AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eva’s skills at managing our parents always amazed me. Her finesse and calm skipped me.
We made our way toward the church’s vestibule, where all of Eva’s bridesmaids waited for us, including my other sister, Daphne, and sisters-in-law, Elaine and Haley.
The wedding coordinator moved everyone into position, not even flinching when Dad grumbled at her about bossing him around, and then the doors opened.
Immediately, my eyes landed on Damon’s, and my stomach plummeted.
He was the last person on earth I wanted to see.
Why the fuck was he here?
I’d spent too many hours building my walls to let him hurt me anymore.
His penetrating gaze bore into mine—the intensity, the pain, the need shot straight into me.
Not here, not now. I refused to let Damon see the husk he’d left behind with his betrayal.
Hardening my resolve, I stared past him toward where Finn waited at the altar. Love and adoration shone in his eyes as he strained for a glimpse of Eva.
There, that was love. Unquestioning, desperate, authentic kind of love. The type I deserved. I wouldn’t settle for anything less, ever again.
Screw Damon Pierce and his demons for destroying any chance of the happiness we could have found together.
The music from the organs began a smooth melody, indicating the start of the procession. I shifted my shoulders back and waited for my cue to move.
CHAPTER THREE
Damon
“Take a seat. Someone will bring him out shortly.”
I nodded my acknowledgment to the corrections officer and took my position behind the partitioned plexiglass.
Every time I came here, it took all of my will not to sneer at the overpowering scent of pine cleaner, failing to mask the smell of sweat and desperation. Then again, this was the best a maximum-security state penitentiary could do with a slashed budget. The wardens needed every dime they had to keep the inmates sealed inside. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass where or not if anything did not smell fresh as daisies.
A flash of seeing Sophia in a facility like this popped into my mind, making me clench my teeth. I’d protected her from the hell of this place, but not me.
I gripped the back of my head. Going to the damn wedding had been a mistake.
Then again, after that fucking intervention, invasion, whatever the hell the two elder Morellis wanted to call it was, I had no choice but to go.
The beauty of Sophia as she walked down the aisle in her silver gown had taken my breath away. Outside of that moment when our eyes had connected when the vestibule doors opened, she’d refused to give me any of her attention.
Cutting me out of her life was for the best, but it hurt no less. She deserved more than I could give her. She deserved better, not someone plagued by memories or a past he barely acknowledged.
The sound of a security alarm alerted me to a prisoner arriving, and I readied for the standard song-and-dance interaction the useless son of a bitch demanded as attention every fucking time we met.
A heavy metal door pushed open, and a white-haired man with a build similar to mine stepped out. Even at eighty-two, Stuart Butler Pierce should look frail and fragile. However, my grandfather was more on the formidable side.
He seemed to thrive in prison as well as he’d done sleeping on thousand thread count sheets in his fifty-million-dollar penthouse in Manhattan.
He’d perfected the game of “Fake it ’til you make it.”
Except, I could see through his bullshit. I was his grandson, after all.
In those green eyes that were exactly like mine. He felt the need, the desire, the craving for control. He wanted to lord his power over others. His dream of stepping behind the helm of the empire he built would never come to fruition.
My siblings, Claire and Sean, made sure of it when we sold the company piece by piece. They found closure when we finalized the papers, and the money hit our accounts, vowing never to have anything to do with our grandfather again.
