by Lana Sky
It’s fitting in a twisted way. My father took his home. He’s taken mine.
“I loved you.” My voice rings hollow as my legs give way. He’s the only thing keeping me upright, and he grunts with the effort, adjusting his grip. The torch still burns, wickedly hot, near my face. I don’t flinch from it though. I embrace the prickling sting. “I-I loved…I love…I loved you.”
I fall to my knees as Hollings Manor glows brighter. And brighter.
“My father was going to kill you.” I heard him hissing his plan to the raspy-voiced man. The same man I enlisted to help me find him. The irony has me laughing. Screaming. “He wanted the company, and you were almost eighteen. He needed you gone.”
But Brandt wouldn’t be as easy to dispose of as Harrison Lloyd. No, removing the only obstacle in his way required finesse.
“They were going to make it look like an accident. That you got drunk behind the wheel after your father was sentenced. Something violent but swift so there’d be no questions.”
I close my eyes to the memories to no avail. Ten years of suppressed pain comes flooding back. All of it. I can’t slow the tumult, and my words falter as I struggle to keep up.
“Father…saw me.”
Lurking outside his study of all places. My haven. My hell.
“He laughed. Took me into the s-study…”
Can’t. I’m shaking my head, fighting against my own conscious. Don’t show me. Don’t see. Can’t go to that dark place.
A hand lands on my shoulder, a silent command. And I break.
“He called me a whore like my mother. He told me he’d treat me like one.” Monotone words paint the picture—a stranger’s voice, not mine. “He shoved his fingers inside me so hard that I screamed. Threatened to kill me too if I told. I was a Hollings!” I shout it as smoke rises, consuming everything tied to that fucking name. “I was…am a Hollings. If I was going to betray him, then my death might as well mean something.”
I still remember the way he looked as he said those words. The way Hunter does in those rare, fleeting moments when his ambition possesses him. The way Blake Lorenz looks now: soulless.
“He wrapped his hands around my throat, b-but…” Something stopped him. He shook his head and let me go, his gaze narrowed as he thought up a different plan. A better one. “I-I thought I was saving you.”
I can laugh at it now. How fucking stupid I was. How naïve.
“I thought you’d be safer in prison than dead. My father could have the company, and you would have your life. And…I couldn’t say…” My nails scrape the stones, but I find nothing to hold on to. Just more pain. “I wrote to you. God, I wrote to you. If you could use my letters…”
The Brandt I knew would save us both.
“Then you died,” I whisper, watching my breath paint the air white. Suddenly, the sky is darker. Hollings Manor is entirely ablaze, roaring its last against an uncaring landscape. “You died, and it killed me. It killed me.”
I finally look up and find him staring down at me, his face drawn tight. All of those secrets I’ll never decipher remain locked behind a fathomless gaze. I realize now that he never lied to me—at least not about this one fact. He isn’t Brandt. He may have been once—but the boy I knew is long since dead.
“I loved you,” I tell him. “I loved you so, so much. And you killed me. You’re killing me.”
He starts forward, and my tired body lurches into action. I’m on my feet, tearing toward the once-envied landscaping now overgrown with weeds. I climb over dried flower beds and cut across the expansive lawn.
He’s behind me, panting. Howling. “Snow!”
I run. Trees blur past, growing denser with every step. The sky becomes a maze of crisscrossed vines, and unyielding branches tear at my skin and snatch bits of my hair. I run until I can’t stand, and trembling legs deposit me into a heap upon the ground.
But he’s gone.
I’m alone.
And, in the silence, I break.
I must have entered some fugue state, because dawn paints the sky when I’m finally found.
“Snowy! Oh, Snowy, thank God.”
I’m shaken, jostled from my nest of brambles and twigs. Someone shrouds me in something warm. A jacket? Then I’m lifted into strong, familiar arms. A soft chin nuzzles mine.
“I’ve got you, Snowy,” they mutter. “It’s okay.”
