Chapter Two. Asad Prince #3
“Bullshit,” she mutters. “Sam just loves to inconvenience anyone when he possibly can. If he wasn’t Marcus’s best friend, I doubt he would even have a job with Cross.
God knows I tried to tell him that very same thing too many times to count.
” Michelle huffs out an aggravated breath, drumming her fingers on the armchair.
“Where the fuck is Ember?” she demands, switching subjects with the speed of light.
Her foot swings harder. “The little bitch has always been so damn disrespectful. You’d think she could get her shit together on the day her father’s laid to rest. So fucking selfish. ”
From the chair on the other side of our mother, Kareem looks at me, eyebrow raised.
Yeah. The audacity of that shit.
Marcus’s study used to be his sanctuary where no one except me was permitted.
No doubt he’s cursing us all out for congregating on his holy ground.
The room full of heavy, richly upholstered furniture, tall bay windows, dark, velvet drapery, stuffed bookshelves, and art that didn’t move him as much as the price tag did is a far cry from a chapel.
And yet, here we are, waiting to hear the benediction of his portfolio.
I shift, leaning back against the wall nearest to Marcus’s desk.
It’s the perfect vantage point of the entire room—and its inhabitants.
“Mom, it’s all right. Sam isn’t even here yet. Ember still has time to get here,” Kareem placates her.
“God, Kareem.” She flicks a hand in his direction without glancing at him, her body turned toward me.
“Always so fucking chivalrous. Don’t you get tired of being the hero?
” She spits out “hero” like others would say “hot dogshit.” “I swear,” she snorts, “the way you pant after that girl is fucking pathetic and sad.”
Like always when it comes to our mother, he remains quiet.
My younger brother is more of the suffering-in-silence type, while I’m just the make-you-suffer kind.
And Michelle takes full advantage of his disposition.
Kareem owns a nasty desire and obsession with earning our mother’s approval.
He’d have a better chance of turning water to wine.
Michelle dangles that illicit fruit in front of him, and he never fails to take a bite, only for her to snatch it away like the manipulative bitch she is. I wasn’t born with Kareem’s affliction.
“I’m sorry. I was unavoidably held up.” Samuel Chavis strides into the study, his tall, lean frame clothed in a tailored suit that probably cost more than someone’s monthly mortgage, a leather briefcase in hand.
The light from the chandelier strikes his immaculately styled black-and-gray hair and smooth, light brown skin.
Sam Chavis, Marcus’s and the House of Cross’s longtime lawyer, is an imposing figure who exudes power, wealth, and menace.
Only a privileged few know that the courtroom isn’t the only place where Sam kills.
Well, correction. Only a privileged few who are alive possess that knowledge.
The others who’re aware are too busy being dead to share that piece of intel.
“It’s about time, Sam.” Michelle huffs out a breath, crossing her arms. “Time is precious to some of us and shouldn’t be wasted.”
Sam rounds Marcus’s desk and pins his flat, unblinking gaze on my mother.
I’ve never been face-to-face with a snake—not the animal-kingdom kind, anyway—but I easily imagine his stare might be identical to that particular reptile’s just as it’s about to strike.
And like any judicious prey, my mother falls silent and still.
Michelle is a bitch, but she’s a smart one.
“As I was saying, I apologize for my tardiness,” he finally says, his low but powerful voice carrying easily as if he’s in a courtroom instead of a nearly empty study.
Settling his briefcase on the desktop, he spreads his fingers out across the gleaming leather surface.
“I won’t hold you long—wait.” He frowns. “Where is Ember?”
Michelle snorts. “That’s what we would like to know. Can we just move forward without her?”
“No, we cannot. Marcus’s will stipulates that his family must be present. That includes his only daughter.” A slight sneer curls Sam’s lips, and condescension damn near drips from his voice. A good son would’ve checked him, demanding he show the proper respect for his mother.
That ain’t me.
In order for me to be a good son, I would’ve needed a better mother.
“It’s just ten after. Let’s give Ember a few more minutes.” Kareem tries to placate Michelle. “I’m sure it’s been a trying and stressful day for her—”
“Like it hasn’t been for all of us? For me?” Michelle snaps. “Marcus was my husband. But I’m still here, showing the proper respect. No wonder Marcus couldn’t stand the little bi—”
“Did I hear someone say my name?” Ember glides into the room, bringing a kinetic energy that electrifies my skin.
