Page 55 of Wreck and Ruin
“Good,” he says to my utter, fucking surprise. “There isn't a man on earth I could think of who would be better for my daughter.”
My chest tightens withsomething,and I bite back my emotions. He's never given me a compliment before. And the honor of his blessing fills me with…happiness.
Would I walk away from her without it? Not on my life. But that doesn’t take away from the warmth I feel from his words.
“Sir—”
“Now. Go and get the girl her damn spiders. Meet me back here. We've got a lot to talk about because you, my son, are taking over for me when we get back home.”
What?
Take over?
Me?
A mafia don?
Surely, this old bastard is losing it.
Pride swirls in my chest, and I feel like everything has fallen into place for the first time in my life, like pieces of a very twisted puzzle. I didn't know what it looked like until the puzzle was completed. I am at a loss for words, but I straighten even with the shock of Titan’s declaration, knowing how monumental this is in our world.
“It would be my honor, Sir,” I reply, swallowing the lump in my throat. I must look like a complete idiot because he pats me on my shoulder, turns around, and walks away.
His words replay through my mind as I head toward the Cathedral. If the little boy version of me could see himself now, he'd be overjoyed and maybe even proud.
Because he finally did it.
Failure after constant failure, I still conquered the monsters. I stared deep into their eyes until their darkness and shadows consumed me, making me a monster, too.
But in spite of that darkness, I found someone, or rather, she found me. Tangled in shadows beneath water and stone. Two helpless souls bound together by tragedy and fate, and as I walk toward my future, I realize for the first time that I have everything I have ever wanted.
I am loved, and I have a family.
I am Ezekiel King.
And I intend to make Airlie my queen.
Epilogue
Airlie
Five years later
In most fairy tales, the villain doesn’t get the girl, at least not in the books that Ezekiel leaves on my nightstand for me to read each night before bed. There’s something about those stories that leaves me with more questions than answers.
What if the one who saves you, your champion, is part villain and hero? And the one you’re taught to believe is trustworthy and good for you is actually the most cruel one?
Because I’m surrounded byvillainseach day, and they aren’t a scratch on the true evil I’ve seen in this world.
I steady my gloved hand, the constant buzzing coming from the fluorescent light shining brightly above me fills the room. I focus on it. Attempting to drown out the whimpers and endless complaining coming from the large, muscular man who lies on the surgical table before me.
Gauze pinched between my sterile tweezers, I lightly dab the blood welling around the bullet wound, soaking through his skin. Billy-John, one of Ezekiel's men, drones on about some “asshole”that shot him in a meeting that went wrong earlier this evening. He winces, hissing in pain as I dig for the bullet that’s lodged beneath a layer of ripped fat and flesh on his bottom.
I want to ask him why, of all places, he allowed himself to get shot in the backside, but think better of it.
I'd never hear the end of it.
Katia, mafia doctor and my teacher, strides into the room, takes one look at Billy, and laughs hysterically, her back hunched over, her hands placed on her thighs as she howls with laughter.
