Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
I knew I looked pale.
Maybe it was his face that triggered the memory.
Maybe it was his smell.
Something about him was familiar.
Something about him looked like my mother.
He was old, at least eighty.
“Do I?” I finally answered, still trying to put the pieces together.
“You look like her.” He shook his head. “We thought she ran off with her lover — instead we found out he purchased her from the De Lange Family. Her price was three million dollars, something Alexander Petrov bragged about to the world. He bought his Italian bride with blood money and said he loved her, but his love was a lie.”
“So, the treachery goes all the way back…” I mused looking around the room. “I’m sorry he took her. He wasn’t a good man. Then again, are any of us?”
“You defend him?”
I snorted. “I’d stab him in the heart then beg God to give him life again just so I could watch his face as I drove the knife deeper into his skin, again, and again, and again. You want to know what I hate? I hate that I wasn’t the one that did it.”
His eyes widened briefly. “Do you know who I am, son?”
“You’re Sinacore,” I whispered. “And you’re here for me, of course.”
The rest of the guys were silent, but each of them was tense like they were waiting for a shot to go off.
Or maybe waiting to restrain me.
“My name is Louis Sinacore, I have been underboss ever since your mother and her sister were taken. One day they were playing in the field, the next…” He shook his head. “A parent should never have to survive their child.”
My eyes narrowed. “Parent?”
“I’m your grandfather.” He said it so factually that I almost laughed.
“What?” I felt like I couldn’t swallow, like the room was imploding, or maybe that was just my brain. “What do you mean my grandfather?”
“Does he still need the sex talk?” This from Tex.
I shot him an annoyed look.
He held up his hands in mock innocence.
“And you’re here now because?” I gritted my teeth. “What? You wanted a fucking family reunion?”
I knew what he wanted.
I just needed him to say it out loud.
I needed it to be over.
“We didn’t know she was your mother, not until a few months ago, we had no idea. We would have come sooner.”
“I did just fine,” I said through clenched teeth.
His face was remorseful. “Don’t lie, son.”
I shot to my feet.
He slowly got to his, and then he held out his white rose and nodded to the man next to him who stood as well, he grabbed a knife from his pocket and sliced Louis right hand.
Louis closed his eyes and squeezed his hand and then opened it as three drops of blood splashed against the white petals.
Before I knew what was happening, every single one of the men I called friend, restrained me, while Louis approached.
I let out a shout.
It was no use.
Me against them.
I’d never felt more betrayed in my life as Louis held the rose in front of my face like a bad omen and then with the help of his men, moved to his knees.
I struggled against the guys.
Chase grabbed my left hand.
And cut what was left of my Russian tattoo.
The sickle, the bleeding stars.
But he left the crown.
Confused I looked down as Louis held up the white rose in his left hand, an antique crown tattoo wrapped around the back of his hand.
It was identical to mine.
Chase squeezed my blood onto the rose.
Drip. My old life was gone.
Drip. My new life wasn’t given, it was forced.
Drip. I would never forgive them.
Drip. I struggled as one more drip landed on the rose.
And then Louis was helped to his feet. As he pulled the petals one by one, they dropped at my feet.
“If we spill your blood, you may spill ours. We honor the new Sinacore boss, blood of his mother, cut from his father. You are no longer Andrei Petrov, you are Andrei Sinacore, and you will rule this family until the day you leave this earth. Sangue in no fuori.”
The guys released me.
I stood there in shock.
I wasn’t given a say.
I knew I didn’t have a choice.
I didn’t know it would be like this.
Louis pulled out a card, the patron saint of Edward the Confessor, only people in a line of Kings were given that saint.
I opened my mouth to tell him to stop the ridiculous ceremony, to tell him I didn’t want anything to do with my father, my mother, with anyone but the woman who owned me.
I locked eyes with Louis as he pressed the card to my forehead and then very slowly lit the edge on fire with a lighter, only to blow it out immediately.
“As burns this saint, so burns my soul.”
Chase elbowed me in the side while someone else kneed me in the back.