Chapter 2 #2
A harsh grip fists the hair at the top of my head, just as Tristan is pulled off me, and I look up to see the severe rage on Francesco Amato’s face. Oh shit. He just saw me hit his son. The heir to the Council.
Pain erupts on my scalp when he fists my hair and drags Tristan and me across the ballroom floor like two sacks of garbage ready to be thrown out with the trash.
Knowing the punishment I’m about to receive, I struggle to get free from Francesco’s brutal grasp, not caring if he rips out a chunk of my hair.
Frantically searching the crowd of curious onlookers for my father, hoping he will intervene, dread seers into me when I find him.
He doesn’t do anything. Just lowers his head in subjugation when Francesco hauls me past him.
“Aleks!” Aleksei calls my name, but Mama holds him back, her beautiful face ravaged with fear as she watches with hopelessness.
Everyone in this room knows what’s about to happen, and they do nothing to stop it.
One of the servants opens a door for Francesco, and we’re carried out into the hallway. Tristan isn’t struggling to break free like I am. On the contrary, he’s completely limp, like a ragdoll that has lost all its stuffing.
Another door opens, and gravity defies me as I’m hurled across the small confines of what looks like a study.
My back and shoulder slam against the unforgiving wood of an executive desk, and I scramble to my feet, grabbing the first thing I can find to use as a weapon.
I’m not going to allow Francesco Amato to beat me like a dog.
“Tristan started it. He swung first,” I tell him, brandishing the letter opener in front of me.
Tristan doesn’t say anything. He goes to his knees in front of his father, arms dangling on either side of him, and looks straight ahead, his expression empty and blank.
“Kneel,” Francesco growls, the deep, threatening baritone of his voice sending shivers down my spine.
I plant my feet. I will never supplicate before this man. “No.”
The edge of the study door cracks against the wall when Helena Amato trips into it. She teeters on her high heels when she corrects herself and smooths a hand down her sequined gown.
“What’s going on?” she slurs.
Like I’m some feral animal trapped in a cage, Francesco doesn’t take his gaze off me. “None of your fucking business. Leave.”
Helena’s glassy eyes frown at me. Her China-doll face is immobile and doesn’t portray any emotion, the result of too much plastic surgery.
“You should have dealt with your twin bastards and the slut you fucked the moment Nina found out she was pregnant.”
Nina, my mother? What is she talking about?
“Shut the fuck up!” Francesco roars.
Helena is drunk enough or high enough not to heed her husband. She points a long, lacquered fingernail at me. “You think just because you’re his,” she says, transitioning her finger to Francesco, “you can take what rightfully belongs to Tristan. You will never—”
Her words abruptly cut off when Francesco takes her by the throat and tosses her out into the hallway, then kicks the door closed hard enough to rattle the window glass.
Time suspends as Helena’s accusation hits me like a slap to the face—sharp and stinging—leaving a permanent mark on my skin. I want to laugh it off. Believe that what she said is nothing but a lie. Francesco Amato is not my father. There’s no way that’s remotely possible. Mama would never…
“What did you do to my mother?” I shout.
Something ugly and vicious slithers its way into my soul when I see a flicker of truth lurking behind Francesco’s enraged countenance, quickly followed by disgust and hatred when he turns and looks at me.
No.
It can’t be true.
It can’t.
The room violently spins once, and my stomach twists with nausea as the realization sickens me and burns me with shame.
Backing up, I’m halted in my tracks when I collide with the desk. My hand tightens its grip around the letter opener, my nails gouging into my palms with enough force to break the skin.
If it’s true, then…
My gaze falls on Tristan.
My brother. Aleksei and I have a brother. And a sister. Dierdre.
Tristan won’t look at me. He remains frozen on his knees like a trained dog put to heel by his master.
I search his profile for any resemblance, any similarities or phenotype passed down from a father to his sons that we would share, then tear my gaze away when I see the small brown mole on the helix of his left ear.
Aleksei and I have one. So does Francesco.
In that instant, my entire world unravels, splintering into jagged pieces of glass that slice me open as they fall to the ground and scatter at my feet.
There was always a part of me that knew something was wrong.
Like I didn’t belong in the world I was born into.
But if I had to choose between the lesser of two evils for fathers, I would choose Nikolai Stepanoff over Francesco Amato any day of the week.
Francesco is cruel and sadistic. The only things he covets are himself, power, and money.
He gets off on causing pain. He’s a sociopath of the worst kind dressed in a ten-thousand-dollar tailor-made suit.
I want to tear every part of his DNA from my veins.
I detest this man as much as I despise his son.
I’m compelled to ask, needing to hear him confirm it as my mind tries to deny it. “You’re my father?” I rasp, almost choking on it.
Francesco throws back his head and laughs.
The sound is ugly and hollow, like fingernails down a chalkboard.
“You and that other bastard mongrel are nothing more than the unwanted result of a bad fuck with the whore you call your mother. You are nothing to me.” Apparently no longer worth his concern or his ire, he snaps his fingers at Tristan. “Come. I’ll deal with you at home.”
With his head lowered, Tristan slowly gets to his feet and ambles behind his father…our father…as they walk out of the study.
My mind reels, my thoughts reduced to a jumbled disarray of what the fuck.
Why didn’t Mama tell us? Does Father know? Is that why he’s so hard on us? Never once showing us an ounce of love or kindness?
He’s not your real father. The devil is.
Lightning flashes somewhere in the distance, the rolling boom of thunder hitting the window seconds later. The calm before the storm.
Blood seeps through the gaps between my fingers and trickles down the antique gold blade, dripping scarlet circles on the dark wood floor, as thoughts of revenge sow their roots into my soul, and hatred mainlines its poison into my veins.
Helena Amato just destroyed my entire world with a slip of her drunken tongue, and Francesco made sure to bury the knife deep into my heart with his cruel rejection.
Aleksei and I are the bastard sons of a psychopath, who wishes we were never born.
With one secret revelation, Helena and Francesco just took everything from me. My existence. My worth. My reality. My future.
I plan to return the favor. One day, I will take everything from them.