Page 42

T he phoenix, while mythical, builds a nest before it dies and sets itself on fire. Then rises from the ashes, symbolizing hope, life, and good over evil.

I’m neither immortal nor fucking mythical.

I gave up believing in a savior well before my balls dropped, and nothing in my thirty-one years has changed my mind.

In fact, I’m about to become the very thing I once hated.

A monster.

Like my father.

Nature or nurture? It’s an age-old question.

One I have zero need to answer because I won’t be spawning any devils from my DNA.

I toss back the scotch in the bottom of my crystal glass and take in the mega-million-dollar view from my luxury Manhattan penthouse.

Raindrops hit the floor-to-ceiling windows and slide down the glass, distracting me from the world beyond.

It feels macabre standing here in the dark, but it suits my mood.

I don’t know if I’m even capable of true joy.

My mind flicks back to my years at Phillips Academy—a boarding school for rich kids. Or should I say rich, unwanted kids. A place that likely saved what was left of my life.

Or rather, soul.

It’s where I met my “brothers”: Parker, Zayne, Travis, and Killian. We saved one another.

If you can call it that.

We might all be rich as fuck, but underneath our confidence, power, and—when alone—our ridiculous banter, lies five splintered souls.

It’s how we connected and it’s what bonds us.

That and the fight club we started when we were fifteen. It caused an underground movement that attracted the rich, the poor, and the broken—all needing to smash the fuck out of someone to feel alive.

To feel power.

To take back what was taken.

Never works, of course, but it feels fucking great to bleed and ache instead of feeling numb.

Or to try to house the fury inside.

So, the Alliance Fight Club was formed.

Don’t go mistaking us for some kind of Robin Hoods. We weren’t saving anyone. We just wanted to fight. Because back then we couldn’t fight our fathers—the men who caused irrevocable harm to each and every one of us.

“Remember the code,” Parker said after the first night of the Alliance Club fights in the dark streets behind Phillips Academy. “Strength in silence: revenge is a patient man’s game. We act in the shadows and never reveal our hand too soon.”

We haven’t.

We each graduated and have built empires, making us powerful and influential.

I had a helping hand, not from my father, but because my mother died while I was at Phillips.

Whether she died of natural causes is still something I wonder about, but she stood by and let my father do what he did, so my cold, shattered heart simply hardened when I was told, and I focused on the multi-six-figure inheritance she left me.

One my father couldn’t touch.

He’d done enough touching of things that didn’t belong to him during my life.

Including me.

Every fucking inch of me.

It started from as early as I can remember until the day I left for the academy. I know the moment Pierce Sterling decided to send me away. It was the moment I found my voice and spoke back to my father in front of his fucked-up, child-abusing friends.

He didn’t like it.

I’ve wondered many times what would have become of me if I’d stayed living at home.

Would he have broken me completely?

Would I have killed him?

I certainly imagined it with every dirty kick and punch in those dark streets while we were running the Alliance Fight Club.

Some nights, I hated myself for it.

Other nights, I itched to go home and follow through with it.

“You want to spend your life in jail?” Parker would ask me. “Because that’s not revenge. That’s letting him win.”

“I won’t get caught.” I hissed back.

“Maddox.” Killian had a way of saying my name and getting through to me when the others didn’t. His deep voice, even back then, snapped me out of it.

Let me be clear, it’s not like we shook our ten-year-old hands the first day we met and openly declared my father fucked me up the ass, how about you? Also, which is your favorite, Batman or Superman?

Over time, trust formed between us, and we witnessed one another drift off into the abyss—the dark, safe, and lonely space in our minds—and brought one another out.

We shared what we felt safe to, but none of us required a lot of words.

We knew what the results of abuse looked like, simply by looking in the mirror.

The teachers were unaware—or didn’t want to know—and so it was our friendship that got us through the rest of our childhood.

That and the Alliance.

We were the children of wealthy and powerful men who paid an insane amount of money to send us away, to free them from their sins.

The sick fucks.

My stomach turns as flashes of my childhood return, and I push them back with the full force of my willpower.

It does no good to think about it.

I’ve studied enough psychology books to know what harm it’s caused. The guilt and shame I carry is normal and all that bullshit.

I don’t remember a time when Pierce—as I now call him—wasn’t torturing or abusing me.

The truth is, he broke me, but not completely. I know I’m not a whole man. I’m not someone capable of love, and I accept that.

How could I be?

