by Rue Volley
“Rose, please. Please stop, you aren’t well. You need help. I will gladly help you. I will.”
“Oh, now you want to help me?” she lifted the letter and started to read it. “I leave the mansion to my dearest love, Charlotte, and our greatest creation. Our daughter—Rose Landon.”
I leaned back in the chair as if a bullet had passed through my heart. It couldn’t be. Jack stared at me and then looked at my mom. He shook his head no over and over again. He cried, the tears rolling over his tape and pooling on his chin. I parted my lips and tried to speak, but the words escaped me.
I had been told that I lost a brother, one that died before me, one that I would never know. It was a loss that I had never been able to even grieve properly. But here before me stood my half-sister, a child hidden away out of guilt. A child who had to pay for the sins of her father.
My mom looked at her and the tears flowed from her eyes. “I couldn’t keep you, Peter wouldn’t let me. He built this place for us, a place that we were supposed to raise you in together, but Victoria found out about us, about you and she threatened to ruin him and take all that he had. He chose his empire over us. And then he told me that you died. That you had drown in the lake. I thought that you died baby, I thought that you died. Elisabeth, please, believe me.”
I sucked in my breath, knowing that I had been given her name. I felt nauseous, not only from the drug that she had poisoned me with but with the truth. It was a dark and sinister truth that lurked beneath the surface of my skin. I was cursed, just as they all were, with Peter’s treachery and manipulation. I was bound to him, just as my mother had been and just like Rose is to this day.
“Elisabeth?” Rose asked as she took a step toward my mom.
My mom shook her head. “Yes, baby. That’s your name. It isn’t Rose.”
She looked at her, and the tears filled her eyes. “Mommy?” Rose said as she continued to walk toward her. She wrapped her arms around my mom, and she sobbed, burying her head into her shoulder.
My mom gripped the knife behind her and slowly brought it around. She stabbed Rose in the side just as Rose cried out and brought the knife upward, burying it deep into my mom’s stomach.
My mom slowly lowered to the floor in front of her and then slumped at her feet. Rose held the bloody knife in her hand. She jerked the knife out of her side and tossed it onto the table.
“Mom, no! Mom!” I screamed as Rose leaned her head back and cried out, sounding more like a wounded animal than human. She lowered her head and lifted her dark eyes. She stared into mine with such hatred.
I knew this was the end for me. I could feel it, the room had lost its warmth, the house that begged to be a home now full of death and madness.
Rose lifted the knife and walked toward me. I closed my eyes, whispering only one word.
“Jack.”
I flinched as a shot rang out. I opened my eyes as Rose stumbled, she dropped the knife and without a single word she touched her chest as a red spot grew larger and larger. She started to turn, exposing her back to me. I could see a sizable pattern etched into her skin, small scars beginning in the center of her back and radiating out into a beautiful design. It was burnt into her flesh, with a small needle, not unlike the one Jack had used on me when he stitched me up.
She walked toward Jack and Sam’s dad walked past me.
“Put the knife down,” he said, holding his gun up and not wavering.
She held her hand out to Jack. “Come with me,” she said, coughing up blood. It dripped from her lips and onto the floor.
Jack looked down and then at me.
“Jack, look at me, love me. Please. Love me. I can’t help who I am. I didn’t choose this.” She stumbled, catching herself on the edge of the table and pushing herself back up. I didn’t know how she was standing. Sam’s dad never took his eyes off of her.
“Jack, she can’t have you,” Rose said, her voice cracking with every word. Her breath sounded haggard.
She turned back to me. “Did you see what my father gave to me? He gifted me with The Devil’s Fire,” she fingered at her back and my stomach churned. How could Peter brand her in such a way? “He loves me, just like Jack does.” She turned back to face him. “Right, baby? You love me, don’t you?” She tilted her head, blood trickled from her mouth.
She picked up his knife, which lay next to his plate and lunged toward him, another shot rang out and hit her in between the shoulder blades. The blood ran down her beautiful scarred tattoo on her back. She fell into Jack’s lap and held on, whispering to him. She took the tape from his mouth. He took a deep breath.
She touched his face with a trembling hand. “Hell is empty and all the devils are here, Jack.”
He paused and looked down the table at me.
“I love you, Abigail, I always will.”
She cried out and lifted the knife in her hand. She stabbed him in the chest, burying it as deep as she could before the final shot from Officer Quinn’s gun stopped her.
Jack cried out, his eyes staying on mine as long as they could.
“Baby look at me! Look at me! Please! Look at me! Jack!”
His head lowered as his eyes closed. I struggled against my restraints, screaming his name, begging him to stay with me.
My voice echoed through the house, unanswered.
Peter’s legacy now fulfilled.
The sins of the father passed onto the son.
Thank you for continuing this journey with me.
The final book in this trilogy, The Devil’s Kiss, is coming
FALL 2015.
