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“I swear to God above, on the Morelli name, I despise the Constantine bloodline and always will.”
I wasn’t lying. I despised all of the Constantine bloodline. I hated everything about them, every fake smile and mockery they made of their adoring media platform around the globe. I hated their corruption, hidden so sweetly behind their societal facade.
I despised Elaine Constantine and everything she stood for.
My father nodded at that and took the knife away. He cast a glance at my oath cut and tossed the knife on the table.
“You cut too deeply with that, boy,” he said, but I shrugged as I wrapped a napkin around the wound.
“I always cut too deeply. Greater blood makes a stronger promise.”
He stood up from his chair and went back to his side of the table. “You need to be more careful who you demonstrate that to,” he said. “If people for a second thought you were the man you are . . .”
I’d heard this before, so many times that I shrugged again. “I don’t make oaths very often. Not anymore. Nobody is going to see my faculties for what they are. Not from one tiny slice on my palm.”
I was right on that. Nobody had ever seen my body for the beast it was, not even my mother. The secret was bound deep between me and the man who raised me to be his heir.
“Our empire was built on oaths,” he told me. “And so was the strength of our lives. Never forget that, and never stop investing in our family’s promises to the Lord.”
I looked at the painting of Jesus above his head at the rear of the dining hall, and I wondered just what it must be like to live in families built without the constant pursuit of Godliness, tainted in a world based on lies and corruption.
Our past lineage was evil, and our present hierarchy never faltered from the same, so again, I didn’t understand why my father was so keen to avoid conflict with the bloodline who’d built theirs on destroying ours.
“We could ruin the whole sorry lot of them,” I said. “We’re strong enough. We need to strike the first blow. Now.”
“No,” he said and sat back down on his side of the table. “We’re not striking anything against the Constantines, not until I decide we are ready.”
It frustrated me and always had how my father was so determined to control everything about our family from the sidelines, even though he’d already given me control of our future.
“Go back to Holdings in the morning,” he ordered. “If you take another day out from business, I’ll be sending Seamus and Duncan in to oversee your position. They can report back to me.”
“Is that a threat?” I pushed. “Seamus and Duncan have no place at Morelli Holdings. They’re weasels with no spine. Pointless and pathetic. And McTiernans at that, not even Morellis.”
“They are blood relations with an interest in family business,” he countered, and I didn’t bother pushing it further. Not today.
I could imagine their faces, smug and cunning as they danced around my father like baying hyenas after another man’s bones. They sure as fuck weren’t having mine.
“I’ll be back at Morelli Holdings tomorrow,” I assured him and got to my feet.
I didn’t hang around to see my mother appear back in the room, just made my exit with the napkin still wrapped tight around my bleeding hand. It was true, I would be back at Morelli Holdings tomorrow, and Seamus and Duncan could get fucked. They weren’t having anything to do with the power in my world.
I wished my palm was spitting in pain, just to keep my oath in my mind, but my promise was already lost to me as I left the mansion.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, and I knew it. I knew it right there and then.
There was only one thing on my mind.
Elaine fucking Constantine.
Her tracker was useless to me now that her clutch was useless to her.
I had only one thing left to use. Her diary.
I called it up on my cell before I’d even left the grounds.24ElaineI don’t know how I made it through the night, shaking and crying, knowing my heart was lost to the monster.
I don’t know how the fuck I got ready for family time on Sunday. I don’t know how I managed to style my hair with trembling fingers and get myself prepared for the façade.
I was trying to avoid my mother on our family manor front lawn, but I knew it would be pointless. There was no way she’d leave me alone through the afternoon.
I weaved my way through my cousins, making nothing but small talk, battling the chaos of fears in my head. It didn’t work. I was shaking like a leaf in the bathroom as I splashed cold water on my face, determined for once in my life to avoid the drinks on the lawn. No champagne for me. No champagne. No champagne. No champagne.
