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And even as agony carved through my body like a hot knife, I couldn’t stop the shudder rippling from my chest. I was glad he was dead. Glad this was finally over.
Laz carried me through that house, and outside in the waiting Explorer, stepping around the dead bodies. The place was carnage. But that’s what happens when you touch what belonged to Lazarus Rossi…
Prologue
Months later…
“Mrs. Rossi,have you heard anything I’ve said to you today?” The solicitor looked across the desk at me, his brow furrowed, his eyes intense. He’d been staring at me over the top of horn-rimmed glasses for the last three hours, repeating sections of my father‘s will over and over again like he was waiting for me to react.
“Yes, I’m quite sound of mind, George,” I muttered, meeting his stare. “And I’ve heard everything you’ve told me here today.”
“So, there’s nothing that we’ve discussed that you want to talk about, or…contest?”
Contest, that’s really what he wanted. He was even prepared for it. His secretary sat by his side. Neither of them had been taking notes the entire meeting and there was not a recording device in sight. “If I were your legal counsel, which I’m not, but if I was, I’d be encouraging you to contest this, quite forcefully in fact. After all, there is quite a large sum of money at stake here.”
Money… That’s all that really ever come down to with my father. Money and power, I wasn’t in need of either of those things, nor did I want them. “No.” I shook my head. “I won’t be contesting my father’s will. If this is what he wanted, then so be it.”
I rose from the seat, desperate to get out of here. Pale green walls made me feel nauseous, even more than I have been this entire pregnancy, which was a lot. I swallowed the urge to retch and looked away from the foul colour that made up one of the most prestigious solicitor’s offices in the city.
“Fifty billion dollars is a lot to walk away from.” The mutter came from behind me as George Huntley rose. Fifty billion was a nice cut for him if I did decide to contest it.
I lowered my hand to the swell of my belly, feeling that life inside me kick. I could do a lot with fifty billion, start my own women’s shelter, hire a specialised group of mercenaries to track down and rescue trafficked women. I could do more with that money in a lifetime than maybe ten people could with the same amount. After all, I had the expertise at my fingers.
But I didn’t touch a cent of that money. It wasn’t the fact that I couldn’t, I didn’t want to. I strode out of the solicitor’s office and made my way slowly out into the hallway. My gait was awkward, waddling more this time than I had when I was pregnant with Sophie.
The specialist diagnosed a fracture in my spine in the days after the attack. The pain radiated down my vertebrae and into my thighs, making it difficult in the months following the attack to take care of Sophie. But Lazarus had been there every second. He was the one who woke up with her in the middle of the night, and he was the one who took her on walks around the gardens, staying close to the house.
He was also the one who held me when I woke from nightmares screaming. Nightmares that hadn’t plagued me before. Not even after my abduction from the island. But they did now. I couldn’t stay away from her, sleeping on her floor, watching her every second of the day till Lazarus picked me up and carry me to bed. That was why I couldn’t take his money, not one goddamn dollar. What is the payment for the horrible things he’d done to me—to us?
I wanted him to be buried with that money, but I knew that was never going to happen. I pressed the button for the elevator and stepped in when the doors opened, making my way down to the foyer where Lazarus was waiting for me.
He stood with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, watching everybody who came and went until he saw me. He dropped his arms, striding forward until he pulled me against his chest. “You okay?”
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I nodded. “More than okay, perfect in fact.”
He swiped a tear away. “You sure, Kitten? Doesn’t look like that.”
“It is, I mean I am.” I forced a smile even as the tears flowed in steady streams to linger at the edge of my jaw before they fell. “He didn’t leave me a cent. Not one fucking cent.”
Lazarus’ lips curled with a flare of anger until he froze. The he got it…he truly got it. “Good,” he answered. “Fuck his money, you don’t need it.”
No, I didn’t. Lazarus had more money than I could ever use in my lifetime. And it didn’t come with abuse.
I let that happiness sink in, let it grow inside me warm and comforting until I turned my head, catching movement on the corner of my eye, and then stiffened.
Haelstrom Hale strode through the automatic doors in the prestigious solicitor’s firm. Two men trailed behind him, one of them wearing a clerical collar, the other one a snarl. Both were wearing the stitched insignia H inside the O for Hale Order. A whimper tore from my throat as Hale turned his head and met my gaze. I hadn’t seen him in over a year and here he was the demon of my past…and the father of my child.
Lazarus stared are Hale shifted his gaze, looking from me to my husband and then looked away as though we were no one. But I knew we weren’t no one…not to him.
“Let’s go.” Laz took my hand as they stepped into the elevator.
I knew where my father’s money was going now, and I knew the types of things it would be used for. Dark things…debased things. Things that would give me nightmares for the rest of my life. I reached out, grabbed hold of my husband’s hand, and prayed.
“You hate me. You hate me so fucking much. You don’t wear your virginity as a shield…you wield it as a weapon. You use it to drive you harder, to make you more savage.” He lowered his gaze to the open collar of my shirt and lifted his other hand, his finger working the top button until it opened, displaying my breasts against the lacy black push-up bra.
“You’re not pure, Evan. No matter what that empty ache between your legs says. You’re just as fucking sick and as twisted as the rest of us. You just haven’t enjoyed the pleasure that comes with this fucking life.” He lifted his gaze from my breasts to my eyes. “I’m going to enjoy teaching you that…as your husband.”
