Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“I’m not so weak now, am I old man?”
CHAPTER 67
Ella
If Luca wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.
A narcissist, he had a point to prove to the man whose attention he craved.
We will never know the extent of what went on in that cellar. But Lars found Luca’s journal when he tossed his room, and the journal was a wealth of information.
A meticulous record keeper, no doubt so he could look back at how good he was, Luca journaled every depraved moment of his plan.
How after suffocating our father into unconsciousness, he kept him locked in the old carriage house on the property, drugged and sick, while he carried out his plan. He built his prison in the cellar. Put on an elaborate funeral for the don Moretti. Then set about corroding the Moretti empire like a cancer.
Killing our father wasn’t enough for Luca. An egotistical psychopath, he needed to know our father was under his complete control. Because in his sick, twisted mind, it made him the better man.
It didn’t help that Carolina never got over losing him to another woman, and when her son carried out his nefarious scheme, she got her kicks out of seeing him trapped and powerless and completely at her mercy.
In and out of heavy sedation, my father remembered her visiting him in the cellar and her delight in taunting him, putting her cigarettes out on his chest and burning his fingers with her lighter.
I should’ve killed her after I killed her son.
At least she’ll do time.
Sheriff Coulter said the ADA is laying charges for her part in my father’s captivity and torture, and she’ll go to prison for many years.
While her son rots in the ground.
I have to hand it to my brother though, he managed to pull off the impossible. And I underestimated what he was capable of.
But I should have realized that he had enough Moretti blood in his veins to make good on whatever he set his mind to.
CHAPTER 68
Lars
“So the mighty Olicheckoff empire has fallen now that their leader no longer has a pulse,” Axe says, raising a glass of whiskey.
“Or a head,” Gambit adds.
We’re in church.
All of us sitting around the war table.
Except we’re missing two brothers.
We buried Scotty two days ago in the St. Boniface Cemetery alongside other fallen Knights who have also died for the club. He received the full treatment. A funeral procession of Harleys through the streets of St. Boniface, riding behind the hearse carrying his body.
He was buried in his cut. The fully patched cut he was due to receive in a matter of days.
Afterward, we drank to his memory back at the clubhouse bar.
Rogue’s sendoff was a different story.
He should be rotting in The Well, the deep hole in the castle dungeon, for his betrayal. But Beast was lenient because of Rogue’s sister and sick niece, and now he is buried in another part of the cemetery, far away from any other Knights.
I’ve barely been present since Angelo Moretti was found and Ella has been at the hospital with him. Because I told her I’m in this with her. That whatever happens, I’ll be by her side. And if that means the club has to take second place to my girl, then that’s the way it’s going to be.
Not that Beast is going to make me choose.
The club understands why Ella did what she did.
There is no need for forgiveness.
Beast made that clear to everyone. Just in case anyone had any lingering issues about what Ella was forced to do.
But no one did.
In fact, the club wrapped their arms around her and Lucretia and welcomed them into our family.
While it was empty, the Moretti mansion mysteriously burned to the ground one night. And by mysteriously, I obviously mean me and Beast and a couple of Molotov cocktails.
Because Ella couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the house where the memories lingered like nightmares. And the only way to destroy the bad energy left behind by Luca was with fire.
Lots of it.
Until the new house is built and Angelo Moretti is released from hospital, Lucretia is living at the clubhouse with us. But she might have a hard time leaving because I’m pretty certain the club girls and old ladies have claimed her as one of their own, and they don’t want her to leave.
The ladies have also been visiting Ella at the hospital as she stays by her father’s bedside. A show of support for what she went through. What she had to do in order to survive.
Because we’ve all done things we didn’t want to do.
For some of us it means spilling blood.
For others, it means pretending to be someone you’re not, so your evil half-brother doesn’t hurt your sister.
CHAPTER 69
Ella
“Wow! What is this?”
It’s my first night away from the hospital, and when I walk into Lars’s bedroom, he has it lit with a hundred candles.