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Aspen and I aren’t close; in fact, we’re the opposite of close. But I’ve known her for enough years to recognize when she’s up to something.
And I’ll be damned if I miss a chance to drag her down.
Crown and all.
3
ASPEN
The human mind forgets.
It’s a defense mechanism, a healing process, and a necessity to push oneself forward.
I’mnotthe type who forgets.
I have archives upon archives of files stored neatly in my brain with name tags and rotten memories.
But even I have fallen prey to the mind’s need to move on. Even I have started to blur the stench of my childhood hellhole in the ghetto and everything that transpired within its walls.
I lived the last twenty-five years of my life looking over my shoulder, counting calendar days, and later, getting drunk on a grave I thought was my daughter’s.
I lived twenty-five years waiting, surviving, and biding my time for this day.
The day when my monster of a father would be unleashed back into the world, twenty-five years older, wiser, and deadlier.
I have no misconceptions about who his first target will be once he gains his freedom. He told me so the day he was arrested.
“I’ll come back for you, my red dahlia. Whether you run or hide will have zero effect on the final result.”
That’s what he used to call me. A red dahlia, the worst color for that flower, holding the meaning of betrayal and deceit.
Something my father and I share in our DNA.
We also share the belief that hiding is useless. In the past, I used to think running was my best option. That’s why I made friends with his guard or, more accurately, bribed him so I’d know when my father was getting out.
In the meantime, I received news about all the people he killed while he was on the inside. Just because a monster is locked up doesn’t mean the danger he poses is gone.
I planned to run away as soon as he was out. I had nothing to hold me to the States and I mapped out my fresh start in another country. I would take my experience with me and crush different goals.
But that was before I found out my daughter isn’t in the fake grave I’ve been getting drunk on every year.
That was before I “met” her and was given another chance to make things right.
If I run, I might as well sign an abandonment contract and give that asshole Kingsley the satisfaction of saying “I told you so.”
Which isn’t an option.
Being accepted as Gwen’s mother is my new goal in life and might as well be my calling, meaning, and what gives me the power to wake up every day.
And to achieve that, I need to face the demon that’s custom-made with my blood type.
Bruno Locatelli is a made man, a hitman for an influential Italian crime family, and has an assassin’s cult that worships at his monstrous altar.
He’s been doing business as usual from prison without a hiccup. In fact, he’s been staying there under his bosses’ order, taking the fall for some of the higher-ups’ crimes like a made man should.
Now, he’ll be rewarded for his services and given the power he bloodied his hands for during all these years.
But before he asks for my head as a sacrifice, I need protection.
