Page 7 of Morally Black Betrothal

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WHAT’S IN A NICKNAME?

Brendan

I’ve been called a lot of names in this short, shitty life.

Heartless Wonder.

Graveheart.

MacDeath.

The last two weren’t even particularly inspired, considering my father was originally from Ireland, not Scotland.

The worst one, and maybe the one that was most accurate, happened to correspond with my last name: The Black Prince.

What did I expect, really? The first son of Niall Black was never going to be a nice guy. I’d been raised by the most cutthroat venture capitalist in New England. My father was Boston’s version of the Wolf of Wall Street, otherwise known as the Profit Pirate or the Venture Vulture. A man who had built his fortune out of a two-bit bookie’s office by stepping on the backs of weaker men, sabotaging without a second thought, and fully embracing the philosophy that winning was the only acceptable path in life.

Now in his eighties, my father had built one of the largest investment firms in the world and was the unchallenged patriarch of the Black family.

To be honest, a part of me was proud to be called The Black Prince. It meant people knew what I’d always known: I was the next in line to take over that bloodthirsty legacy. For thirty-nine years, I’d been groomed to take his place, and I knew I was ready.

Until I saw my father lying on that hospital bed like a cadaver.

Suddenly, I was six years old and hiding in the bathroom again. But the terror didn’t come from my father and his belt, hand, or fist. It came from the sight of the old man so frail.

Laid out unconscious, tubes sticking out of his nose and mouth, hooked up to all of those hideous machines, he was a shell of the rage-filled monster who had reduced me to shivering like a leaf as a child.

But without him…what was this life I was living?

He was so helpless, so weak. So alone.

Alone.

Why thefuckwas my father alone?

“Jesus. Dad.” My voice was a shadow as I stepped inside. “JesusChrist.”

Movement in the corner of my eye pulled my gaze, and I realized I was wrong. My father wasn’t alone.

A woman sat next to him, so small and unobtrusive in shapeless blue scrubs that she nearly blended into the room. She had frozen, hand hovering in the air, midway through playing an Ace of Hearts in what looked like a game of solitaire on Dad’s hospital tray.

I snarled like the maimed wolf I was. “Who the fuck are you?”

The girl jerked as if she’d been slapped, knocking the tray and sending the cards flying everywhere. A few strands ofcaramel-colored hair escaped her ponytail, framing her face in a perfect halo.

I watched as she scrambled to pick up the cards. By the time she was finished, she seemed to have regained her composure as she sat back in her chair, raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, and then did the last thing I expected.

She smiled.

I could have sworn someone amplified the lumens in the room by a factor of a hundred.

“Hello. I’m Simone,” she started to say, but I didn’t hear anything past her name.

Her voice was smooth as butter, yet somehow earthy. Hinting of joy, like church bells, or maybe the laughter of angels, if angels laughed at all.

Then I looked at her, really looked. And when those blue eyes met mine from beneath a heavy sweep of golden lashes, and those perfectly pink, bee-stung lips dropped into a sinful O, I could have sworn on all that was holy that my heart stopped.