I’m still surprised that I feel absolutely nothing hearing my mother is dead. Shouldn’t I feel something? What kind of monster does that make me that I don’t?
“Why?” I ask again.
“Because you’re my daughter.”
Four simple words. But not the whole truth. I wait for a better explanation.
“Because she lied to me and kept you from me.”
That makes more sense. Men like him don’t like being played. I catalog that bit of useful information. Declan Levine doesn’t give second chances.
Wanting to test him, I stand up from the table and walk over to the door, gripping the knob. “If I wanted to leave, would you stop me?”
Those violet eyes, identical to mine, follow me across the room. “I wouldn’t stop you, if that is what you truly wanted. But I hope that you choose to stay. I would like to have the opportunity to get to know you.”
I tilt my head and think about it. Do I want that, after everything that has happened since the night Liam found me in Geneva? Would I be stupid to take Declan Levine at his word?
Might as well go for broke and lay all my cards on the table. “I came back to get revenge. I came back to kill him,” I say, knowing he’ll get that I’m referring to Max.
Declan smiles, a stretch of the lips under his short beard. “Let me help you.”
He holds out his hand, and I stare at it for a very long time before deciding, what the hell, things can’t get much worse.
“Thank you,” is all he says when I place my hand in his. I can’t help but compare at how much smaller mine looks as he grips it gently. No one has ever held my hand before, not even Kellan or Rafe. I’m taken by surprise by how normal it feels.
Declan ushers me down a short hallway to a door that leads out of the house. As soon as we step into the inky darkness of night, I automatically pull back, but Declan’s hold on me tightens. We really are out in the middle of nowhere, I realize when all I see are the outlines of trees and more trees. An owl’s hoot echoes from far away, followed by a higher pitched hoot answering it back. Goose bumps erupt and raise the hairs on my arms and neck, not from the chill in the night air, but from the unknown.
Declan lets go of my hand. Immediately, I think this is my chance to escape and run away. But I don’t. I look down at a pair of metal cellar doors that he stops me in front of. He bends down and hefts one side up, then the other. Musty, dank air rushes up like ghosts erupting out from purgatory.
“What is this?” I inquire when I see a long set of wooden stairs.
Declan takes the first two steps down and holds his hand out for me again. “You said that you came back for revenge. This is your revenge.”
More curious than I am scared, I follow him. One step, four, ten, until I’m standing in an underground, earthen room that looks like something from a history book about pioneer times, where people would store their food and other supplies.
One lone lightbulb illuminates the room, but it’s enough for me to see Liam. Even in the dark, he’s still handsome as sin. All rugged, powerful lines, full lips, and those crazy, gray eyes on the face of an angel. Like the night we first met, I’m drawn to him for some inexplicable reason. Did Declan bring me down here for Liam to kill me?
Liam moves to the right, exposing something behind him, and I jolt back as if he just slapped me. Strapped to a chair, buck-ass naked and bleeding, is my father.
He’s not your goddamn father!I scream at myself.
Keane didn’t lie to me when he said that Max had disappeared and gone off the grid when he left New York City to return home. Did Declan take out the entire upper power structure of the Rossi syndicate? Is Uncle Domenico alive? Jesus, what has Declan done?
I’m about to turn around and ask himwhat the hell, when Liam places a red-handled knife in the palm of my hand. Jax’s knife. I stare at it, my fingers curling around the crimson hilt, the carbon-infused steel blade shines under the dim lighting. I thought I’d lost it.Jax.My Grim Reaper. Please be alive.
Declan kisses me on the top of my head. It’s such a loving, fatherly gesture. I tip my face up to look at him, needing guidance. Something. I feel like my life has been shredded into a million pieces, and I don’t know how to put them back together.
“For you, daughter, to decide,” Declan says quietly.
My eyes zero in on the man who abused and raped me for most of my life. The man who said he was my father. The man who took Kellan from me. The man who lied to me, used me, was going to sell me like a whore to the Ortiz Cartel. The man I came home to wipe off the face of this earth.
“This is your revenge.”
I had always fantasized about this day of reckoning—how I would kill Maximillian Rossi, make him suffer for hours upon hours. I would do it slowly, painfully; drawing it out, so he would know every bit of my anguish and suffering before I finally ended his life. I daydreamed about the thousands of ways I could kill him. Shoot him in the head. Torture him. Drown him. Stab him and slice open his throat using Jax’s knife. Ironic that it’s that knife I’m holding in my hand.
But now that I’m standing before the devil, I do none of those things. He looks at me with pleading brown eyes. At least he tries to. One eye is completely swelled shut, and the other is blood-red and bulging from its socket. So weak. So helpless. The sight makes me almost giddy.
Carved in his chest in jagged letters is my name: ALEXANDRIA. Did Liam do that? How fitting. I’ll have to thank him later.
