Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
“Watch them glow,” we’d urged. “One day your dreams will come true.”
Or.
One day.
We’d fail.
And he’d end up dead.
All because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All because of the De Langes, all bad things in our world led to them, and that intel led everyone else to us.
A price on our heads.
A price on a child’s.
If war was what they wanted.
War.
Was what they would get.
2
LOUIS
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. — T.S. Eliot
They buried me a traitor.
My twin got the funeral, the flowers, the fucking praise.
I got a tux, a fake smile, and a bride who hadn’t smiled since she’d learned to lie.
My name was Louis De Lange. And today I’d marry the sister of the girl I loved.
Only one of us would be walking away from this marriage alive.
And I really hoped it was her.
I stared at myself in the mirror, all cufflinks and black silk, like dressing up a corpse makes it presentable. They say weddings are the start of something new. For me, it felt like the final nail in my coffin.
The whispers started the second the ink dried on the marriage contract. That I wasn’t really dead. That I switched places with my brother. That I was loyal to no one.
Let them whisper.
I was a ghost in this house. A monster in designer clothing, pretty to look at on the outside, a mess of tangled lies, deceit, and darkness within.
And she was the one who summoned me.
I said yes before I thought it through. Before I even considered what it would cost. Then the thoughts came—and all I saw was red.
Not anger.
Not hatred.
Just that damn dot. Solid. Steady. Trained on my little brother’s forehead.
I imagined her face on the other side of that trigger, imagined it was her pointing the gun, and if not her, the families she was aligned with. They offered protection but what they really meant was let’s paint over our sins with justification and call it goodness. They made excuses for the trails of blood and said it was for the blood—their blood. But what about his? What about our family? I’d been so close to falling for it too, falling for her sister not realizing what she was really involved in and then it was better, better she find Ace, her bodyguard and think I was gone because I wasn’t quite sure what I would have done in the end. Would I have been able to take her life in payment for my little brother’s?
That’s the thing about loss, it doesn’t break you instantly, it breaks you in this weird sick slow motion over time until the voices in your head say you’re in the right for seeking damages for what was done.
I promised myself I’d never forgive the people who did it. Now I’m marrying into their bloodline. I have a plan, though. One that I won’t come back from. Forget rising from the ashes—I'll burn the Family into them.
She’s going to use me, just like I plan to use her. I’m sure of it.
But what’s my life even worth at this point if I don’t get the answers I deserve, and why the fuck is it so complicated to just be honest? Why can’t I just ask and be done with it? But does a guilty person really just own up to their bullshit? Negative. They tend to lie and save their own asses despite any sort of guilt they may still harbor.
Tempest hasn’t laid all her cards out. Not yet. But I’ll get an earful soon, I’m sure. Since her ridiculous proposal a week ago, things have moved fast. A blur of shouting, of bosses telling her she can’t do what she’s doing—wrapped up with her throwing me under the bus, saying she’d rather die than marry anyone else. That I volunteered to pull the trigger if they didn’t support us.
Brutal that she really gave me no choice. In another life I would have loved a woman like that. At least in this short one, I could respect her for it.
She was lethal, Tempest.
I’m not sure if her parents had a premonition when they named her, or if she’s just spent her life living up to it. Either way, I was walking straight into the storm I just escaped.
It’s going to be worth it. It has to be.
It must.
Mainly so I didn’t use this damn bowtie to hang myself before the ceremony even started, my fingers itched to jerk it right off and run toward the nearest exit.
I didn’t.
I know I wouldn’t.
I’d just toy with the idea of it.
Yeah, that sounds sane.
I was fully stuck and for good reason.
The sudden knock at the door was soft. Barely there. Not the kind of entrance I expected from a woman like Tempest, and yet I knew it had to be her, nobody else would dare disturb me right now after I yelled at the Alfero boss my future father-in-law and then trapped myself in the room.