A lump formed in my throat as the demon in me howled in rage.
“The wonderful thing about drugs is how easily addicting they are. One dose, and our girls wanted more, and we kept your mother pumped full. Drugs are better than crying babies, I suppose. Nevertheless, she abandoned you. I watched her do it, and I was happy, but she knew too much. For that, she had to die.” He pulled out his phone, scrolling through something as if this was a normal Friday night discussion.
The death of my fucking mother. She wasn’t a whore. She was a victim—a prisoner.
“Imagine my surprise when Cal Matthews brought you in from the streets seven years later. As an errand boy, of all things. He knew who you were, Collin. Hell, you're the spitting image of my father, aside from the blue eyes.” His eyes looked at me, scanning me. “Your skin tone too. You got those fromher.”
Memories of stale bread, hard floors, and a cold, moldy basement came rushing back. Me taking a man’s life before I was even a man myself. A life I was never meant to live, but I did because of thisman.
Because he took something without permission.
Because he saw my mother as an object and me as a problem.
Sirens, red and blue lights, surrounded the building then. The cops would be in here within the next minute or two, and Ray Romano would be spared. He had the police from all over the world on his fucking payroll.
The life I had lived had been meaningless. My eyes snapped up to him. He was looking out the windows, focusing on the chaos that he had created, relishing in it. I twisted my neck, the tendons popping.
My soul wasn’t meant to exist in this world. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was forced into this world at the hands of a greedy monster.
Nothing mattered in my life until—
I want you, Col.
My angel’s voice washed over me like a baptism, and just like that, it was my turn to play. She was who I lived for. She was who I worshiped. My sins would be confessed to her. Her forgiveness was the only one that mattered to me. She was who gave me strength.
Everything I’d done had been for her.
She was the only one.
“I should thank you then, Father,” I hissed, rising up from my seat. The inches I had on this man were even more of a “fuck you” now. The people in blue would be crashing through that front door any second.
It was now or never.
My father was saying something to me, but the fucks I had ran out years ago. My eyes scanned the dining room, landing on the open kitchen.
“You were the son I never wanted, Collin, and yet…the universe brought you back to me.”
A last resort.Are you fucking kidding me?He wanted me to take over thefamilybusiness.
A laugh formed in my throat, but I suppressed it. The goddamn irony.
Oh, I was taking over the family business, Dad.
And I was going to gut it from the inside out.
“There was one thing you didn’t teach me.”
He raised a brow at the same time I lifted my gun, pointing it at him.
“What’s that, son?”
The tone in his voice was confident, like he assumed I wouldn’t kill him.
“The art of deception.” I twisted my wrist slightly and fired.
I moved, knowing the bullet was sailing through the air, heading straight for the target: the gas range. Talk about a fire hazard. People were insufferable. My body moved toward the front windows, firing my gun and shattering the glass.
The blast went off behind me, propelling me through, and I landed on the sidewalk. My ears rang, my vision dotted with black dots, and my body felt like shit.Fuck.
