Page 9

Relief shouldn’t flood me, but it does. He’s my brother. I should want to have a relationship with him. He’s the only family I have left.

But family doesn’t sell your body to a stranger for an hour.

Family doesn’t do any of the things Weston has done to me.

Shame burns the pit of my stomach, and I swear the day I find out I have an ulcer, it’ll be because of the man in front of me.

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” I snap. It’s barely a whisper, full of hurt and hatred.

With a patronizing tilt of his head, he says, “It’s cutethat you think I give a fuck about your forgiveness, sis. We’re never going to see each other again, remember? The fuck do I care if you forgive me?”

The reminder isn’t enough to make me feel calm. I won’t feel calm until I’m back in The Highlands, in my bed while Indigo fills me in about her day at beauty school.

I zone out, lost in thoughts of what’s to come before I notice my brother has vacated the spot in front of me and is standing near the bookcase I admired just a moment ago.

Weston reaches in his breast pocket for something, and I almost expect him to have another secret phone he didn’t turn in downstairs. It’s not a phone, though, and the second I realize what it is my stomach tenses.

Chapter 4

The Lost Rose Pt. 2

ADONIS

The second I walk in my office, I know something isoff.

“Vic,” I call out to my guard. And I don’t need to raise my voice because he’s never more than two steps behind me.

“Yes, sir?”

“Who was in my office during my last meeting?”

“Mrs. Odom came in, to clean. As you requested, sir.”

His answer alleviates the tension in my shoulders as I round the glass-top desk and scrutinize every millimeter of the surface.

The custom Challenger 605 is too far to the left. Less than an inch, but the misalignment is all I can focus on.

Precision born of obsession guides my hand along the base of the model plane’s platform until it’s back in place.

Only then do I unbutton my suit jacket to sit down, keeping my eyes trained on the Samson Air logo staring back at me until Victor clears his throat.

“What is it?” Waiting for his reply, I put away the tablet I used in my last meeting and place my thumb over the sensor to wake up my desktop.

“While you were in your meeting, we got word on Mr. Rose’s whereabouts.”

“And?”

“He’s at The Rose Manor.”

I still. Last I heard, the Rose family had been dismissed from The Society. Which was rare because once a member was initiated, death was the only exit.

But with Marcellus Rose’s untimely demise last year, that option had been circumvented, granting his children time to grieve before collecting their family’s debt in another way.

“Why?”

“The founding families agreed to grant him a probationary period as long as he provides another sacrifice.”

It shouldn’t, but my interest piques at that.