Page 1 of Not a Gift

Chapter One

Don’t Look Back!

Malichai, FourteenYears Old

My father brought his new omega wife home today.She brought her little girl with her.She looks just like a little princess in her pink dress, her blonde hair in pigtails and the widest smile I have ever seen on a kid.She’s a tiny little thing and I instinctively want to protect her from the darkness of the outside world.From the darkness living inside the walls of this house.She keeps looking around, her gaze bouncing from one thing to the next, taking in everything this new house has to offer.

“Here is your bedroom,” I say when my father asks me to show her around.

“It’s big,” she says, turning in circles.“Do you sleep here, too?”

A chuckle falls from my lips.“No.My room is across the hallway.”

“What if I have a nightmare?”she asks softly, her big blue eyes staring at me.

“You can always come to me,” I reply, never even considering any other response.

****

Fifteen Years Old

I stare down at my crimson-coated fingers, blood dripping to the floor.Revulsion swims through me and I want to shower more than I want to take my next breath.

“Don’t look so fucking disgusted,” my father says sternly.“This is what you were born to do.”

I want to say something, but my throat is closed up.All I can do is wish that this entire night passes quickly.Tied to a chair in the center of an abandoned warehouse is a man in his late thirties.My father says he is—was—a danger to our family.He was trying to kill my father and take what my father had earned as an Elite.At my hand, I slit his throat like it was the most mundane thing I have ever done.I didn’t even know his name.

This is how my father plans to make sure his little heir falls in line.All this moment has done is solidify my decision to never have anything to do with the godforsaken Black family.

“You did well,” Dante says, placing his hand on my shoulder.

He is my father’s right-hand man in all matters and always at his side.I stare at him in disbelief.How can he praise me for what I did?

“I threw up the first time I killed a man,” he says lowly with a soft smile, trying to reassure me.I don’t want to feel better about what I have done.I deserve to drown in the guilt I am feeling.

****

Sixteen Years Old

I watch like a hawk as some punk kid touches Lyrik’s shoulder, leaning in too close.Before I can think through what I am doing, I stomp over to them.I grab his wrist and twist, bringing him to his knees.

“What the fuck, man?”the kid cries out.

“Don’t touch my sister,” I say, my voice low and threatening.For the first time in my life, I consider killing someone without my father’s order.

“Stepsister,” Lyrik corrects, glaring at me.

“Semantics.You’re a Black now, an Elite, and the riffraff need to know their fucking place.”

What I really want to say is she is mine and no one gets to touch her.But those words will never pass over my lips, they can’t.I’m not in love with Lyrik.It’s just a crush.

“I don’t know what your problem is,” Lyrik says, her hands planted on her hips.“But I need you to hear me.I’m a McMillan, not a damn Black.And you are not in charge of me.”

****

Eighteen Years Old

I am the son of a monster.A man who is ruthless in everything he does, taking no prisoners and accepting no excuses.Not even from his only child.I am expected to fall in line, like a good little heir of an Elite.

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