Page 97 of Wicked Heiress

I followed my dad and Vera upstairs, latching onto Cole’s arm. My dad pushed open the last door on the left. “I had the designer decorate this bedroom for you, hoping you would one day return to me.”

I stepped forward, standing on my tippy toes to hug him. “Thank you, Papa.”

He hugged me back, pressing a kiss on my cheek. “Thirteen years,” he whispered. “Not a single day went by that I didn’t miss you. Goodnight, kisa. I’ll see you in the morning.”

After he left with Vera for their bedroom, I closed the door and sat on the bed beside Cole. My mind raced with dozens of questions, one of which I had been wondering all night.

“Why do The Devil’s Knights call it Skull Island?”

Cole slipped his fingers between mine and glanced over at me. “Because no one ever leaves the island alive.”

“Have you been there?”

He bobbed his head to confirm. “I had to do horrible things to become a Knight on that island. They wouldn’t let us pass the initiation without enduring a final challenge permanently imprinted in my mind.”

“Like what?”

Eyes on the wall, he breathed through his nose. “Things you’re better off not knowing. You have enough nightmares.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

GRACE

The following Monday, a judge annulled my marriage to Rhys Vanderbilt. And Fitzgerald Archibald Adams IV died the following night of natural causes.

Rhys got nothing. But we still had to deal with him and his twisted family. They would get what was coming to them soon enough. Every penny that should have gone to Rhys would pass to Cole on our wedding day.

Three billion dollars.

The news anchor announced my grandfather’s death, saying the world would miss him because of his contributions.

I wanted to puke.

No one would miss him.

Bastian and Damian had confronted him a few days after I fled my wedding with Cole. And while I was in hiding, the old man told them the truth about their parents. He killed them, ruining their lives, all because he was mad and wanted more money.

So they drugged him.

Watched him die.

They couldn’t kill someone as rich and notorious as Fitzy without a major police investigation. So they did it smartly, and now the old man was gone.

I took the top off my coffee cup and threw the contents at my grandfather’s tomb. “Good fucking riddance.”

Bastian spit on the mausoleum, right over the top of ADAMS on the stone. “Rot in hell, you bastard.”

“You should look away, Grace,” Damian said before he whipped out his dick and pissed on the tomb. “Who’s a dirty, filthy animal now, you piece of shit?”

I remembered my grandfather calling Damian that when Bastian came to the house years ago. And Bastian defended his brother.

I walked away, laughing, and Alex stumbled into me, holding her baby bump. “Don’t mind Damian.” She giggled. “He’s been the hardest one to train.”

I laughed. “No, I get it. My grandfather treated him like shit.”

Alex smiled. “Come over to the house. I want to get to know you better. And I know Bash does, too. He talks about you all the time.”

* * *