Page 6 of Stone

Sienna Carrera may be my greatest downfall, but she’s also my savior.

I just wish she wasn’t my sister.

Chapter Four

Stone

I knock on the office door and wait for him to grant me entry. As usual, I’m standing there like an idiot, wondering if he heard me and whether I should knock again, but with the eyes of his security staff on me, I choose not to. I refuse to let them see me as anything less, how he wants them to—below him and those who live in his household, staff included.

Eventually, the door is pulled open by Azrael. His angry eyes bore into mine, and he gestures for me to step inside.

“We didn’t hear you knocking. You should have knocked again.” My father swivels in his chair with a cigar hanging between his fingers and a smug expression on his face. He’s trying to coax me into an argument that will turn violent, and I won’t let that happen. It’s been a while since I’ve endured his wrath, and I intend on keeping it that way.

Azrael glares at me, so I heed his warning and do what I must. I bow my head, with my hands behind my back, like some fucking submissive Azrael uses.

“My apologies, sir. I will knock louder next time.” My voice is almost robotic to my own ears, but it’s what he wants to hear.

I lift my gaze but not my head, and his grin spreads over his face like a Cheshire cat. “Probably your shit hearing too, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is why you don’t have bastards. They’re thick fuckers that can’t even knock on a damn door properly.”

Lifting my head slightly, I stare at Azrael from beneath my lashes and fight back the fury bubbling inside me. I want to point out it was him who made me ‘deaf’ by beating me, but I choose to remain silent, then lower my head again when Azrael’s dark eyes drill into me further.

“Sit.” Our father waves his hand toward the spare seat beside the one Azrael has taken, and I drop into it. “Dumb cunt even needs instructed to sit.” He throws his head back on a deep chuckle that neither me nor Azrael reciprocate. When his gaze finally lands on me again, I try not to fidget under his scrutiny.

“The gym you’ve been training in, in New Jersey.” I nod and hate how he licks his lips, as if thrilled at whatever idea he has. “When are you next over that way?”

I clear my dry throat, hoping I don’t give away the nerves swimming inside me. “I have a fight there at the end of the month.”

He drags one of his fat fingers over his lip, then flicks some of the cigar ash onto the floor. The man I stare at is an older, broader version of Azrael and Czar and not a damn thing like me. Our skin tone isn’t the same, and I don’t have the sharp, chiseled jawline they have. My build is different too. Their mannerisms align, but mine are different. Our accents are not the same, either, though that could be because I was brought up in one of the training compounds and they were brought up here. Father says it’s because I can’t string a sentence together due to the brain injury I incurred—and have no recollection ofhow I sustained. Nor do I know why I woke up in the basement of this house with multiple gunshot wounds when I was a teenager before being transferred to the training compound infirmary. I don’t tell the family I can remember that part. I’m unsure why, just a feeling inside me tells me I should keep it to myself.

When I came around, I was told my time in the infirmary was because of one trainer going too far on a punishment. I had no memory and underwent surgery on my head. Don once told me he should have let me die, and if it wasn’t for her, I would have agreed with him, because what came after that day was so much worse.

My nightmares might have started when I lost my memories, but I was already drowning in hell.

“I have a job for you.” He sits forward in his chair and holds my gaze. The intensity behind his violent eyes makes my pulse rush. “You need to prove yourself and complete the job.”

My eyebrows furrow. Prove myself? Have I not already done enough to prove myself? It’s somewhat of an odd statement, but I simply nod.

He pulls open a drawer at his desk.

“Are you sure about this?” Azrael asks, and our father holds his hand up, forcing him to clamp his mouth shut with a twist of his lips.

“This man needs assassinated.” Upon unfolding an image of a man, he places it before me. The man has a stern face, with serious bright-blue eyes, black hair, and an air of authority about him. I’m intrigued, but I know better than to ask who he is and what he does, so I lift my chin and gift our father with a nod.

“You don’t recognize him?” Azrael interjects.

My father tilts his head and scrutinizes me.

“No.”

My father throws his head back on a loud chuckle that’s full of ridicule, yet I’m unsure why. Still, goosebumps break out over my skin, and dread lines my stomach. It feels like I’m picking up half a conversation, that I should know something, but it’s always been this way, and I made peace with the fact a long time ago that I will always be kept in the dark. My gaze flicks between them as I try to make sense of the breadcrumbs.

Always on the outside looking in.

“Dumb fucker,” he grumbles, making me grind my teeth.

---