Page 29 of Wicked Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 1)

She has good times. Times when she might just be able to keep her promises about cleaning up and becoming a mother once more. But those times are always followed by this devastation.

I get it, to a point. Loss is hard.

Hell, I feel it every fucking day. I fight it every fucking day. And I didn’t even know one of them.

It was hard to deal with as a kid surrounded by women and having my brothers’ fathers help raise me.

But the second I learned the truth, my grief for the man I can’t remember but miss something fierce turned into this beast inside me who was hellbent on revenge.

Every step I’ve taken since that moment has been about making things right.

I didn’t just lose my dad that day. My sisters didn’t just lose their father, my mum lost her husband. Our entire family lost everything. Everything that’s important.

And then to be struck again only fifteen years later.

It’s cruel. Really fucking cruel.

Damien Cirillo would never have allowed us to be on the street—nor would I, which is why I demanded I be brought into the Family much younger than I’m sure he’d have liked. But there was no way I was sitting around watching everything turn to dust around me.

Stepping over everything, kicking a couple of bottles out of the way, I scoop Mum’s almost weightless body into my arms and lift her from the floor.

She doesn’t make a sound aside from her shallow, rattling breaths as I walk her away from the mess and turn to the stairs.

I’ve done this so many times now that I’m able to detach myself from the situation as I monotonously go through the steps of cleaning her up, changing her disgusting clothes and putting her into bed.

She’s not made a sound the whole time, and as I sit myself on the edge of her bed and hold her cold hand in mine, everything comes rushing back with a vengeance and my heart drops into my stomach.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I make the call I always do when she’s in this state.

“Again?” the deep voice rumbles down the line.

“Yeah. Could you—”

“I’m on my way, boy,” Dr. Rosi says, sympathy oozing from his voice.

“Thank you.”

I left the front door unlocked earlier so he could let himself in, so I leave Mum and head to my own room.

It’s filled with all my stuff, minus most of my clothes that now live in Theo’s coach house, but it still doesn’t feel like a place I belong.

The shelves are lined with football trophies, ones I’ve had to celebrate alone, mostly.

Sophia and Zoe, my older sisters, did the best they could. But they’ve gone and made lives for themselves now, something I can’t blame them for. I don’t want to be here either.

Stripping out of my clothes, I head for the shower. Turning it on as hot as it goes, I wait for the steam to billow before stepping under the burning torrent of water in the hope that the pain will distract from everything inside me.

Pressing my palms against the tiles, I hang my head, desperate to come up with a plan, something that will settle this burning need for vengeance that won’t abate.

I could just look at the tracker, find the house and walk up with a gun.

But that would be too easy, too painless.

I’ve suffered for almost eighteen years. One bullet through the head seems too kind after everything he’s put us through.

It needs to be better than that. Which is why I’m starting with his daughter.

He tried to protect her all those years ago, so I’ve no doubt it’s his top priority these days.