AllFreeNovel
Share Us
prologue
Savage
I know firsthand the damage pretty little rich girls are capable of.
It’s not physical. No. Everything they do looks beautiful on the outside, leaving a fragrant trail of perfume and glittering envy everywhere they go.
The kind of hurt they cause is psychological. Traumatic. Devastating.
They stand over you while you beg. Smile at you with their perfect white teeth and silky, glossed-over lips. Telling you this won’t hurt a bit.
Then they lunge.
Tearing out whatever pieces of your broken heart they’ve allowed you to keep.
And you’re filled with self-hatred for coming back to them, again and again, for allowing them to do this to you…
One. More. Time.
You watch, helplessly.
They decimate those final bits of yourself with the diamond-encrusted soles of their shoes, smashing and grinding with their spiked heels until your heart is dust. They lift their pretty fingers to their lips, blowing it away in the heated breath of a farewell kiss.
Until there’s nothing left of you.
And they know for certain as they walk away, flashing you a haunting look of satisfaction with a determined gaze?—
You will never be capable of love again.
Kate Paisley may not seem like the type. No, even her name is sweet. The cute sound of “Kate” has too hard a “t” at the end, too much of an edge to it for this sweet girl, so they started calling her Paisley, or Paise.
Ever the daddy’s girl, her father calls her Katie.
A soft, flowery name that hides what she really is.
What she’s capable of.
But I know better. I see the Chanel purses, the doting father, the equestrian lessons that cost more than my car and I know —
She’s one of them.
She comes across as sweet, naive, innocent. Kind to the elderly, makes children laugh, respectful to her parents. But she’s not that innocent. Not really.
Not when she’s sneaking around, disobeying the family’s rules. It’s not just her life she puts in danger when she disobeys, breaking the rules. It’s every man who has sworn to protect her life with his.
I need to punish her.
one
8:00 p.m., the evening before Savage leaves to meet with the three heads of the family at the Hamlet in Connecticut
Savage
I’m due in Stepford, Connecticut tomorrow at five in the evening. Home of our family’s version of the Stepford wives. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. Perfect families. Living in their private, secret town called the Hamlet.
I’ll be presenting facts and figures from my last mission to the three heads of our mafia family. Neatly packaging the deaths of three of our enemies into bar graphs. Then I’ll join the other higher-ups for a nice meal. Probably have a few whiskeys with the boys. Retire to my guest cabin on the edge of the town, by the tall stone wall that keeps Bachmans inside.
And everyone else out.
