Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I thought he was killed by a rival gang. Back then, it was mostly the Irish. I didn’t learn the truth until one day, a week before I became lord of this family, I overheard my mother and Aunt Anissa crying with each other. It shocked me, the pain in my mother’s voice, and the pain in my aunt’s tone, the way they consoled each other. But what really broke me was when my mother said, I can’t forgive him, Anissa. I won’t ever forgive your husband for what he did to my Michael.”
Camille’s breathing quickens. “Your uncle killed your father?”
I nod very slowly. “I didn’t understand at first. It took me another few days to ask around, to make the proper inquiries. Eventually, Mother heard what I was doing and took me aside. She told me the truth.” I turn to look at Camille. “My father was not my father. Before I was born, my mother’s relationship with her husband was rocky and painful. They were going through something, and she made the mistake of sleeping with his brother—”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Dimitra slept with her husband’s brother? With Anissa’s husband? Your uncle?”
“She made a mistake. One she still pays for to this day. But I was the product of that one horrible night, and my father didn’t know until a long time later. When he found out, he confronted his brother, and their argument turned into a fight, which ended with a gunshot wound to my father’s head.” I lean back against the gap between windows, closing my eyes. “It broke me when I found out. All my life, I assumed my father was my biological father, but it wasn’t true. Helen’s my half-sister. Sophia’s also my half-sister. I share a dad with Sophia and a mom with Helen. And it killed me, Camille. It killed me.”
“That’s why you did it,” she whispers, taking a step toward me. “Because of your dad.”
“It was petty revenge.” I remember the night so clearly. The surprise on Uncle Vassilis’s face. His mouth as it opened to speak, but no words came out. The gun as it bucked in my hand. All that blood. “I found my uncle in his study, in the office I still use. I murdered him, but I didn’t know my cousin was in the room too. He’d been behind the desk looking for a bottle of whiskey my uncle used to keep in the bottom drawer. When he stood, I panicked, turned the gun on him—” Another memory. Another gunshot. Thomas’s head cracking to pieces. My cousin. My half-brother.
“Evander,” she whispers.
“The male line of succession, wiped out in an instant. All for revenge. Petty, foolish revenge. If I could go back, I’d spare Thomas’s life. I’d let him take over as lord. I’d leave the family and never return. But instead, I killed my uncle to avenge my father, and I kill my cousin because that’s all I’ve ever known. Death and pain and violence.” I spread my hands, meeting her gaze and seeing pity, sick and awful pity. “Now you understand why Sophia hates me so much. Why Anissa despises me. These are the sins I carry with me. The sins I know will damn me.”
“Oh, Evander.” She comes closer, slowly, bridging the distance. “I’m so sorry that happened. God, I’m so sorry. For your poor mother, and Sophia and Anissa. And for you.”
“I never should’ve gone down that path. But I did, and ever since then I’ve been living with the consequences. I allow Anissa and Sophia to live here in comfort. I let them bicker, backstab, and make my life hell, all out of penance for what I did to their family. It is a debt I will never repay.”
She covers the distance between us. It’s like water to a thirsty man, her touch. She brushes her fingers across my cheek. I catch her wrist, bending it back slightly, and raising her arm to my mouth. I kiss the soft skin there and she sucks in a breath.
“Why are you telling me this?” she whispers. “Why now, after everything? I thought we were finally getting into a rhythm.”
“I don’t want a rhythm,” I say roughly. “I don’t want to breeze through what we have.”
“We have nothing,” she says, biting the words out. “We have an arrangement, a temporary arrangement. When Christopher is taken care of—”
“You’ll leave me.” I release her. She steps back, hugging herself.
“That’s what we agreed on. We’re not really married.” She looks away, not meeting my eye anymore.
“But what if it was more?” I ask, resisting the hope that grows in my stomach. “What if you’re my wife, not for a short time, but for as long as you want to be?”