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I don’t like the sound of that.
In fact, I don’t like it at all, to the point that I decide to call it quits.
Leaving Nicolo behind, I grab my briefcase and jacket from a nearby chair and don’t feel anything as I smudge the tailored cloth with blood. But I make a note to buy a change of clothes on my way home.
“What do you want me to do with these two?”
I look at him over my shoulder. “What you do best, Nicolo.”
He doesn’t need me to elaborate. His sadistic smirk is the last thing I see as I close the door behind me.
11
ASPEN
We’ll meet again, my red dahlia.
I wake up with a gasp for nonexistent air. Moisture gathers in my eyes and my heart nearly spills out on the ground.
For a second, I’m disoriented as to where I am. But the memories soon trickle back in, steady and horrendous in their accuracy. I can almost hear thethwackand the sound of my suppressed screams of pain.
My head whips around and I wince at the sudden movement.
I slowly slide out of bed, expecting Kingsley’s shadow to appear out of nowhere and dunk me back onto the mattress.
I release a broken breath when that doesn’t happen.
Only that asshole would take care of a hurt person while flashing his dick diploma from “Bastard School.”
And yet…I stare down at my dirty dress and the bruises on my arm and shoulder, at the map of destruction all over my body. And the most prominent feeling that overwhelms me is gratefulness.
If it weren’t for him, I would’ve passed out in some unknown corner and had a worse fate than being beaten to a pulp.
I carefully get out of the room, trying and failing not to be impressed by the mansion.
This place has a soul that can be felt from a mile away. Like an old gothic cathedral that was used to hide skeletons.
It’s the first time I’ve been within its walls. During Gwen’s wedding, the garden was all I saw of this imposing building.
Previously known as Black Valley Manor, this place has a presence as grim as its current owner, but it has its charms, too.
The ornate antique pillars belong to some architectural museum and the marble flooring mirrors a sophisticated taste. There’s so much space, hallways, and intricately decorated sitting areas that it’s easy to get lost within its walls.
There’s an air of sinister intent in the house’s soul. Again, a replica of its owner.
According to his very public trials about the mansion’s ownership, Kingsley has a sentimental attachment to this place. So when his father died and his wife, Susan, inherited it, Kingsley went berserk. The fact that he inherited almost everything else—billions worth of portfolios and a higher tax bracket included—meant zilch to him.
He’s the type of crazy to prove his father was senile in his last years, render his will null and void, and then revert to the most recent will before that, in which he has ownership of this mansion. After all, he was born here and should inherit it as the tenth generation of the Shaw clan.
The press painted him as a “Savage Devil’ and threw in standard sexist misogynistic traits because he evicted a woman from the house she’d lived in for most of her life.
And while all those adjectives apply to the asshole for other reasons, it’s not the case when it comes to Susan.
I met her a few times when she showed up to flex her nonexistent muscles at the firm, and they were unfortunate events that I would rather never witness again.
If Kingsley hadn’t graduated from jerk school, I would’ve felt sorry for him. But then again, birds of a feather flock together. So maybe he and his stepmother share a fitting fate.
Nate never saw the charm in this house, but I do. Part of it has to do with the fact that my daughter has lived here for so many years.
