Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Read Online Books/Novels: | Tarnished Empire |
|---|---|
Author/Writer of Book/Novel: | Ava Harrison |
| Language: | English |
| ISBN/ ASIN: | 1734835516 (ISBN13: 9781734835519) |
| Book Information: | |
My plan was simple. Get invited onto his yacht. Find information to destroy him. But I wasn't prepared for Alaric Prince. Dangerous and seductive, he trapped me in his gilded cage. He calls me Dove. Easily preyed on. Easily broken. A man that ruthless only wants to crush me. I must resist the temptation to let him. He's my father's enemy. At war with my family. A danger to me. Falling for him would be my demise. But if my plan works, it will be his. | |
| Books by Author: | Ava Harrison |
Epigraph
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
~ Carl Jung
Prologue
Alaric
Life is pretty fucking good.
My business is thriving. Money is plentiful, and a willing girl is always available to entertain me.
Tonight, I have a business meeting that could change the whole trajectory of my life. Word around town is Michael Lawrence is thinking of retiring. When I heard this, I jumped on the opportunity to speak with him. Apparently, he’ll sell for the right price, which is cause for a celebration, considering he’s the leading distributor of guns in the Southern Hemisphere.
The honey-colored liquor beckons to me from across my desk. Leaning forward in my chair, I reach for the decanter. My staff always know to keep it full.
This information almost seems too good to be true, but it’s exactly what I need to get to the next level. To make this business my own instead of the floundering one my father left me when he passed away a few years back.
A person will always show their true colors, you just need to be watching them to see. I wasn’t watching my father.
A valuable lesson learned.
One I will not forget.
But all the anger in the world won’t change the past, so instead, I need to look toward the future.
I’m lost in thought until a sound coming from across the room has me looking up from my desk. My office door swings open, and my brother, Damian, walks in.
I haven’t seen my brother in what seems like forever. He looks different standing there. Older. His dark eyes are the same—a complete contrast to my light ones—but his hair is longer and disheveled. Like me, he always looks like he has bedhead, but this is more. He looks like he just doesn’t care.
He strides across the room toward my desk as if he owns the place, and he should.
Hands in his pockets, head cocked, he asks, “What time is the meeting?”
Despite his absence, I apprise him of my dealings.
“In an hour.”
His mouth thins with displeasure. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think—”
My hand lifts to silence him. “Damian. When you run your own business, you can do what’s best for you. This is my business, and this is what we need.” Low blow, even for me, talking about the big fucking elephant in the room.
Years ago, when my father was still around, and Damian’s actions mattered, he was reckless. He spent the early years of his life doing things he shouldn’t, and it cost him everything.
What should have been his life is now mine.
He hates me for it—resents me—and I don’t blame him. I’d hate me too. I took his birthright.
But his loss is my gain, or at least that’s what my father told me when he handed me the keys to the almost crumbled castle.
My father was always quick to tell me this wasn’t my fault, but rather Damian’s. He deserved everything he got because he let a woman come before family.
When he should have been working, he was nursing a broken heart.
A lost love that was never his to have.
In the world I live in, there is no time for love. No place for it.
Always my father’s punching bag, I listened and learned not to show weakness at an early age.
The most important thing is the “Business.”
Family second.
And a wife …
That wasn’t on his radar.
My mother was easily forgotten once she left. After he knocked her up, not once but twice, she was more than happy to leave with fat pockets of cash.
Damian is an idiot who let his feelings get in the way.
When my father died, drugs and booze were Damian’s only friends.
Even if he’s never around, he still works for me.
“Lawrence could be up to something.”
I shrug. “The old man wants out.”
“Ever think it could be a ruse?” His question takes me off guard. Rarely did anyone question my judgment, let alone him.
“No,” I answer firmly. Damian is silent, but then his hands reach out and rest on my desk, his fingers tapping out a beat. I wonder if he realizes he’s doing it. He’s always had that nervous tic. I cock my head and wait for him to say what he so badly wants to.
“You should consider it. Never can tell who to trust.” His words cut through me. They reach their intended mark. The thing is, even if I do care, even if I feel guilty for my part in his dismissal from the family business, I don’t respond to his dig.
I narrow my gaze at him.
“You want to go for me?” I ask.
“What?”
My eyes search his face as I take him in. “Do you want to go in my place?”
“Because …” His jaw is tight as he inhales in deeply before continuing. “Why would I do that? You already took everything from me. Do I really need to be your errand boy now, too?”