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If she tried to fight for the control, I’d kill her. It would shatter me; I’d hate myself, I’d hate everything and everyone and she’d haunt me to the grave, but at the end of the day I’d still kill her. At the airport, just in case, I’d had sniper waiting… I had forced myself to prepare to for the slim chance she wasn’t rational anymore. That she didn’t see the big picture and that she would force me to kill her. And had I done it, Wyatt…if he didn’t try to kill me in return…might have lost his mind… The whole family would have fallen faster than a stack of cards built on strings.
Growing up, I saw the family business like a chess match, and when Donatella came back from boarding school, I knew right then… If she couldn’t play the game, she’d take the players as hostages…take me as her hostage.
I ruled this family, this city, with a gun to my head.
She couldn’t shoot because we were family, and she loved this family…but her hunger for power wouldn’t let her put down the gun either…I couldn’t make her…not without…without chopping off her damn hand.
So she and I were at an impasse.
“Why are you smiling?” Ivy’s eyebrows furrowed together as she tried to read my expression, even though I hadn’t even realized I was smiling until she pointed it out.
“My greatest enemy…is my greatest weapon.”
“Huh?”
I shook my head, closing my eyes, resting against the bedpost… Donatella’s ambition, her desire to rule, forced her to protect the family. There was no point making her drop the gun, I was more than satisfied being her hostage. After all, I was only a hostage when no one else was around… When someone came close, she was my own personal body guard.
And now she knew it, too…
If she took over the family, she’d destroy it, and if she destroyed it, how she could rule it?
It’s why she punched me. Why she was so upset…she knew she couldn’t win.
But it wasn’t a draw. I wasn’t satisfied with sharing victory.
Wyatt and Dona had fallen perfectly into place. That was my doing.
Checkmate.
SEVEN
“She’s an old soul
whose heart speaks
an all but forgotten language.”
~ J.M. Storm
HELEN
“Show me a strong woman and I’ll show you the scars on her soul that made her so,” I whispered to myself, peeking through the dark violet blinds of my bedroom window. I stared down at the horde of people, young and old, who now covered the lawn behind the mansion, and out of them all, Dona stuck out like an orange in a field of apples, which wasn’t anything new.
In fact, none of this was new; parties like this were commonplace. However, it was the first time that neither my mother, Cora, nor my grandmother, Evelyn, were the ones organizing it. Dona had everything planned and set up to perfection…and she was radiant as she greeted people as they arrived, dressed in a beautiful, fitted orange cocktail dress, her black hair pulled back into a French braid.
“They even have the kids kissing the ring now,” Darcy snickered, coming over to me with a drink in his brown hand, using his free one to open the curtains further. He was dressed in a burgundy jacket and ripped jeans.
“Dona will have you kissing the grass soon if she sees you only wearing the jacket she sent you,” I snapped, looking him over.
He rolled his eyes. “How do you know she sent me the jacket?”
“Because I’ve seen those jeans enough times to know I hate them passionately. Dad gave you that watch and mom, the shirt…like a year ago.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know clothes have expiration dates on them,” he mocked me before lifting the glass to his lips. However, I took it right out of his hands. “Helen—”
“Go change into the clothes she gave you,” I said seriously.
Annoyed, he glanced over to me, cracking his jaw to the side. “Helen, I’m not a child! However, I am starting to get really fucking annoyed with having to put my life on hold for this family—”
