Page 3 of Widow's Walk

“It’s her sanity I’m uneasy about,” comes a voice that has been living rent-free in my mind for years.

Blackwell. His voice, darker now. Sharper. Still low, still lethal. And still maddeningly disinterested.

“Oh, she’s harmless,” my father says dismissively, and I nearly burst into laughter.

The wine hits my throat against the giggles.Harmless. That’s adorable. Pitiful, deluded man. The mob pups go rigid as if I’m about to do something to prove my father wrong.

“She’s a fucking kook,” Blackwell snaps. “I was promised your older daughter, nother.”

The dead sister card. I roll my eyes so hard I nearly see God. Spinning around, I take another sip from the bottle. “At ease, boys,” I say with a lazy salute.

I’m off to find some trouble.

I meander through the halls, barefoot and bottle dangling from my fingers. The house is always crawling with men. Testosterone around every corner. But they all avoid me like the plague.

I duck into one of the sitting rooms. Doesn’t matter which one. Almost all of them have a mini bar. Some with bottles collecting dust, while others have hardly anything left.

I pluck a bottle from the cluster of wines and continue my tour of agonizing boredom.

They think I’m insane. But here’s the thing no one tells you about going mad. It’s not always a tragedy. Sometimes, it’s evolution.

And they only have themselves to blame.

Chapter two

Blackwell

When I asked Anthony Ortiz if his daughter would be in attendance, the arrogant bastard nearly dismissed me with a scoff.

Apparently, he doesn’t believe women warrant a seat at his table. Especiallythatdaughter. But he must’ve sensed his mistake because immediately after we finalized the contract and raised glasses in that farce of a toast, he granted me permission to ‘find her’ as if she were a roaming cat.

I assume he thought the gesture was courteous. It was condescension, thinly veiled. Fine by me. I prefer handling things my own way anyways.

I haven’t seen Sinclair Ortiz in years. Not since she was a pale little thing who hid behind her dyed hair and eyeliner like war paint. The whispers about her have only grown since her sister’s death.

Madness. Violence. Isolation.

A girl better suited to an asylum than an estate.

The rumors about her and her state of mind had me conflicted with keeping the agreement between our families after the older daughter died. But I’ve put it off for as long as I could. Until my father finally gave me an ultimatum. Choose a daughter from one of three families, or he would.

I didn’t chooseher. I chose what was easy to manipulate. The Ortiz empire is valuable, but its owners are brittle. And should something unfortunate befall Anthony Ortiz, pushing out his two sons wouldn’t require much force. With Sinclair, I can dismantle the remnants from within.

She is not my bride. She is my strategy.

“Where is Sinclair?” I ask the two guards loitering near the main corridor.

They exchange glances like startled prey. “She might be up in her room, sir,” one says stiffly.

“Pacing her widow’s walk,” the other mumbles.

I turn to him slowly. “And where the fuck is that?” My tone is murderous.

His eyes slightly widen. “Upstairs, sir. Then left. There’s a second staircase. Leads up to her quarters.”

I blink. “In the attic?” They look like bobbleheads as they both nod in unison. “If you’re fucking with me…” I warn.

“No, sir. She really lives up there.”

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