I stiffen, resisting the firm grip at first. Belatedly, my mind places the familiar tenor and I go limp. “Ro…Ronan?”
I blink to bring his features into focus, doubting myself even as my eyes confirm the impossible. He’s really here. Apart from the slight pallor to his skin, he looks just as he always has. Almost. His smile is forced, his gaze pained and a row of bandages crisscrosses his forehead.
Other than that…
He’s here.
“I’ve got you,” he says, squeezing me tighter, stroking my hair. Tree branches whiz past, faster by the second. “I’ve got you.”
Twenty-One
Hunter is pacing my hospital room, clenching his hands into and out of fists. His clothes are still wrinkled, his hair disheveled, but something has changed. In his eyes, maybe. For the first time in so long, they gleam. “I’ll kill that son of a bitch,” he says. “I’ll kill him—”
“Have a seat.” Ronan is sitting on the chair beside my bed, his hands folded over his lap. His metamorphosis is more startling than Hunter’s, conjuring a cruel cliché.
The blow to the head did him some good. He’s the unwavering stone to Hunter’s manic, electric energy. In this moment, I realize just how much I missed him. Needed him. “We’ll discuss legal action later,” he says, glancing at me. “For now, we’re here for Snowy.”
“R-Right.” Hunter defers to him and sits at the end of my bed. He absently pats my leg as if ensuring I’m not made of tissue paper. “Snowy…” He swallows hard, but he doesn’t get the chance to finish his statement.
“We can survive this,” Ronan says bluntly. There’s a self-reflection I haven’t heard in so long in his tone. My eyes water at the sound. He’s my reliable big brother again, even if only for a moment. “We should have never made you feel as though this was your responsibility.” He grabs my hand, squeezing it thoroughly. “It never was.”
He directs a pointed glance Hunter’s way. “We will make this right. All you need to do is rest.”
Rest. As if it’s so simple a task when all we own is a smoldering ruin.
“What about you?” I demand, my voice so faint. I’m too drained to put real energy into it. A part of me is convinced that I’m still living in a nightmare. Any moment, this peace will cease. “Your head—”
“Hurts like hell,” Ronan admits, brushing his fingers along the gauze messily wrapped around his forehead. “The doctor thinks I’ll be fine after another day or so of observation—”
“As long as he doesn’t stage another dramatic escape, that is,” Hunter cuts in. “The bastard practically barreled over two nurses and a surgeon on his way out.” The pained smile on his lips betrays just how hard he’s trying to make a joke. Ultimately, it falls flat. “We heard about the fire on the news and, God…” He stares at his hands, slowly shaking his head. “I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life, Snowy.”
The house. I squeeze my eyes shut against the memory. “What will we do now?”
I don’t expect an answer.
Sighing, Hunter concedes to the silence.
Ronan curses. “We’re fucking Hollingses,” he says defiantly. “That means we always persevere.”
I let myself believe him even though my heart aches with the truth: They are Hollingses. Dizzy with that knowledge, I close my eyes tighter, sinking into the darkness. But a nightmare waits for me, taking the form of a specter with blue eyes and a haunting gaze.
I own you, he tells me. Did you think I’d really let you go?
Twenty-Two
Soft footsteps draw me into awareness. Hunter? Or maybe Ronan, though n
either of them usually smell so sweet. Like flowers. My nostrils wrinkle and I open my eyes, prepared to issue a weak attempt at humor.
New cologne?
I blink, registering the glow of blond hair, but the figure is too slim. Too small. Her delicate features catch the sunlight streaming in through my window, which gives her a reflective gleam like that of a porcelain doll.
“Ms. Hollings?” she asks softly. She creeps closer and smooths the skirt of her cream-colored sundress with one hand while brandishing a bouquet of fresh daisies in the other—the source of the smell. “I don’t mean to intrude,” she adds, revealing the hint of an accent I can’t place. “Blake asked me to come.”
