My Bratty Wife

Ryan’s heartbroken question, "Byron, tell me this is all a lie?" hung in the cold, damp air of the ruined chapel, a desperate plea against a truth his heart could not yet bear to accept.

Byron, kneeling beside the cooling body of his only confidant, slowly raised his head. He looked at his hands, stained dark with Elias’s blood, not with horror, but with a strange, detached curiosity. Then, with a chilling deliberation, he pushed himself to his feet. He bent down, picked up the pistol that had fallen from his grasp, and aimed it, once more, directly at Ryan.

Immediately, the circle of guards tightened, their swords now pointed just inches from Byron’s body, the steel tips glinting in the moonlight. Davis drew his own pistol, his aim steady on Byron’s chest. The air was thick enough to choke on.

"You have no right to question me, Ryan," Byron spat, his voice devoid of the sorrow he had shown just moments before, now replaced with a terrifying, manic energy. "Not you. Not any of you." His gaze swept over the guards with contempt. "Everyone I killed," he continued, a wild, unsettling smile beginning to form on his lips, "deserved it. Every last one of them. They were vermin, a blight on this kingdom, on this world. They all deserved it!" He let out a sudden, menacing laugh, a sound that was sharp and broken, echoing unnervingly off the crumbling stone walls.

Ryan flinched as if struck. The laughter, so strange and unhinged coming from his brother, was more frightening than any threat. He had to be sure. He had to hear the words, however much they would shatter him. "Were you the one who truly killed them, Byron?" Ryan asked, his voice soft, still clinging to a last, desperate shred of hope that this was all some terrible misunderstanding, a lie born of madness.

Byron’s laugh subsided, and he lowered his gun, letting it hang loosely at his side. The gesture was not one of surrender, but of a man madden by rage, ready to deliver his monologue. "Yes, brother," he said, his voice now laced with a gleeful, confessional pride. "I did. I killed them all."

Ryan’s face, already pale, seemed to drain of all remaining color. He looked mortified, a statue of grief and disbelief.

"Oh, don’t look so shocked," Byron taunted, beginning to pace slowly before the body of Elias, his movements theatrical. "Haven’t you ever thought, even for a moment, why the mysterious ’murderer’ was always one step ahead of you? Haven’t you ever laid awake at night and pondered how he always knew your next move, your every plan?" He paused, enjoying Ryan’s stunned silence. "It’s because I was there, dear brother. Right there, in your study, in your council rooms, in your very household, listening. All of your plans were my plans first. I knew where your investigators would be, so I could get there before them. I knew which witnesses you sought, so I could silence them first. It was all so... simple, really."

The implication was staggering. "The spy..." Ryan breathed. "The spy Thorne warned me about..."

"Was more than just a spy," Byron sneered. "He was my eyes and ears. Which brings us to my next point." He stopped pacing and looked directly at Ryan.