Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
“This is you doing your part for once in your fucking life,” he says. I tug to get free, but he slams me backward against the car so hard it knocks the wind out of my lungs. “Did he tell you he changed the will?”
“What?”
“Did he fucking tell you? Were you laughing at me behind my back all along?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me go.”
“Did you know all along like that conniving lawyer of his?”
“No. I didn’t know anything. Let me go, Lucien.”
“I could have let you die, you know that?” he says through his teeth. “I didn’t. It was up to me, and I saved your life, and he punished me for it. Everything for his fucking princesses. Always for you and your goddamn mother. Even when he knew what a whore she was.”
Those photos come to mind, and he must see that I know something because he grins an ugly grin.
“You know Dad divorced my mother when Leah conveniently got pregnant with you.”
Before I can think of an answer, he continues.
“He should have known then once a cheater always a cheater,” he says. “She knew I knew,” he adds, self-satisfied.
“Knew what?”
The look in his eyes is so strange. Not flat, like it usually is, but an inky black. An unhinged darkness.
“I showed her the pictures. Her spreading her legs for that pig.” He grins, gaze moving over me in a way that makes my skin crawl.
“What?” And then I get it. “What did you do?”
“I gave her an out, and like the whore she is, she took it.” His eyes go out of focus. It’s like he’s looking right through me and that grin trembles, then vanishes, and rage takes over. “She shouldn’t have laughed at me. That’s what cost her in the end.” His lip curls, and he blinks several times before he focuses on me. “You look like her, a fucking carbon copy.”
I look over his shoulder at the deserted road. “Let me go, Lucien.” I stare up at him, unsure how to react, what to say or do. A door clangs and we both turn to find a big guy with shoulders as wide as the doorframe step outside. He has a Glock tucked into his belt. He comes toward us.
I try to wriggle free. Though what am I going to do if I manage to get away from Lucien? Where am I going to run to? And how am I going to get away from the hulk.
“You’re keeping him waiting,” he says in a Russian accent. “Move,” he tells Lucien, then gives him a shove toward the building.
I look up at my half brother. “What is this?”
But he just tugs me along because he’s afraid. I see that much in his eyes. That talk of his men was all for show. Now, I see his fear. And fear makes men desperate.
Lucien keeps hold of me as we enter the building, the incredible fucking hulk behind us. As we move deeper inside, dim, naked bulbs light our way
“If you want to keep Emma safe, you just do what I say, understand?” he tells me quietly enough that the hulk won’t overhear. “Remember, I can make her life a living hell.”
We turn into the next hallway, which is almost completely dark, and the hulk reaches around us to flip a light switch. The bulb goes on, then instantly pops and explodes. I yelp as thin slivers of glass rain down on us. The hulk mutters a curse, jumping out of the way. Lucien steps backward, and a shadow falls across his face. It’s the light coming in from the corridor we just left. I look at him in that half-light, and something dark unfurls inside me. An old thing. A fear. A rage. And I find I can’t look away.
He grins that wicked, demonic grin I remember from when I was little, and he'd pretend to want to play with me only to hurt me. It’s the same face he wore then.
He twists my arm, and that darkness expands into every cell of my body, and all at once, it’s like that heavy, once-impenetrable lid is opened. My knees buckle under the weight of images, thoughts, feelings and screams as it all comes back to me.
Lucien dragging me into that house. Down those stairs.
Lucien locking my wrists in those chains.
Lucien standing back when the two men walk into that room, lighting a cigarette, another thing my father hated that he did, and dropping bills on the floor. Fifteen-hundred dollars.
And finally, Lucien walking away, leaving me with those men, that grinning demon’s face the last thing I saw before I saw their faces. Felt their hands.
Sweat drenches me. I look at him, my half brother, a man who hates me, who has always hated me so much more than I ever even knew. And I remember.