Chapter 1
Dash
The rain pelts me, making my suit feel like weighted-down armor, as if I were a knight who had failed to save my queen.
I tip my head back, unable to look at the scene in front of me.
Please let the rain hide my tears.
I wish an executioner ’ s axe were about to swing and sever my head from my neck. That would be easier than having to survive today and endure the future.
No axe comes.
No relief, except more darkness from above. It slurps out any remnants of light from the heavens. A cooling shiver spreads over my skin as the rain soaks me entirely now.
Even God seems to shed tears as we lower my mother in the ground. You fucker, you should have saved her!
This whole situation is backwards. I was raised to be a man, a man who could protect his family. Yet, here I am on the sidelines, watching my mother ’ s body being put into the ground.
I eye my father. Say something to me!
He’s uttered not one word to me since the cancer took my mother. It should have been him or me; we failed to protect Mom from herself.
Feet shuffle, but no one cries because 99 percent of the people here are just fake as fuck leeches who want a piece of my family's empire.
Two shadows trap me, my cousins Titan and Damian, like matching bookends trying to tell me this is just a chapter of my life and not the entire story. They haven ’ t spoken either, but I feel their presence much more than my father ’ s. I always have.
I wish they weren ’ t here.
They will try to save me.
I don ’ t want to be saved.
“ Any final words?” The priest shifts his feet against the fake green grass carpet laid out around the coffin.
Titan steps closer to me, probably worried I ’ ll shove that prick into the hole next.
What words can be said? Heaven just gained another angel, and now my father, who was once a devil but reformed his dark intentions to love my mother, is a heartless devil again.
Worse, this time, he ’ s a devil in mourning, filled with grief. Can ’ t even acknowledge his goddamn son. The sole product of his and my mother ’ s love.
Fuck him! Fuck everyone.
Everything is a blur, from the words the priest says to the onlookers who look at us with pity or, worse, the females who look at my father with lust, waiting to fill my mother ’ s spot.
I ’ m not from a normal family; brace yourselves because this is where I ’ m going to sound like an arrogant, privileged fuck. If only my life were that simple and boring. Hold down your gag reflexes because here it comes... I ’ m from a dynasty. We ’ re not the kind of rich that buy museums to host galas at; we ’ re the ones on the museum walls.
People want to study us, pick us apart.
Millions of dollars in the bank is child ’ s play to my family ’ s billions. But not all the money in the world could cure stage four pancreatic cancer. We caught it too late and missed all the signs because Mom ’ s shining smile and always upbeat personality masked it. She pushed through her pain, and on the days she felt tired, she blamed it on her schedule when, all along, the cancer was spreading, eating her alive.
My mother, the woman who loved me and my father, the woman who birthed me and protected me, was devoured alive from the inside out.
Slowly.
“ This is bullshit,” I tug at the collar of my shirt as my memories try to choke me to death.
Damian steps closer to me; he knows what it's like to lose a mother, and I imagine this day is like peeling open his skin to purge the scars of his past.
Titan inhales, his chest stretching wide as if he wants to be my shield.
I don ’ t want a shield. I want the bullets to hit me.
Make it stop!
The sound of the cogs as the coffin is lowered is a haunting reminder, like the eerie creaking of a long-abandoned windmill turning in the moonlit night. She ’ s gone. I don ’ t have a mother anymore.
My father steps forward, kneels, and hesitates before he grabs a fistful of dirt and then tosses it on the grave. Cold steel eyes lock onto me. An order for me to continue to perform my role as his son. Remain emotionless in the eyes of the masses. A prince can only cry behind closed doors, and when he grows into a king, he should have learned not to cry anymore. That ’ s what my father ’ s eyes tell me at this moment.
Suck it up.
My feet stand before the coffin now. I can feel Titan ’ s breath on my back. Bending down, I grab my fistful of dirt; it ’ s cold and damp, feeling more like quicksand.
If only it would swallow me.
My fingers curl into the cold, wet material as if I were squeezing a neck to death. My hand raises and hovers over the grave, but I can ’ t make my fingers uncurl. I can ’ t release dirt upon her grave.
I lick my lips and feel my blood boil as the silent crowd watches, pities me, judges me.
Lowering my fist, I keep the dirt clutched tight and pocket it in my trouser pocket. Fuck this!
The heavy exhale that sounds like a growl from my father tells me I disappointed him.
Good.
How about a word to me, then? One word would do, father.
I rub the dirt into my nails, embedding it under my nail bed, forever marking this day in my memory.
I raise my chin to my father. You don ’ t want me to cry.
I won ’ t.
You want a prince who will replace you as a more ruthless king.
You ’ ll get one.
Unlike you, Father, I won ’ t give my heart away fully. I will never feel this kind of pain. Love isn ’ t worth it.
Don ’ t get me wrong, I ’ m going to have fun, run the world like Lucifer himself, fuck my way through the masses, expand the family business.
But love?
No, I will never love a woman as my father loved my mother.