Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Grant chose the latter.
Slowly but surely, he turned into Harrod.
Me? I bided my time. Patiently.
When I was nine, my mom finally left. She’d been planning it with Mom Jina for years, obsessing over every detail and kind of forgetting me in the meantime. She’d be so out of it sometimes, hiding the bruises covering her body like a walking battlefield, that she didn’t see my bruises.
Then, one day, she took me, and we fled. The three of us. All the way to Switzerland.
For three months, we lived like the happiest family in the world. But even at nine, I knew it wouldn’t last.
Harrod would find us. And he’d kill my moms.
So I called Grant and asked for help.
He traced my call and handed our location to Harrod. Because by then, Grant wasn’t just Harrod’s son; he was Harrod.
But before he hung up, Grant told me to wait outside when Harrod arrived. Said if I went with him willingly, the moms would live.
I struck a deal with Harrod.
I’d be his perfect son. The opposite of Grant. I’d give him everything he wanted—power, profit, status. Everything.
To this day, I don’t know why he agreed. Maybe he never wanted my mom. Maybe he feared losing me completely.
Whatever the reason, I had to call my moms and tell them I chose him.
Then I cut contact.
For years, I became Harrod’s golden child. Straight A’s, star athlete, problem solver. Everything Grant wasn’t.
And I thrived on it.
The control. The resources. The killing.
Especially the killing.
Slaughtering for Vencor became second nature—hunting, executing, then sharing a smoke with Julian and the others. Not all of them loved the bloodshed, but we all got off on the power. The knowledge that one day, we’d own everything.
I was riding that high when I met Cassandra on a blind date.
Our dads arranged it—typical rich people shit.
She was smart, confident, persistent. A Senior Vencor member and an executive in the Davenport company. She liked me immediately and decided I was the man for her.
I didn’t argue. I liked her, mainly because I could be open with her since she was a Senior member—the highest position attainable for a non-founding family.
Since I was expected to get married anyway, I thought Cassandra was a perfect fit. My father loved her, and Grant liked her fire. His own wife, another arranged marriage, was meek and he hated that.
Cassandra was a free spirit who didn’t conform to social norms. Despite the marriage, she was anti-monogamy and loved threesomes a lot. I didn’t mind. But we both got bored a few months into our marriage, so we agreed to have an open marriage. She also preferred dishing out orders during sex, and her streak of dominance clashed with mine, so six months after the marriage, we admitted we just weren’t sexually compatible and stopped having sex altogether, opting to satisfy our preferences with other people. But aside from that, we were an ideal couple.
A perfect match. No deep feelings, no mess.
I think that’s part of the reason my moms never liked Cassandra. They wanted someone to love me and for me to love them back, but they’re hopeless romantics, and I don’t do love.
Our marriage was a practical, harmonious partnership. We were close friends who told each other everything and had the same goals and aspirations.
It worked.
Until it didn’t.
When Cassandra was taken from me, I didn’t feel heartbreak. I felt rage.
Rage at the audacity that someone dared to touch her. I needed revenge, to kill every single person who hurt her.
I didn’t trust the justice system, so I delivered it myself.
One by one, I made them bleed.
All except one.
Maybe it was because Alexander Carson was the last on the list. Maybe it was because I wouldn’t have a purpose after he was gone.
Sandra would remain dead and I’d be alone and aimless. With nothing to tether me to life.
So I went with a different approach and decided to cut Declan from the equation. To go after Carson with needles, stabbing him slowly, until he died by a thousand cuts.
And the best way to do that? Kill his grandsons. Then his son. Then his daughter-in-law.
Break him completely before finishing him off.
The first time I met Gareth, my suspicions about his rotten blood and inherited bad habits were confirmed, and I wanted to punish him by reversing the positions. But that only planted the seed of fascination.
Because ever since then, even though I told myself I could kill him at any moment, I’ve only managed to grow more infatuated with him.
Enamored.
Obsessed.
Addicted.
Obviously, my original plan went to absolute hell, because I’m in the back of a van, heading straight to where that cockroach Declan is keeping my little monster.
While staring at a selfie he took of us the other day.
He’s lying on my lap, grinning at the camera, dimples deep in his cheeks, blond hair messy, and Moka curled up on his shoulder.