Chapter 1

He thrust into me so hard that I forgot how to breathe. My hands found the bed frame, which I gripped so tightly that my knuckles turned white. I tried to pull myself off the bed, but he grabbed me by the waist and dragged me back. With one hand, he pressed my head into the pillow, while with the other, he delivered short, sharp blows against the tender skin of my buttocks.

I screamed into the pillow, although barely any sound came out. He stopped and released my head, and for one single moment, I thought it was over and that he was going to finish, but he pulled away from me only to turn me onto my back with one smooth movement. I was breathing rapidly and began pushing him away with my hands, but my strength was nothing compared to his. He gripped my face with his fingers and leaned close to my ear.

“Where’s your boyfriend now, huh?”

I only whimpered, because I was no longer capable of doing anything but surrendering to his torment, and despite knowing how terribly wrong all of this was and hating him with every fiber of my being, I still felt a certain, sickening smount of pleasure.

“I’ll fuck him out of your head, do you understand me?” he snarled, and after jerking my face a couple of times, I could only nod, my head moving in rhythm with his brutal assault of my vagina.

Seven days ago

I recognized the man from security and the driver who had been working for my family for the past ten years. They were waiting for me in the airport parking lot, leaning against the car and engrossed in conversation. When they saw me, they immediately stopped talking and straightened up.

“Miss Hawthorne.” They greeted me. I politely nodded in acknowledgment and got into the car, the door closing behind me within seconds.

“Is everyone home?” I asked the driver, and he said they had all been waiting for me since yesterday. I nodded once again, and the rest of the drive was spent in silence. I stared out the window, lost deep in my thoughts. Just the way I liked it.

It had been a long time since I had been home, in New Jersey. Ever since I left America at nineteen and went to Spain for university, I had come back for every break whenever I had the time. After graduating, I moved to London and established my own routine there, so from then until now, at twenty-six years old, I had perhaps only come to visit my family two or three times.

My thoughts were interrupted by a very familiar sight—the road leading to the towering stone wall that enclosed my father’s estate, the place where I had grown up and had once been grateful for the sense of security this gate gave me, until the moment it began to suffocate me and make my stomach knot at the mere thought of it and all the other security measures that had started to feel less like something keeping me safe and more like something keeping me isolated inside.

The iron gates opened after the car went through a security check, and we entered the estate. After a few minutes of driving, we arrived in front of the house, and the security man opened the door for me. On the stone steps of the villa, the first person I saw was my mother. A woman who aged like fine wine, dignified and always elegant in both her bearing and appearance, she stood there with a silk handkerchief in her hands, discreetly wiping away her tears from the moment she saw me.

“Mom,” I breathed out and rushed into her arms. She quietly sobbed as she wrapped her arms around me and held me tightly, and there was no indication that she would let me go until my father came down the steps and approached us. My mother stepped back and gently stroked my cheek with her hand when my father came over and formally greeted me in front of everyone. He had never been in the habit of showing affection in front of other people, but the small smile that, despite everything, appeared on his face told me that he was happy to finally see me again.

“He fought so hard, but he couldn’t hold on any longer.” My mother said in a tearful, thin voice. She was referring to Uncle Thomas. He was my mother’s uncle, my grandfather Alexander’s biological brother. I never had the chance to remember my grandfather very well, and while he was alive, he was either constantly traveling for work or tending to his empire from the dark office at the other end of the city.

I had been much closer to Uncle Thomas. We had practically grown up on his estate in Pennsylvania. That part of my childhood was tied to nothing but the warmest feelings and happiest memories. He sadly passed away yesterday at the age of eighty-one, but he had been doing remarkably well and looked good for his age. The last time I saw him, I told him he would make it to a hundred because he looked so young and energetic.

I was convinced that our family intrigues had shortened his life by at least ten years. We had all lived in harmony for a brief while, unfortunately, and Uncle Thomas had spent all that time caught between two fires, preventing a war between us and the Devereauxs.

