Se connecterGREYMy body was running on adrenaline alone. I should have collapsed from exhaustion by now, but I couldn't, not until my Princess was safe. Holding her in my arms had been like the sweetest reward. But our moment of relief had ended the second that fucker found us.Cavalieri. When I'd seen him aiming at Poppy, I'd reacted on my instincts. The Kevlar vest had done its job, but the hit most likely broke a rib or two. Now, that cunt was hiding in an arched alcove behind a marble pillar while I stood in the center of the damn hallway, completely exposed.“Grey,” Poppy's weak voice sounded. She was by the wall, sitting on her knees on the marble floor. Her chest rose and fell with hectic breaths. I knew that she was exhausted and terrified, but she was alive, and she was here, by my side. For now, that was all that mattered.“Stay where you are,” I hissed as she began to move in my direction.“That's right, Poppy,” Cavalieri's voice echoed from behind the pillar. “Stay like a good little
I screamed as the head of the marble sculpture smashed into pieces. I ducked as the second bullet crushed the sculpture's torso. I hissed in pain and saw a deep wound on my arm. It wasn't from a bullet, but it looked like one of the stone pieces was sharp enough to cut my skin.“This is a murder!” Elias yelled, drawing Aldo's attention to him.“That it is,” Aldo purred before sending a bullet through Elias's head.I flinched and clamped my hand over my mouth. My only ally here was now dead because of me. Gaspare's dark laughter echoed through the vault, and my stomach roiled. This was it. The next bullet would kill me, and that sick fucker knew it. I looked around me, hoping to find a miraculous route of escape. My gaze stopped on the scanner, and I realized that what I thought was a hole was a round hollow.“We're under attack!” shouted one of Gaspare's soldiers.Gaspare, Ardian, and Aldo turned to him. “What the fuck do you mean by that?! Who's attacking us, and how?!” my uncle roar
POPPY“Sign this,” my uncle growled, throwing a few documents on the table before me.I cautiously slid the first page of the document closer and saw my name and personal data on it. My insides twisted. “What's this?”Gaspare leaned over me, a cold smirk dancing on his lips. “Your will.”I flinched. “My… what?”“Your last will,” he repeated.I leaned back in my seat, my eyes meeting his. “Why… do you need my will?”His smirk turned into a bone-chilling smile. “It'll be my insurance.” He shrugged.I leaned over and skimmed through the document. My stomach turned into lead. “It says… that if I die… you'll receive everything I own,” I choked out.“Exactly.” A cold laugh slipped through his lips.I ground my teeth. “I won't sign it.”He sat in a chair in front of me and sighed. “It's your punishment. I won't let you pull another stunt like the one you did with Hopler. You think you can outsmart me, niece? You're forgetting that you're nothing but a fragile girl, and I have an army by my s
GREYI sat by Lanzo's hospital bed, ineptly trying to put my thoughts in some logical order. My instincts kept yelling, demanding I move, but the shell around me had become numb. Yesterday, we had buried Abigail, Rick, and over seventy of our men. The mansion had turned into a ruin, and most of my still-living soldiers were wounded and unable to fight. Unfortunately, this war was far from over. Those fuckers had taken Poppy, and I wouldn't hesitate to set the world on fire if that was what it took to get her back.“How is he?” Leo entered the room and jerked his chin, gesturing at my unconscious second.I shrugged. “The doctors said he's stable, but it might take a while before he recovers.”Leo sighed, then sat on the opposite side of Lanzo's bed. “He's one lucky son of a bitch. Four bullets and all vital organs intact…”I breathed out a laugh. “Yeah… He surely was lucky.” I glanced at Lanzo's oddly calm, sleeping face, then my attention turned to Leo. “You checked all our forces?”H
“And that will be all.” A nurse carefully closed the tube with my blood in it and put it into the box. She and the foundation's representative had been amazingly respectful, giving me a nearly royal treatment from the moment we had entered the hotel.I could see that Gaspare wasn't exactly pleased with their presence, but he had to keep up pretenses, pretending that he wanted to welcome me into the family. Of course, I knew that my special treatment had its limitations, especially with Gaspare's sentries never leaving my sight. My uncle had told the foundation representatives that he wanted to keep me safe, and apparently, they'd bought his explanation… for now.Elias Berge, one of the assistants of the foundation's board of directors, looked at my blood in the test tubes and nodded in approval. The nurse closed the box and packed the medical equipment while he stepped toward me and bowed. “Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience. Mr. Gaspare Valentino provided the results of D
I looked into the dark irises of the man sitting in front of me. Then I slowly surveyed his sharp jaw, the curve of his thin lips, his emphasized cheekbones, and the thick, black brows with a few sparks of silver. This time, staring at this face was a thousand times harder than when I'd faced him at the party. Only now did I realize that my amnesia had partially been a bliss. But now, I remembered. I remembered everything, and I could barely sit still as my family's murderer dared smile at me.“I don't think these are necessary.” Gaspare nonchalantly waved his hand, pointing at my cuffs.Aldo grimaced. “Are you certain, Mr. Valentino?”“My dear niece is not going to kill me,” he snarled at him before turning to me. “Or am I wrong about that?”Keeping my face expressionless turned into an unbearable struggle as I shook my head. “Do I have a reason to kill… my uncle?”He burst into cold laughter. “Of course not… I keep forgetting that you have that… amnesia.” He leaned closer and clicke
Tension pooled throughout my body within a second. A knot formed in my throat, and all I did was stare at the man who had reminded me of Ardian in the worst way. Heat rushed to my neck and face, making me brutally realize that he hadn't been wrong, not entirely. Grey had bought me for five million,
I was standing in front of the body-length mirror, staring at my reflection. When Abigail had brought that gown for me, I'd hesitated, wondering if I should wear it. My old habits had kicked in, forcing me to look for anything that had made me look more… angelic. Ardian had always made me dress in b
POPPY“So, who's this Rinaldi?” I asked a few hours later as Abigail and I were drinking coffee in the orangery.Grey and Lanzo were busy handling company issues, while Abigail had decided to tell me more about the Maledetti's enemies. According to her, the Rinaldi family had always been hell-bent
GREYThe sun mercilessly assaulted my eyes, falling through the crack between the curtains. I would love to ignore it and keep my arms around Poppy's naked body a little longer, but unfortunately, it was past ten, which meant that I had already wasted too much time sleeping.Carefully, I slid my ar