She places her offering on my bedside table, seemingly oblivious to how I stiffen. My gaze cuts to the doorway, seeking out any trace of his hulking shadow. All I find are clinical white walls.
Still, I’m rendered speechless as Masha casts an appraising glance around my room. Then she reveals another object cradled in her palm.
“He asked me to give you this.”
An envelope. Every cell in my body urges me to refuse it—scream, shout, protest somehow before she can place it beside the flowers. My lips flutter apart, but no words come out.
“I’ll let you get some rest,” Masha says gently with a weak smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. The two wide, curious eyes she can’t seem to take off my bruised, battered face.
I expect her to walk to the door backward, but she surprises me by turning away. Near the threshold, she pauses, her mouth trembling with a question she can’t seem to repress.
“Forgive me, Ms. Hollings, but can I ask you something?”
All I can do is nod. Dread has robbed me of my voice and left me little attention to focus on anything but the envelope.
“How do you know my brother?”
The universe stops spinning in the wake of her words. Brother. Her brother. How do I know her brother?
Brandt Lloyd was an only child. It’s why his father resented him so much; his sole heir actually had a soul. What a waste.
“Ms. Hollings?” Poor Masha sounds worried.
But I can’t bring myself to answer her. Confusion and terror claw through my chest as I contemplate the impossible. Was he telling me the truth all along?
I’m not him…
My fingers tremble and I remember the envelope within my reach. It tears easily, but inside, I find two pieces of paper. One is painfully familiar: a list of numbers named Hollings account, only this time, my name is at the top of the figures beside the title recipient. Hope forms a painful noose over my throat—but it barely has the chance to grow before I realize that it’s unsigned. Unfulfilled. So much money but no way to access it without Blake Lorenz’s signature.
The next page doesn’t hold the answer. It’s a different texture: a photocopy of a small document, so old that it copied barely legible. I have to trace its contents with my gaze for what feels like an eternity before I finally can make sense of it.
A birth certificate.
Brandt Harrison Lloyd was the child’s name. Roseanna Lloyd was the mother. But on the line designated for the father…
Instead of Harrison Lloyd, a painfully familiar name fills that space instead. I have to blink twice just to accept the chilling reality.
Blake Alfonse Lorenz.
My first instinct is to deny it. This is yet another twisted trick.
And yet…it makes sense to a part of me buried deep down. In a way, my beautiful boy told me the truth himself. He’s no father, Brandt murmured once, referring to Harrison. His smile betrayed a joy I hadn’t seen in him in so long. Father? He’s no father.
The truth hits with the crushing weight of the entire world pinning me down: for ten years, I’ve mourned a boy who, technically, never existed. The heir to the Lloyd fortune was never a Lloyd—and the pitiful Hollings brat who adored him was never really a Hollings.
I don’t know how to reconcile these facts. So I don’t. All I can do is focus on the cruel olive branch sent my way. Do I dare seek him out to fulfill it?
Or do I burn it?
I stare from the window and let the fiery sunset stretching across the sky give me my answer.
All I can do is endure.
And wait.
Because, as sure as the setting sun, Blake Lorenz isn’t finished with me yet.
The story continues in book 2, King’s Horses…
A sneak peek look
Blake
Numbers. That’s all these corporate bastards give a damn about. Shares, figures, dividends—goddamn numbers.
How they stack up.
How they fall apart.
Their investments are a house of cards, ripe for one bad shake to send it all crashing down. They make it too easy in the end. Disrupting the entire game with the stroke of a pen is almost child’s play.
And with four new companies under my belt this week alone, I’ve bought the entire goddamn game board.
Even so…
I’m still running out of fucking time.
“Gentlemen.” Looking up, I face the four men dispersed around the round table. Some of them scowl while the others sport stoic expressions—for good reason. Unlike them, I’m not clinging to the prestige a few shares can buy me.
The entire company is in the palm of my hand.
