father.” He pulled the knife out and then cut Arturo’s throat, again with a wound that wouldn’t kill him immediately.

Rather, suffering in pain, he’d bleed out at Darling’s feet before help could arrive. “And that was for me.”

Guards came running from all directions as Arturo reached for them, trying to get to help.

But it was too late for that.

Kicking his uncle back, Darling dropped his long coat to the ground to let the guards see that his entire body was wired with enough explosives to take out them, the palace, and everything that was within three miles of it. One shot anywhere near him with a blaster’s charge, and they’d all go to hell together.

The guards hesitated, forming a circle around him.

“Who wants to die with me tonight?” Darling taunted them.

As expected, there were no volunteers.

No heroes.

Like the coward they’d served, the guards shrank back to protect their own asses. However, it was too late for most of them…

I should have thought of this years ago.

But that was the problem with being sane. Sane people played by the rules. They looked for rational explanations and solutions in an insane universe.

Now, he was one of the animals. And never had a more vicious one been born.

The one thing the Resistance had taught him was who his friends were. Who cared about him.

Who didn’t.

It was a lesson Darling would never forget.

He glared at the imperial guards and made note of the faces of the ones who’d dragged him home under his uncle’s orders. The ones who’d taken pleasure in assaulting and mocking him over the years when he’d been under their “care” and “protection.”

They were going to pay later.

For now…

“Notify the other aristos, there’s a new Caronese governor. And if any of you think you can overpower me later, think again. I was trained by Nemesis himself and I learned well. You come for me, you will die. All of you. There’s no one alive who can stop me.”