Page 6 of Red

It’s like I’m trying to reason all of this, but I know better than anyone that my family is good at keeping secrets. They kept this from me even as an adult. I don’t want this. I just want to bake wedding cakes!

Rubbing my temples, I can feel a headache coming on. Today has been a shit show for sure. This cannot be real life, right?

“Grandmother, I’m not sure what you want me to say here. All of this seems ridiculous.” My voice starts to rise higher as I continue. “This isn’t something I want to be a part of and on top of that, all of it is super archaic. It’s the twenty-first century and a woman can stand on their own. And on top of that it’s not right to sell people either!”

“Enough! You will not speak to me like that, Blanche.” My grandmother looked at me with the darkest coldest eyes I have ever seen. With an ice-cold voice, she says, “You will do this. You have no choice. You will stay here for the foreseeable future and in one month, you will marry Nicholas.”

She stands up from the couch indicating that she is ending the conversation.

“Now I’m tired and need to rest. I’m sure in the morning you’ll come to your senses, understanding your place in this family. Nicholas, escort my granddaughter upstairs. We don’t want her to try and run off in the middle of the night.”

After my grandmother makes her declaration to me, Gregory appears by her side and escorts her to her room. As they start to make their way towards the hallway, Gregory glances back at me with a look of pity in his eyes, and whispers “Goodnight Blanche, I’m so sorry sweet girl.”

Nicholas then grabs my arm. “Shall we?”

I try to yank my arm back. I don’t want this man touching me. Instead of releasing me, he squeezes it tighter. Nicholas drags me back down the hallway towards my room. When we reach the door, he pulls it open and throws me into the room. My knees crack against the wood floors as they hit them. I grit my teeth when I hear his voice.

“Be a good girl and listen to your grandmother.”

There's a loud slam as Nicholas closes the door. I hear the loud click of the lock as he seals me into my room. Getting up immediately, I walk to the window. Looking outside, the sky lights up with the glow of lightning. Thunder comes next, causing me to jump. I check to see if I can open it to climb out. Of course, the window seems to be sealed shut.

“Well, fuck. That won’t help.”

I need to get the hell out of here. I can’t believe my own grandmother is holding me captive. I start banging on the door with my fists, screaming at the top of my lungs. I scream and scream for my grandmother to release me until my throat is dry and hurting. It’s a lost cause. No one is going to let me out. Needing to calm myself and save my energy, I take long deep breaths.

Once my body has calmed down, I get up, brush off my pants, and head to the bathroom. Needing to quench my throat from screaming so much, I gulp down water from the sink.

I can’t believe all that I’ve learned tonight about my family. It’s too much to take in that she wants me to take over for her. Don’t even get me started on the marriage thing.

Too many family secrets to take on in one night. I crawl into my bed in a daze from everything. “What the hell am I going to do?”

Chapter 4

Zeev

Yesterday was interesting. I sure didn’t expect to find what I did at the gas station. Though we didn’t see anything to support the claim that it’s being used as a place to transport women for The Wolves, I did find something. I can’t believe I let her cloud my mind. I’ve never let anyone take over my mind like that before.

Taking a deep breath, my phone pings with an email from Jake. He was able to get information I asked for on the woman I’ve been obsessing over. I knew I could count on him. As I start to read over her file, the need to know everything about her starts to resurface. My eyes widened a bit, when I read her name… “Blanche fucking Marelle.”

I wasn't expecting that. She is an only child; her parents were killed when she was eight years old. My face falls when I read that information. Well, unfortunately we have that in common.

The beautiful woman also owns a bakery in the city. It looks like she went to culinary school instead of taking over for her grandmother’s businesses. That’s interesting. I would’ve never thought Old Lady Marelle would allow Blanche to do that. Funny enough, her grandmother is the one who invested in the bakery. I wonder if Blanche knows how her grandmother earned that money.

Of course the one female that I feel a pull towards is part of the Marelle family. The one family that I vowed to destroy. The one family who destroyed mine. I’m not sure how I missed that Old Lady Marelle had a granddaughter. She must’ve worked hard to keep her hidden. I shouldn’t want her, but I do. She’s the granddaughter of my greatest enemy. It doesn't deter me. If anything, it makes the hunt even better. No matter the obstacles, she’ll be mine.

The only thing in this life I have ever wanted is revenge against those who took everything from me. I haven’t thought of anything else. Growing up, all I thought about was how I’m going to destroy them. I’ve stalked the members and even took a few of them out. Any time I got a tip on any movement among The Wolves, I would investigate and rescue women which made me hate them more.

After learning about Jake and his brush with Le Milieu in his own life, I knew they had to be stopped. I’m still shocked by what he told me. It would bring any man to his knees. I will support and help him any way he needs. Joining forces with Jake and his security team helped me focus even more, pinpointing their weaknesses. That's when we started focusing on their clients and businesses, then we would destroy those, causing their reputation to take a huge hit in the underworld.

Old Lady Marelle knows she’s being targeted but has no idea of who is targeting her. Most people just call me the Wolf. No one knows my real identity because I leave no clues behind. Taking down Le Milieu has always been my focus until I saw her today. Now trying to figure out how I can use all this information to work for me because I know that she’s mine. I’m going to get my hands on that sexy as fuck woman and take out Old Lady Marelle at the same time.

I’m deep in my head, trying to figure out how I can get Blanche and get my revenge. Once I take her down, I plan to take over The Wolves. It would be well-served justice, taking it all from the old lady after she took everything from me. A whisper of my inner voice comes into my head.

“Red will make a great queen.”

During a mission, I overheard one of the members outside of their headquarters speculate that Old Lady Marelle only has a few months left. I’ve tried having our tech guy hack into the hospital records to see what the doctors are saying.He hasn’t been able to find anything. She must be enlisting a private doctor because none of the local hospitals have any records of her. I need to work faster to find out what the old lady is up to and make sure I enact my revenge before she dies.

This would be the perfect time to make our move. Jake and I have even seen evidence of this through our stakeouts. The Wolves have been seen being even more aggressive with their inventory than they’ve been in the past. It feels like they’re trying to prepare for something, but I’m not sure what. I’ve been reaching out to my inside guy to see if they have any further information, but he says the old lady is being tight-lipped about her plans. Only sharing with her right hand man within the organization.

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