Page 20 of Gilded Goddess

Fuck this shit.

I enter the sitting room with my gun pointed at her head. “You conniving bitch. I knew you were full of shit, but my dad wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Oh, honey.” She covers her heart with her hand, a fake smile on her lips. “Don’t take it personally. I did this for you, not to you.”

“Bullshit.” I inch closer to Athena. “You think I won’t shoot you? I could empty this clip in seconds, and I’ll still sleep tonight.”

“You can’t kill me,” she hisses. “Then you’ll get nothing.”

I narrow my eyes at her.

“If you kill any of us, you get nothing. It says so in the fine print of the will.”

My hand shakes as I keep the gun raised. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“I own everything,” she says harshly. “And if anything happens to my sons or me, the entire estate goes to charity.”

This can’t be true. My father doesn’t donate money, so why would he start now?

I turn the gun on Ares, my hands shaking from the anger coursing through my body. “I was right about you all along. You were never interested in me.”

“You’re wrong, little dragon.” Ares steps closer, and I point the gun at his head, keeping him at a distance. “As my mom said, this was never about you. We only wanted to hurt your father. He took everything from us.”

My finger hovers over the trigger, but I can’t pull it and unleash my hatred because I still care about him. “But you used me to do it.”

Atlas nods when I glance at him. “It’s not what you think, goddess. We did this for you as much as for us.”

Apollo folds his arms over his chest, and I swear I catch a look of pity in his eyes. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. I want him to hurt as much as I do. “You were collateral damage,” Apollo says. “I’m sorry, Ophelia. But you’re still family. You can come back home.”

Not a chance.

“I’m going to contest the will,” I tell Athena, ignoring her sons and their stupid fucking faces. “You won’t get away with this.”

I spin on my heels, and as I’m about to leave, she says, “With what money, Ophelia? Everything that should have been yours belongs to me.”

Maybe there’s a loophole we can exploit to invalidate the will. There has to be something. I will not let my bitch stepmother and her piece of shit sons steal my inheritance, not when I worked so hard for it.

I turn around to look at her, clutching my gun in my trembling hand. But even with the nervousness coursing through my body, I can get a clean shot.

“This is what your mother wanted,” Athena says. “Don’t do something you will regret.”

“The only thing I will regret is letting you live.” I raise the gun and aim at the space between Athena and Ares. “You may have my father’s money and clubs, but you don’t have the respect that comes with my last name. If you want a war, I’ll give you one. I’m taking back what’s mine. You’ll never own this city.”

She’s right about the will. My uncle has already gone over it dozens of times with his lawyers. Athena had this all planned out and knew what she was doing. So until I can get the proof I need to take back my family’s empire, I need her breathing.

I fire the gun.

She yelps when the bullet lodges into the wall behind her head. Ares’s teeth grit in anger, and he looks like he wants to tackle me to the floor.

“I missed on purpose,” I tell Athena, already plotting to get my revenge. “The next time I point this gun at you, it’ll be a kill shot.”

I leave the dining room in a hurry, the tears stinging my eyes, and get the fuck out of this house.

They’ve won for now.

But I’ll be back.

This isn’t over.

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