She still wears the suit from earlier, and I imagine it scattered on the study’s floor, and her thick ass propped on the edge of her father’s desk, legs spread and pussy glistening and soaked. Ready to be sucked and fucked. By me.
Is it incestuous to want to beat the lining out of my stepsister’s pussy? Want to grip that slender throat and squeeze while lust and fear darken those honey eyes? Maybe. Now ask me if I give a fuck.
On a daily, I vacillate between needing to feel those undoubtedly tight and slick walls collapse around my dick and seeing that beautiful brain decorating the wall behind her.
I’m obsessed with fucking my stepsister and killing her.
Up until today, I haven’t done either. But depending on what this will reveals, the latter will be another sin to stain my already dirty, questionable soul.
Will justify why I’ve remained this long with House of Cross.
Nah, not justify.
Reward. Finally, I will receive my reward for sowing all these long years as Marcus Cross’s loyal second.
He owes me. And I’m about to collect in not just money but flesh.
His daughter’s flesh.
“Now that we’re all here, we can begin,” Sam says as Ember sinks onto the couch across the room from the rest of us.
Nothing in the casual cross of her legs or the relaxed slope of her shoulders belays the tension riding everyone else in this room.
Her expression remains cool as glass, revealing nothing of her thoughts or feelings.
But then again, this has been the dynamic of our “family” for the past thirteen years—ever since she was twelve and me, seventeen. Different. Distant. Separate.
“Finally,” Michelle mutters.
Sam glances at her, and wisely, she shuts the fuck up.
Then he glances at Ember, and that black gaze slightly softens.
Though he’s been in her life since Marcus nutted in his wife, a fierce, brutal urge to snap his neck punches me in the chest. She’s not mine.
And this damn near primal need to harm is not rational. But then again, neither am I.
“As I was saying”—Sam stares at Michelle—“since we’re all here, I can begin.
” He opens his briefcase and removes a stack of papers.
“I, Marcus Lamar Cross, a resident of Los Angeles, California, being of sound mind and body, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament.”
Silence permeates the room, and a fine tension invades my body. It seems as if I’ve been waiting for this moment for half my life, and now that it’s here, a foreign burst of nerves crowds my stomach. It takes every scrap of control to remain leaning against the wall and to school my expression.
“Let it be known that if any beneficiary under this will contests this document or any of its provisions, any share or interest given to the contesting beneficiary is revoked and will be disposed of as if he or she had not survived me.” Sam pauses and his dark gaze meets each of us in the room.
“To my wife, Michelle Denise Cross, I bequeath the Pacific Palisades home, the second home in Aspen, Colorado, ten billion dollars, and ten percent ownership of House of Cross. If she precedes me in death, her sons, Asad and Kareem Prince, will receive her inheritance.”
Anyone else receiving a fortune in real estate, money, and stocks would be ecstatic.
Fucking transcendent. Not my mother though.
Her lips flatten until they damn near disappear, and her fingers ball into tight fists on her thighs.
Knowing her like I do, she probably expected Marcus to leave her everything.
The money, the property, the company. All because she let him fuck on her for the last thirteen years.
I shake my head. That mu’fucka didn’t even do shit for his own flesh ’n’ blood.
I don’t get why Michelle thought she was so special just because she spread it low and wide.
“To my stepson, Kareem Malcolm Prince, I bequeath the Bel Air penthouse, eight billion dollars, and five percent ownership of House of Cross.”
Unlike our mother, Kareem seems pleased. He nods and gives Sam a small smile, but I glimpse the gleam in his eyes. Greed. That’s more money than he’s ever seen, much less possessed. I can practically see his brain calculating how many bitches he’s going to trick off on.
“To my daughter, Ember Belle Cross, I bequeath the trust left to her by my first wife and her mother, Kimberly Jacobs Cross, in the amount of twenty-three billion dollars. I also leave Ember an additional twenty billion, also to be held in trust until she reaches thirty years of age or enters into marriage, whichever comes first. I nominate my stepson, Asad Grayson Prince, to serve as trustee of the trust. If Asad is unable or unwilling to serve as trustee, I nominate my wife, Michelle Denise Cross, to serve in his place. Lastly, I bequeath Ember thirty-four percent ownership of House of Cross, with Asad Prince as proxy to the voting shares.”