When I was learning to walk, he would use a whip. Not that I remember. I had to ask my mother what the thin scars on my legs and thighs were.

“You just wouldn’t do as you were told, Maddox. Your father is not a patient man.” Mom told me.

I had a visceral reaction in that moment, as if my body remembered, not my mind.

Fucking asshole.

Then it all came flooding back. Pierce telling me it was important to train my body—I was fucking six —and after dinner, at least three or four nights a week, he’d take me to our gymnasium and force me to run on the treadmill at insane levels until my legs were shaking and I almost collapsed.

Or force me to lift weights way too heavy for a little boy.

If I failed to lift them, he’d let the heavy bar fall on my chest, crushing me.

Bruising me.

Humiliating me.

Scaring me.

I’d have chosen those nights over the others any day of the week, but I didn’t have a choice.

Not when Pierce led me upstairs to my bedroom and locked the door.

And my mother ignored my pleas and screams.

As the fates would have it, the boys and I all ended up at Brown University after that, sharing apartments throughout our education.

Word spread about the Alliance Fight Club and after some pressure we started them up again. The cops arrived one night, and after paying them off the first time, they left us alone.

I don’t know the reason half the people turned up. We did send a girl away, stating no one was going to punch her. Correction: I told her and ended up with a broken nose.

“Still not hitting you, sweetheart, so turnaround and walk away,” I said, holding my nose as blood dripped from it.

“Bunch of pussies!” she hissed.

“I’ll eat your pussy baby, but I ain’t punching you.” Parker shrugged. He lived to regret that statement when she kneed him in the balls. Jury is still out if he can have kids.

Our code was just for the five of us. Me, Zayne, Parker, Travis, and Killian.

We fought.

We studied.

And we each planned out our long-term strategies for revenge.

Which sounds easier than it actually is. You need to understand your enemy to effectively destroy them. I had to learn who my father was and what his motivations were. I was a child when I left, and clearly, we weren’t close.

That took careful research.

All the while, I turned the six-figure inheritance from my mother into a billion-dollar tech business supplying security equipment to private security companies and the government.

Not just our own.

The rain eases and I pull my phone out of my pocket, staring once again at the news article that even shocked me.

Pierce Sterling to marry Fox & Co. heiress.

Kyra Fox.

She’s breathtakingly beautiful, extremely rich, and has just become an unwitting pawn in my game of revenge.

Letting out a long sigh, I walk to the oak side cabinet and pour another two fingers of Macallan, then toss it back.

She might be innocent, but so was I. It’s only because of my grandparent’s rock-solid trust structure that I’m standing here today, a powerful man.

I remember the day I learned my father had attempted to blackmail my lawyer into paying my inheritance into his account.

I never would have seen a dollar if he’d been successful.

“That motherfucker!” I hissed, reading the email from my lawyer.

“Ring the cops. Have him arrested, Maddox.” Parker encouraged me when we were eighteen.

I shook my head.

“It won’t stick. You know that as well as I do. He’ll have high-powered officials in his pocket.”

“He’s right,” Zayne said. “Our fathers would do the same thing.”

“Fuck. It’s just not right.” Parker tossed a stone into the bushes as we walked along a path.

“One day,” I said, zipping up my jacket. “One day, I’m going to be a powerful man and kill him.”

“Dude really?” Travis asked, while Killian lifted his brow.

“Maddox,” he warned under his breath.

I ignored him.

Killian knows more than anyone how unstable that I am deep down. I supposed someone was bound to see the real devil within me, eventually.

Like father, like fucking son.

“Don’t know how yet. But I’m going to turn my inheritance into billions,” I declared. “Then I’m going to destroy him little by little until he takes his last breath.”

I meant every word.

I just didn’t know how.

I knew the path would be shown to me if I waited long enough. God knows I was getting impatient. At thirty-one, I’ve waited long enough.

I didn’t know it was going to come in the form of a twenty-two-year-old, blue-eyed brunette who was marrying my father.

But whatever.

I’m willing to do whatever it takes.

I could tear down his company and destroy everything he’s built. That’s way too easy.

I want to humiliate him.

I want to crush his spirit and make him beg for my forgiveness.

I drop my crystal glass on the silver tray and roll up the sleeves of my black shirt, exposing my tattoos, thick forearms, and Audemars Piguet timepiece. Propping my hands on my hips, I glance around my penthouse.

It’s time.

I may not be a phoenix, but when I die, my ashes will contain all the sins of my father.

And those of mine as I exact my revenge.