She isn’t coming.
After tossing my cell onto the console in front of me, I rake my fingers through my hair. I’m tired as fuck, frustrated, and hard enough to drill for gold.
I didn’t lie when I said fighting was foreplay for Emerson and me. We fought as often as we fucked, which was a record-high tally for two teens with no privacy.
But it’s different now.
The pain is real.
The feeling of betrayal is real.
The way she looks at me like she hates me is real.
I fucking hate the latter more than anything.
With my lungs replenished and my mind forced into lockdown mode, I slip out the back of the SUV and head in the direction Emerson fled. I’ve been to this estate before. It was a long time ago. You lose interest in returning to the place that caused enough abuse to fill a family album with pictures of your numerous hospital stays once you reach your formative years.
This estate was one of my grandfather’s favorites. The reminder has me again lost as to why he would gift it to me. I wasn’t his favorite grandson. He hated us all the same.
If he thinks this is his free pass to heaven, I have news for him.
Soulless men only travel one way when they die.
Straight to hell.
“No. Thank you. I’m fine.” I repeat my three short sentences multiple times while moving through the many bodies lined up outside the palatial mansion.
They stare at me as if I’m royalty and they’re here to obey my every whim.
If the lusty gleams of the barely clothed women at the side of the den are anything to go by, that’s the sole task of their job description.
Prostitution is as rife in politics as it is in bratva entities. The titles of the women selling their bodies are just altered to make them seem less dubious.
After shrugging out of my jacket, I scan the numerous bodies throughout the mansion, seeking a familiar face. Kolya will be here somewhere. He was my grandfather’s chief of staff, and even after his boss’s death, he remains his number one right-hand man.
Haunting me appears to have been my grandfather’s dying wish, and Kolya is the best man to help him achieve that. He’s been a thorn in my ass for over two decades, and I can’t wait to see the back of him. I just need to wait until the end of Inga’s treatment since that term added new provisions to the inheritance terms.
I find Kolya near the west entrance, drinking a pricy bourbon. Although my first thoughts should be on the multiple business objectives I set aside today, I let my heart speak for the first time in years. “Emerson?”
It might have been different if I hadn’t received a text from Kolya minutes before taking Emmy, the plane, up for the first time.
Igna’s inclusion into the immunotherapy trial is the sole reason Emerson entered the plane I’d purchased for her. But at the time, I wanted to pretend it was more than that.
For an hour, I wanted to pretend she didn’t break my heart.
Our truce didn’t even last ten minutes.
As Ipfft, Kolya places down his whiskey before spinning to face me. “I had Loretta show Mrs. Dokovic to her room.”
“Which is?” I ask, straying my eyes across the numerous doors on the second level.
This mansion has over thirty sleeping quarters, and there are too many bodies for me to detect one.
Well, that’s what my head is telling my cock.
I stop looking in the direction I sense Emerson is in when Kolya answers, “The primary suite, of course.” His pitch peaks during his following sentence. “This is your home now, so the owner’s wing was prepared for your arrival.” He attempts to catch me in a lie in front of an audience. “Unless you’d like me to arrange alternative accommodations for you? The east wing has a beautiful vista of the?—”
I lose the utmost devotion of many eyes when I interrupt. “The owner’s wing is fine.”
