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We’re at Rockford Manor, a stately home in the countryside we use for meetings and events. Our meeting tonight is about to start.
Igor is at the head of the table. I am at his right, sitting next to Virgo and his father. Jason, my nemesis, is on Igor’s left.
I have the misfortune of looking right at him.
When I first arrived, he was already here. The motherfucker had the audacity to greet me as if we were old friends who’d just been reunited after not seeing each other for years. He was the world’s greatest actor. Or maybe that was me because I tamped down my rage enough not to cut out his lying tongue and stab him in his heart. The sight of him sitting there looking like he’s some kind of god is still pumping lethal doses of rage into my blood.
Dressed in an Armani suit, the motherfucker looks like life has been treating him well. Serenity has his black hair, and thankfully, that’s as far as the resemblance goes. Jason has murky muddy-brown eyes, a square-shaped face, and a crooked nose that must have gotten that way in a fight.
He’s twenty years my senior and stands shorter than me at five foot nine, but he’s as muscular as a wrestler. I could still take him down, though—easily.
I want to do it right now, but I have to play the game even if I’m enraged that all I can do for the moment is sit here and watch.
The air of authority emitting from him is that of the country’s president, notsimplythe Governor of Massachusetts. It’s clear he’s completely forgotten that he’s only where he is in life because of Igor and my father. If not for them, he’d still be scrambling off the meagre earnings he made at his desk job in the DA’s office.
“Let us begin,” Igor announces. “The first item of business I must share is the triumph of securing the deal with the Japanese government.”
Igor continues talking proudly, filling the men in on what’s happening.
I watch the faces of the others around me light up the way mine should have when I first heard the news, but the sight just infuriates me even more.
“We owe this triumph to Jason Bell.” Igor motions to Jason, who smiles from ear to ear.
“Thank you,” Jason says with a clipped nod. “I’m glad I was able to contribute. I know it will be a benefit to us all.”
“Indeed, it will.” Igor chuckles. “And you fit it all in while planning your daughter’s wedding.”
That’s the stepdaughter he’s talking about.
Jason beams. “One confirmed and another wedding in the works for my other daughter.”
At the realization that he’s now talking about Serenity, my blood turns to ice and I hear nothing more.
Serenity’s getting married?
Fuck.I can just imagine one of Jason’s asshole pricks being the lucky husband-to-be. But it doesn’t matter who it is, she’ll belong to them and not to me.
Hearing the news that the girl who was already off limits to me is even more out of my reach should encourage me to forget her quicker.
But it doesn’t.
It has the opposite effect on me—I want what I can’t have even more.
I stay in that state of flux for the entire meeting, operating on autopilot until it’s time to go home.
Except I don’t go home.
When I find myself standing in one of the empty apartments in the building opposite Serenity’s, I know I’ve gone crazy.
I’ve reached a new level of low even for me. From here, with the assistance of a pair of binoculars, I can see straight into her bedroom.
Like the stalker I’ve become, I watch her until she falls asleep and even then I continue watching.
Like a doll, too perfect and flawless to be human, Serenity is lying in her bed. Her raven hair is sprawled out around her in long graceful waves, covering her shoulders.
I watch and wish I could touch her again.
But I mustn’t.
