Page 6 of Legacy

Avra Vitalis?

First dropping the bomb of marriage, and now Avra, of all women

I cleared my throat, and I tried to connect the dots. “I thought you eliminated the Vitalis sisters.”

My father had never accepted the Vitalis family’s power. He’d loathed them so much that he’d stolen it all from them. The Vitalis family had held all the power in Greece. They had been the rulers for many generations—until my father killed them off.

Or, I guess he didn’t.

Despite the years that had passed, I remembered everything about the events leading up to that gruesome night, especially Eudora Vitalis’s murder, as though it had only happened yesterday.

Ozias had ordered me to “help” him with some work. My job was to start paying my dues for spending years in England finishing my graduate degrees. Fucker told me nothing about his plans outside of taking back what he believed the Vitalises owed to the Xenoses generations ago.

I knew it was bullshit the second those words came out of his mouth. No one owed us anything. Our family history went back over a century, and the Xenoses had started with no land and no prospects. All we had came from a territorial war, unlike the Vitalises, who were gifted their original territory centuries ago by the Greek royal family.

When we arrived at Vitalis’s villa outside the city, I questioned Ozias, who told me to follow orders and shut up. As a young idiot, I went inside. He’d set the whole thing up to corner Eudora Vitalis. He knew the remaining Vitalis family wouldn’t arrive until morning, and she was alone. Ozias never got over Eudora’s rejection of him for Juno. He believed killing her was the prize in his coup on Juno Vitalis.

I would never shake the guilt for my part in her death. I’d tried to stop him, but there was nothing I could do short of taking the bullet for her. He’d killed her right in front of me and told me to grow the fuck up.

And that’s what I’d done.

My father’s actions had hardened me.

I’d always known he was despicable, but that night changed me.

When I learned of how far he’d stoop, how greedy he’d dare to be, he’d squashed any lingering softness I’d possessed from my deceased mother. He’d forced me to change, to evolve from a young twenty-five-year-old into the heartless killer everyone knew today. Witnessing the effects of Ozias’s brutality was a rude awakening, enabling me to accept the life I lived at present.

He stared at me with that knowing smirk I loathed so much. I especially detested how he kept secrets. In other words, Ihatedthe asshole.

Now, it looked as if he’d led me—and everyone else—to believe that the sisters had died with their parents.

“Why?” I narrowed my eyes, daring him to mess with me. “Why did you lie?”

He scoffed. “I don’t answer to you,son.”

The fuck you don’t.

It wasn’t the time to challenge him like that. Soon, but not now.

“Why did you tell everyone that the Vitalis sisters died?”

With a lazy shrug, he swiveled to the other side, his chair squeaking with the move. “I didn’t expect them to survive. You remember that night. All that bloodshed.”

From your orders.

“I never bothered to look for them. I’d killed all who were loyal to Juno Vitalis.”

Apparently, you missed someone, dumbass.

“The sisters have been living in hiding. One of Pello Korba’s soldiers heard they had been in Prague all this time. Rumor has it they’re back to take what is ‘rightfully’ theirs.” He laughed, easing into a chuckle as he shook his head like it was a stupid joke.

What he said was nothing but the truth. Patras and the territories around it rightfully belonged to the Vitalis family. They had owned them before my father and his three counterparts stole them.

What the fuck are you doing?

I wiped away another smear of sweat and grime from the discipline I’d dished out before coming here. I couldn’t understand why Ozias would even consider this marriage offer. He’d be selective. He could resent me for being more powerful within the family, but I was his only son. My choice of a bride would be significant for him, and the factthat he was contemplating Avra Vitalis, the eldest daughter of his former rival, raised suspicions.

I stared at him, trying to pick at his cool indifference and root out what he was scheming.What are you up to now?

---