And they fucking know it.
“Don’t begrudge my shares too much,” I say, my mouth quirked, “think of me as merely a new investor, under your wing. After all, I don’t intend to impose myself.”
Not yet, anyway. When all is said and done, I’ll burn this fucking corporation to the ground.
I don’t have a choice. Even if she gets caught in the middle of the blaze.
Snow. My jaw clenches as the boardroom fades. I can still see her: bloodshot eyes, pale skin. Fiery red hair. Still so beautiful. Fuck.
My fingers curl into fists, crushing her memory into the depths of my psyche—where she belongs. But, like always, she claws her way back to the forefront of my thoughts, haunting me. Always.
In retrospect, she was never meant to get caught in the middle. I had it all planned down to the last detail. Takeover the company and then crush it, liquidating its shares—I just didn’t expect her to fight me for it.
Though, to be fair I shouldn’t have been so fucking surprised. For years, I’ve heard rumors of the lengths the Hollings have sunk to. ‘Favors’ the eldest son would grant to someone he wished to manipulate. Hunter would gladly suck cock to climb up the corporate ladder.
But never her. Not Snowy. She was always my naive, selfish, spiteful fool—but never desperate.
Until now.
That frail little creature’s all grown up. These days there isn’t an ounce of fat on her body but the loss puts her bone structure in sharp contrast. The last time I saw her, she looked more like her mother than ever. Haughty. Spoiled. But even underneath the polish and shine lurks hints of the girl she used to be.
Her hair is just as red.
Her face just as round.
Her lips just as pink.
Snowy Gale Hollings, the girl I once loved more than life itself…
And now, knowing her deception was based on a stupid, childish fantasy?
I shouldn’t feel a damn thing.
“Mr. Lorenz?” I grit my teeth and fixate my attention on the man across from me. “Frankly, if you don’t mean to impose yourself, then I have to ask. What is the point of this?”
He gestures around him at my impromptu board meeting.
“My plans mirror yours, gentleman,” I insist, employing the suave tone that my so-called father did best. Prevent any ounce of emotion from seeping into your voice. Never smile too hard. Blink at random intervals. Harrison Lloyd—the bastard had deception down to an artform.
“It’s Blake, is it?” The man directly across from me cocks his head. His hands are braced against the table’s polished wood, displaying the gold watch on his wrist and the signet ring on his left
hand. He smiles in that way only men like him can. As though everyone with less than a million to his name isn’t worth the time on his diamond-studded clock face. “Frankly, I won’t question how you happened upon this newest company,” he says, staring down his hooked nose. “But now that you have other enterprises under your belt, my associates and I will gladly buy you out of the Hollings shares.”
“I think I’ll hold onto my seat for now,” I reply, matching his smirk—another trick Harrison taught me. Like wild animals, these men communicate in nonverbal cues more than speech. They piss on their holdings and snarl at interlopers, no better than a mangy mutt.
And like any feral beast, they require an alpha’s bite to bring them to heel.
“And while my percentage of shares allots me not only a seat at the table, but a right to demand a vote on the chairman, I’ll refrain from that choice. For now. Let me cut to the chase. I know you’re all aware of the donation I’d like to make in the corporation’s name,” I say, changing the subject.
“Donation,” one of the men retorts. “You mean the very generous bribe you’ve promised to that cuck Antonio Sebastián? I hear he already found another sap to parade around that gala of his. My vote is a no. I say we focus on other matters.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding. “You mistook me. I’m merely informing the board. I’m not asking for permission.”
The man sputters, redness blossoming over his hollow cheeks. “Y-You—”
“Enough.” One of the men seated beside him scoffs. “Get a hold of yourself, Ramsey,” he mutters before turning to me and extending his hand. “Welcome to the board, Blake. I trust you’ll fit right in. Only the shrewdest of backstabbing cucks could manage to claim a majority of Hollings shares overnight.”
