Page 69 of Hers To Keep
“No, but I’m sure you are dying to enlighten me.” I sneer.
He smiles, shifting his gaze to Roman who still stands speechless behind me. Fucking coward. “You’re funny, she’s funny,” he says to him. “I think I just might keep you at my side after all is done. Warren Servite was not man enough to be at the head of this corrupt empire, and I mean that literally. The first-born sons, who are chosen to lead, are also made to bear an heir to follow in their footsteps. To do their dirty work, while they keep their hands clean.” My eyes pale at his words. No, it can’t be. Panic threatens to consume me as I dread what is to come out of his mouth next.
“Ahh you are very smart, my dear. I see it in your eyes, you’ve figured it out. Warren Servite is sterile, incapable of having children, of producing an heir. Instead of having someone who was not of the original bloodline take over, therefore tainting the bloodline, Wren Servite, Warren and Wesley’s even more neurotic father, took matters into his own hands. He went and made a deal with the devil. He ordered his younger son to conceive a child with Warren’s wife Willa.”
There it is, the cold, ugly truth. The reason behind Wesley Servite’s blatant hatred toward Ace, his son.
“No, it can’t be true!” I shout, crushing the wine glass in my hand. The glass shards embedded in my palm sting horribly as the blood drips down on the floor mixing in with the red tint of the wine.
“Wallace and his twin sister Wynter are, in reality, Wesley Servite’s children. Children his brother raised as his own. After that Wren couldn’t have his eldest son lead, he was incapable of being the king his empire deserved. So instead he found a way to put Wesley in charge.”
“Ace doesn’t know?” I ask, but it sounds more like a statement. Of course he doesn’t know, he could never keep something like that from me.
“He won’t find out as long as you comply.” The ultimate threat. His assurance of my compliance.
Though I can't allow myself to keep falling victim to these blatant threats. If I do, then when will this end? “I can’t. I won’t,” I cry out, pushing him back as I try to rush toward the door, but Roman is quick to grab me tugging at me as I pound my bloody fist on his chest. He grips my arms forcing my back to his chest as he holds me toward Marchesi.
Marchesi runs his finger over my cheek, down my neck, and through the crease between my breasts. I stiffen against Roman, the ire in me halting as the fear of this man’s filthy touch paralyzes me. “What do you think would happen to Ace were he to find outthat he's the son of the man he despises most in this world? How do you think he'd react? Would that be the last straw? The final push over the edge of the cliff, the final pull on his way down to hell?” His hot breath engulfs me as he whispers against my cheek. The deep rasp of his voice sends haunting shivers through me as the scruff of his chin rubs against mine. He places a soft kiss upon my cheek, my eyes closing, tears spilling out at the contact of his lips on me. “The devil is only as strong as his most loyal servant, but an angel betrayed by one, is destined to fall. Do you want to be the cause of his fall?"
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
SCARLETT
Remember that out-of-body experience, where everything around you is happening so fast, but you feel as if you’re moving in slow motion, on the outside looking in?
It’s happening again.
Only this time, I don’t think I have a way out.
Just when I thought I was so close to the end of this recurring nightmare, I wake up only to find the nightmare has once again come to life. It is now my reality. One monster after another, the evil I came so close to overcoming worthless when another shows up in its wake.
This one threatens to destroy us all. Wesley Servite wanted to control everything and everyone. He wanted to isolate me away from everyone I care about, in order to control me, but Macallan, Franco Marchesi, he wants to destroy everything in his way. He’s here to enact a vengeance stronger than mine ever was, and if I was once scared of Wesley, I am absolutely terrified of Marchesi.
He’s a psychopath. A true killer. His blood is tainted by themob; his father, unable to deal with his son’s “psychotic tendencies” sent him away instead of getting him the help he desperately needed.
But Wesley and my mother deserve it. They are the reason his sister is dead. Gianna Marchesi killed herself because her demons won. They pushed her over the edge with their betrayal, with their scheme to separate her from my father. She was a victim much like me, but I won’t let them win. I will survive, I will make them pay for their sins as an atonement for Gianna. I will help Marchesi end them; destroy everything they’ve built.
But in the end, I will also ruin him, because he’s threatening those I care most about. He’s threatening the only person I love, Ace Servite.
All good things come to those who wait, and I must wait once more. I’m not sure how he’ll take this, I’m not one hundred percent sure he’ll even believe me, but I have to try.
Marchesi knows a truth that not even I ever expected, but surely one that will destroy all the good left in Ace. It will devastate him beyond repair, and I might lose him forever. So I must once again sacrifice myself to save those I care about.
In order to protect Ace, I need to break up with him.
Marchesi ordered Roman to drive me back into town after our conversation and although the last thing I wanted was to be in the same car with my treacherous stepbrother, I had no other option. The drive was quiet, Roman knowing better than to speak to me as he dropped me off at the private beach near the academy, where I asked him to bring me. Not at the house but down the cobblestone path leading toward the cliffside. To the tide pools of Devil’s Point, where Ace brought me last year when he told me what his uncle was really at the front of. To where Wesley threatened me with Ace’s life.
I think back to the conversation I had with Marchesi before coming down here, when he told me I needed to break things off with Ace in order to take Wesley up on his offer to work with himat The Gallows. Marchesi wants me to be a double agent of sorts. To make Wesley believe I’ve finally come to see things his way, that the world he’s built is everything he thinks it is. He wants me to sneak into his office at The Gallows and steal the ledger with his clients’ names, thus exposing everyone and ending Wesley once and for all. In order to do this, I need to be on the inside. He’d do it himself but after the shit he pulled last year, drugging me at The Gallows, he had a falling out with Wesley and is no longer in his good graces.
“What exactly do you want me to say to Ace?” I asked, as he told me a truth I never expected to hear. That Wesley is Ace’s real father. “He won’t just leave me. It has to be believable. He won’t think I’ve changed my mind overnight.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out; you always do, little one,” Marchesi said, his dark hazel eyes bearing into mine.
“Why are you doing this? Why not just leave and make a new life for yourself? This won’t bring back Gianna.” I practically begged him to stop, his vengeance wouldn’t heal his hurt.
“No, but I have nothing else to live for. My family has all turned their backs on me, not like I’d want to be a part of their sinful lives, anyway. But my Gianna was the light of my life. She was pure light. The reason I fought so hard to do better at that god awful military school my father had me institutionalized in. And all for what? They stole her from me, poisoned her already fragile mind and pushed her over the edge. They deserve everything that’s coming.”