Through peaceful agreements as much as through tricks and bloody battles, the territory had been divided between the two families more than sixty years ago, and it had remained more or less that way to this day. Uncle Thomas was Victor Devereaux’s godfather by birth—the man responsible for the devastating death of my aunt and uncle. Uncle Thomas and my late grandfather Alexander had another brother, William, who was the father of Victor’s current wife, Claire. They ruled New York, parts of Long Island, ports, transportation, warehouses, nightlife, and other lucrative businesses. We, on the other hand, were primarily based in northern New Jersey, where my father controlled all the major businesses and industrial interests, real estate, hotels, restaurants, private clubs, and transportation.

Thomas Crouse was the only one of the brothers to live into his later years, and he had no direct descendants or heirs, but he had spent a good part of the final years of his life calming tensions across the river, with his territory situated directly between our two families, balancing between us from within the buffer zone.

“Come on, come on. Let’s go inside, Grandma is probably in the living room. You must be hungry, too.” Eleonor said as she guided me toward the main entrance with her hands. At the door of the magnificent house, I was first greeted by a woman in her sixties, short in stature, with gray hair neatly tied into a low bun. A white apron fell over her skirt, and I noticed a small stain that looked—and judging by the smell, most likely was—a chocolate stain.

“Muffins?” I grinned from ear to ear and pulled her tightly against my chest.

“Oh, my child, I’ve missed you so much!” Tears formed in her eyes, and I wiped them away with my hand, taking the opportunity to touch her soft cheeks in the process. Because I had missed her terribly, too. A woman who had done so much for me. Olivia Forbes, my nanny.

My father gave her a reproachful look when he also noticed that she was stained, to which she lowered her head and whispered, “Muffins, of course. Your favorite ones. Come to the kitchen later.” I happily nodded my head and walked into the house. Everything seemed exactly as it had been before. Rich diamond chandeliers hung from the ceilings, the marble staircase leading to the first floor gleamed sharply beneath the light, and expensive, famous paintings hung perfectly aligned on the walls. I headed toward the living room, where, as usual, I expected to find my grandmother sitting and drinking herbal tea at this time of day.

I found her exactly where I thought she would be.

“Vivian, darling, what brings you here? Why did you come?” She lifted her gaze from the table and looked straight at me. Despite the smile on my face, hers showed signs of confusion. She began to rise from her chair, but I quickly approached and placed my hands on her knees, silently preventing her from standing. I crouched down in front of her, and she placed her gentle, elderly hands over mine.

“Uncle Thomas died, Grandma. Yesterday. I came for the funeral.” I said quietly and looked at my parents. My mother sadly shook her head, while my father clicked his tongue in irritation and left the room.

“She’s been like this since yesterday. She doesn’t remember anything again. Yesterday, she didn’t even recognize me or Richard…” My mother exhaled and followed my father out of the room.

I turned my gaze back to my grandmother and gave her another smile. When she saw that we were alone in the room, she leaned toward me slightly, as much as she could, and blew me a kiss, suddenly appearing all cheerful.

“Let him be dead, what can we do about it now? The important thing is that my children are alive and healthy.” She said happily.

I rose to my feet, leaned toward her cheek, and kissed her several times. She practically chased me into the kitchen to eat, and afterward—for real, Olivia had made my favorite muffins—I said goodbye to everyone and went to my room to shower and sleep.

Sleep did not come easily, because I tossed and turned in bed for two or three hours, dreading the funeral tomorrow morning. For the first time in so many years, the Devereauxs and the Hawthornes would be in the same place, and there was no amount of security that could prevent at least a few casualties tomorrow. My father and mother were convinced that Uncle Thomas had left us his territory and businesses, and I was certain the Devereauxs were convinced he had left it to them.

Still, more than that, I found myself wondering whether he would come. I hadn’t seen him since I was twelve. He had once been my entire world. For years, all I had managed to hear were stories about him. They said he traveled the world. That he gambled. That he spent every night in clubs with different women. That he hated his father, Victor, because he had remarried after his mother died. I wanted so badly to run into him by chance one day. Even if only for a moment. To tell him that we should end the hatred once and for all, that we weren’t responsible for his mother’s death, that despite everything that had happened, he was still my best friend. I fell asleep after making peace with the fact that perhaps tomorrow I would finally learn something about him.