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The heavy wooden door creaks open, revealing the dusky room I used to dream of being allowed to sit in with my father before I knew the kind of man he is. There are no windows in this room for obvious reasons, and all the light comes from a huge chandelier hanging from the twenty-foot ceiling. It’s probably older than I am.
There’s velvet beneath my feet and rows of books I know my father’s never read lining the walls. It’s all dark wood, the air rich and spiced with the scent of sandalwood and whiskey. My father sits behind the imposing live edge table, his huge frame tucked into a black leather chair.
My father looks up as soon as I enter, a sinister smile spreading on his thin lips. He holds a rocks glass between two fingers. He’s looking at me as if he knows he’s won.
He isn’t alone in the study.
Sitting across from him is a man I haven’t seen in nearly a decade—Jeffrey Welser. Now, I’m confused.
“Nice of you to finally join us, boy,” my father croaks. His voice is scratchy from his chain smoking. “Take a seat.” He points to the empty leather chair beside Jeffrey’s.
What the fuck?
Jeffrey Welser is no stranger to our family. He’s as dirty as one can be without belonging to a criminal organisation. Over the years, Jeffrey—billionaire heir to an oil fortune—has financedmanyof my father’s crazy ideas. He stays in the shadows, investing in all the fuckery we do without ever getting his hands dirty. A coward’s way to live.
I came here to talk to my father about staying in this cursed house and walked into something seemingly more serious. My father must have had Jeffrey here, waiting formeto get here.
I sink into the seat warily, eyeing Jeffrey with thinly veiled disdain. The security standing outside must be his. Jeffrey gives me a tight smile. Unlike my father, he isn’t drinking. In fact, he looks uncomfortable. He’s wearing a crisp linen suit, a ridiculous outfit for a British winter. His thin hair is pushed back from his face, a scraggly moustache set beneath an aquiline nose.
“Jeffrey and I were just discussing the future,” my father begins. “It seems we both have a shared interest at this point and have decided to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
I lean back in my seat, resting my chin on my closed fist.
Jeffrey shifts in his seat. He’s averting my eyes while my father is staring me down with a fucking smirk on his face. I don’t even trust myself to speak—I’m already close to my boiling point. So I grind my teeth and wait for him to get to the fucking punchline.
“Y-you remember Ottilie, don’t you Alexander?” Jeffrey speaks up, turning to me.
I twist my head, fixing him in the crosshairs of my displeasure. “Who?”
“Ottilie, my daughter.” Crickets. “You two went to school together.”
A memory surfaces then, of gangly Ottilie being introduced to our class in Year 7. She was all legs, with the same wiry brown hair as her father. Keller took a liking to her almost instantly, which automatically put us at odds. I don’t remember much after that because the summer after, I changed schools.
What does she have to do with anything?
“It doesn’t matter, he’ll get reacquainted with her soon enough.”
My eyes flick back to my father. “Pardon?”
His smile grows. “Ottilie’s been acting out. Similar to the way you’ve been. Jeffrey and I have decided that an arrangement to have you both settle down is in order.” He drains the contents of his glass. “Joining our families for the greater good.”
I’m seeing red. “What are you saying?”
“You’re going to marry her.”
NINE
ALEXANDER
“Like hell I will.”
I lunge at him over the table. Weapons be damned, I’ll kill him with my bare hands. I grab my father by the collar of his shirt, punching his square in the jaw. The glass crashes into the side of my head, pain blossoming as it explodes into shards. The sting only spurs me on, and I don’t let go of him.
I wrap my fist around his neck, squeezing as hard as I can. He hits me in the face, in the side of my head, and the warmth of my blood spills from the wound onto my neck. But I channel every bit of my hatred, my frustration, myrageinto the grip I have on him.
He starts choking.
It’s just me and him in this room. The world grows quiet. All I can hear is my own heartbeat and his soft gurgle as he tries and fails to breathe. He’s close to dying—I can see it in the way his eyes bulge, the futile clawing at my hands.
