They Who Slaughtered Hope 🌈| 1-2 Updates a Month

Chapter 20

"Hey now, what kind of a reaction is that? Who was the one who fetched your coffee, huh? I don't suppose you got off your ass and bought it yourself, did you?" Ren teased, dangling the cup over Lennox's head.

"I might as well have. Whose money did you spend, huh?" the florist shot back, his words laced with mockery. He plucked the warm drink from Ren's grasp and took a sip, all the while maintaining eye contact with Ren. His eyes peeked over the cup ever-so-slightly, creating an intense and intimate moment between them.

The sniper, decidedly, found it unsettling. Lennox's gaze was disconcerting, a stark contrast to the casual banter they had been sharing.

He had no right to such moments.

Not when he was still lying with every breath he took.

︵‿༻☆༺︵‿

The champagne glass in Wade's hand shattered.

Ren gawked at the mess. Surely that wasn't his reaction to what he had said?

Wade waved his son over. "Clean that up," he ordered, seizing another flute from the table.

The sniper watched Lennox stoop down to sweep up the glass shards. With a simple sentence, Wade was demeaning and dehumanising him. In front of everyone.

His attention hovered back to Ren. "My apologies. It had just struck me that you probably believe that women should be fighting in this war, deciding who lives and dies, since they are 'meant for more'. I bet you even believe that the Queen deserves her throne."

The sniper had always believed the Brotherhood revered Zeraynia as their goddess. That they worshipped the ground she walked on. Words like Wade's would be considered an act of treason, but no one seemed surprised. Was it a trap? A way to test Ren's loyalty?

"Yes? Why wouldn't she?"

"Because we all have realised she slept her way to where she is now. Have you ever seen her use a gun? Has she ever done anything herself? She just goes to show that the only guns women should be handling are glue-guns."

He couldn't believe that Wade would dare to say that, in front of his wife and his paramour. Ren's cobra-like grip was strangling his glass, his only outlet for the unbridled anger coursing through him.

Men like him were one of the main reasons Ren was trans. Men who thought women couldn't do a bloody thing. Sarlyn would never dare let Wade's comments slide, and neither would Ren.

He didn't care about the plan anymore. Wade needed to die.

Tonight.

He was going to wait until Phase Four to kill him, but Ren saw this incident as more than enough justification to move his killing up in the timeline.

Around him, the crowd was laughing. Getting their kick out of Ren's humiliation. It seemed as if everyone in that room either agreed with Wade or was too afraid to cross him.

But not Ren.

"Ah, of course. My sincerest apologies. It was my mistake, thinking you could sustain an intelligent conversation with someone half your age without pushing your twisted ideals on them. My mistake, thinking you could talk without treasonous disrespect, not just to your queen, but to women everywhere. You don't deserve to breathe the same air as them. You would go so far as to so blatantly disrespect the woman who raised you? What about the woman you claim to love and promised your life to? And the woman who stands beside you even after you dragged her name through the muck, what about her? You fail to realise that you are here because of women. You are where you are today because of women. It seems to me that their sacrifices were in vain."