Page 4 of Possess Me

As his words rang out, I reacted without hesitation. Yet his statement would forever linger in my mind, haunting and furrowing into the deepest part of my brain.

Now you will lose everything you care about. Justice served.

Pop! Pop!

CHAPTER 2

Fifteen years later…

Fallon

“You’re such a little slut.”

His voice was grating and I glared at the bastard standing in front of me. Crowding my space, he extended his arm and my reaction was immediate. I slapped him across the face. Memories rushed into my mind, images of my sweet mother’s face the last time I’d seen her.

And her voice.

Oh, God, my mother was dead.

“If anything happens to me or your stepfather, your brother is to blame. Just remember, my beautiful daughter, that you are royalty. Never forget how special you are and how much I love you.”

They’d been my mother’s last words, said with a shaky voice as she’d left me the phone message. Another ache formed in my heart as I thought about them. She’d tried so hard to protect me after all the tragedies, working her fingers to the bone believingin her heart she’d found someone who loved her. Only Luis Esposito, her knight in shining armor, had turned out to be evil.

But his spawn was worse.

Antonio wasn’t my brother.

He was a monster.

Royalty. I had no idea what she meant, but it no longer mattered. I’d lost everyone who mattered to me. My little world had finally been crushed and I was all alone.

No aunts or uncles, no grandparents to watch out over me. No one to run to who would keep me safe.

All I had was my mother’s anguished voice from words left in a phone message I hadn’t received until after I’d learned about her death.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Zimmerman. Your mother and father were killed.”The call had come in the middle of the night, disrupting a nightmare only to drop me into sheer hell. The detective’s tone had been appropriately haunted, even angry. As if he would do everything in his power to discover the killer.

Only Luis wasn’t my father, even though he’d pretended to care long ago when I’d been a child still mourning the loss of my real father. He was just the bastard who’d destroyed her life. Now I’d lost everything that mattered, every family member. I felt so lonely, so full of despair. My father. My mother. My sister. All gone.

What was I left with?

A horrible man who was determined to continue in his father’s footsteps.

I could still hear the terror in her voice. As soon as I’d gotten off the plane after the news of her death, I’d still tried calling her, praying that somehow the news was all just some horrible joke.

Only to have my call go immediately to voicemail.

A sob resonated in my chest, but I refused to allow the bastard to use my despair as a weakness. Fuck him.

I’d tried to warn her. I’d begged her to leave the man she’d married, an abusive son of a bitch she’d hoped I could see as a father figure. He’d failed in my eyes, although no man would ever compare to my father. I would never forgive myself. Never. She’d trusted Luis. After everything she’d been through in her life, she’d placed her trust in the horrible man.

Now, because she’d done everything in her power to bring me a better life, she was dead, murdered by the hands of an evil man.

My stepbrother.

Antonio stood in front of me, licking his lips as he undressed me with his eyes. He’d done so a dozen times, his cold stares turning into leers as I’d gone from being a child to a woman.

“You can’t run anymore, Fallon.” He grabbed my arm, yanking me closer.