Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“The thing is …” I swallow through the lump in my throat. “When we were young, after one of the many times I was forced to survive in the wilderness alone, Damian was sent to retrieve me. I was hungry, delusional. I was feral.”
“What happened?”
“I sliced his face with a knife.” Lifting my hands, I cover my face—another thing to feel guilt over. The guilt I have inside me is suffocating.
“You were a kid. That wasn’t your fault.”
“Damian never saw it that way, and after that moment, neither did Grace. She couldn’t look at him. It got worse as we got older. She hated to look at him and wasn’t attracted to him. She only wanted me. I tried my best to let her down easy, but one day it all came to a head. She tried to kiss me, and I pushed her off. I told her she was to marry my brother. She said she would never marry him.”
“I was a dick. I laughed in her face. I didn’t know,” my voice cracks.
“What didn’t you know?”
“She didn’t want him and claimed she only loved me. She didn’t want to live a life married to a man she didn’t love. She didn’t want to marry a monster.”
“That’s what she said?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she do?”
I stand from where I’m sitting and start to pace. I’m surprised when Phoenix rises too, and this time, it’s her hands that wrap around my middle from behind.
“What did she do?” she presses, not letting go. Stubborn, stubborn dove.
“She committed suicide.”
Phoenix inhales sharply. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
“No one knows of my rejection. No one knows what happened.”
“But I don’t understand …”
“She blamed me in her letter. Like an ultimate fuck you for rejecting her. But the problem was, she made it seem like I hurt her, that she couldn’t live with what I did …”
“And he blamed you.”
“He blamed me for hurting who he saw as his fiancée. For making her take her own life from grief. Damian used to have this quote he would say. ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ He was right. Grace was the only one who knew what her death would bring.”
“Why didn’t you explain?”
“At first, I tried, but he wouldn’t hear me, so lost in his grief, and then he hated me, so there was no point. It was my word against his dead love. Nothing I could say would bring her back. I didn’t want to tell him she chose death rather than be with him.”
“You played the villain to keep him from getting hurt.”
We both fall silent, her arms still wrapped around me. I can feel her heart beating against my back.
“You were right,” I whisper after a minute.
“Right about what?”
“When you called it my tarnished empire. It always has been, long before I even made the decision that would ultimately lead to my brother’s death, it was broken.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“It feels like it.”
“You were being a good brother. Through all of this until the end … you were being a good brother.”
When I don’t answer, she turns me around.
She places her hands on my shoulders, and I look down at her.
“You are a good man.”
“I’m not.”
“I beg to differ. Trust me on that, I would love to be in the Hate Alaric camp.”
“How can you say that? Look at where we are. You’re here because of me.”
“I’m here because I got this crazy idea to snoop, and you decided to be a dick and not let me get away with it.”
“I’m a dick.”
“Yeah, you are. But every now and then, you do something that redeems you …” She pinches her fingers. “Just a little.”
“That’s good to know. And here I thought I was a full dick.” She lets out a laugh and continues to hold me to her.
I take a deep breath. “He went crazy after that. Drinking. Drugs. He fell off the radar and abandoned us. He went so off the rails that my father changed his will. When my dad died, he left me everything …”
Anger rises in my lungs as I think about the next part. I shouldn’t tell her the rest and just leave it at that, but I don’t.
“He came back. He forgave me … He wanted to be a part of the business. He wanted to be my brother. He wanted me to give him a chance, to trust him and I did. I sent him in my place.”
I turn and look at Phoenix. Her face looks pale, and she’s nibbling her lip.
“He went in my place to a meeting with my competitor.”
“My dad—”
“Yes, your dad. Damian went to the meeting in my place, and he never came back. There was a bomb.” My voice cracks and I can’t go on. I can’t talk about that day anymore.