Page 175 of Morally Black Betrothal

“They won’t for another two weeks. Part of an embargo from the bank. But…your dad is going to get a letter from his new mortgage owner, The Huntington Group, informing him that due to a poor payment history, the farm will be foreclosed on.”

It felt like I was choking her inner light with each piece of information. I wanted to stop myself. But I couldn’t. Instead, Ihad to watch as she staggered backward, her hand reaching for her throat.

“Looks like this fake marriage won’t save your little farm after all.” Owen continued to cut through the wounds I’d already caused. “But I’m sure if you use your wiles a little more, big brother will come up with a different payment, don’t you think? How many more millions do you think that pussy’s worth if it can’t save your family home?”

Before I could stop to think, my knuckles crashed into Owen’s jaw with enough force to send him to the ground. “Talk about her like that one more time, and every one of those teeth is going to dance across my floors like a fucking hailstorm.”

Owen looked up with a bloody grin laced with murder. “There he is. My brother, The Black Prince. Should we find a backyard to finish this, just like old times?” South Boston was coming out in his speech for once, a true sign I’d really shaken him up.

“Always wanting what someone else has. Nah, I’m good right here, you covetous little shit. You want a fight, come and get it.”

One moment he was on the floor, the next on his feet, rushing at me like a linebacker. We crashed back down together in a mess of fists, limbs, blows, and splintering furniture.

Pain burst through my temple when his fist made contact. Owen grunted when I landed a solid blow to his kidney. I barely felt any of it.

Until I heard her footsteps instead.

With a final hit that sent my brother skidding across the hardwood floor, I rounded just as Simone sprinted for the elevator.

“Simone, wait,” I called, scrambling up to follow.

Owen grabbed my arm. “Let her go. You’ve done enough damage already.”

I could have hit him again. Could have swung around and finished the job, finally showing the ruthlessness my father always said I lacked.

But my fight with Owen was over. And the only thing left fighting for in my sorry life was halfway gone already.

Like I always knew she would be.

Like she should have done long ago.

As the elevator doors shut with a quiet ding, my heart followed suit. If this was even a little of what Ryland Bishop had been feeling all these years, I decided that I couldn’t blame the man for letting his life pass him by.

“Christ. Your left hook got better since you were ten. I think you cracked my cheekbone.” Owen stood next to me, testing his jaw. “She deserved to know the truth.”

“She deserved better than this.”

“For once, we agree on something. She definitely deserved better than you.”

He was looking for another fight, too locked into the patterns of our past to notice the way we fell so naturally into them.

But I didn’t bother answering. Not because he was right—he was. But because I had no fight left in me without her. Not anymore.

41

COFFEE MILK AND CIGARETTE SMOKE

Simone

The differences between Ezra Huntington’s little offshoot of The Huntington Group and Blackguard Holding were evident from the moment I approached the decrepit brick building at the edge of town in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The crumbling factory was bracketed by a river on one side, train tracks on the other, completed by the stench of sewage that seemed to perfume the entire city.

Every instinct I had told me I should run back to the train station to avoid getting mugged or worse.

But this was the only way.

The forty-minute train ride from Boston had given me time to think about what I was going to say. Who I was going to talk to.

How, exactly, I was going to get back my family’s farm.