Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
I leaned forward, over the edge of my mattress, and opened the drawer of my nightstand. I found the silver chain that I kept in there. Placing Maria’s ring onto the chain, I lifted it in front of my face and watched the ring dangle perfectly in the middle.
Forever, Angel. I promised you forever.
I placed the chain around my neck, and the cold ring laid in the middle of my chest. My beating heart thundered, and a painful, silent tear fell down.
I wished I could go back and change the past. I wished I could go back and protect my Maria just like I had promised. But I couldn’t. What a fucking failure I was. The King, yet now…I was nothing but a stupid, broken soul.
My gaze went to the open drawer, and the pain turned into fury. Seven days. I lived seven days without my wife with only two emotions. Anger. And pain.
I took out the crumpled note from the drawer and stared at the words. My blood roared in my ears, and my veins thundered in my neck. Every pore of me vibrated with the need to shed the blood of those who had destroyed my life.
The note I found on Maria’s body had sealed their fate.
Let that be a lesson for you.
Fucking Italians.
The Abandonato.
The men who were captured revealed the truth. Alfredo was behind the attack. Alfredo killed my Angel.
Oh, he would pay.
His death would be slow and painful. I would end him, and with him, I would bring his empire down.
Eight years ago, I made wedding vows.
Now, I made a vow to end this.
The Italians started a war.
The Russians would end it.
And a bloodbath was the only answer.
Chapter 26
Lyov
22 years later
It took Alessio three years before he started speaking again after witnessing his mother’s death. Since that night, my boy was never the same. Not the innocent, sweet boy Maria used to love, coddle, and cherish. He changed the night he watched his mother’s blood flow, saturating our lives with its painful meaning.
Three years after Maria took her last breath, Alessio made his first kill at only eleven years old. I wished I was a better father. Maybe stopped him when I could have. I wished I had kept him away from this fucked-up life. But I didn’t. Life had fucked me up so I could only see my pain and revenge. I didn’t understand Alessio. I didn’t understand his fear, his sorrow…and his emptiness. Only because I was too blinded by my own.
Life had hardened Alessio Ivanshov into a ruthless, merciless King. He built the Empire I turned into ash with his own bare hands.
I wished I could have done a lot of things differently. But now, as I watched my son wrap his arms about his woman, his Ayla, his Angel…I wouldn’t change anything.
Some would say it was fate. Destiny.
Maybe this was meant all along.
Maybe I was meant to lose my Angel.
So Alessio could find his.
I had given them both a hard time. I believed that Angels didn’t belong in our world, and by pushing my anger and sorrow at losing my wife on Alessio, he almost lost his Ayla.
But now they were happy. They were together, with a baby on the way.
A princess, Ayla said.
It hurt to think about it, to think about their happiness because mine had just been an incomplete, broken story. Even after twenty-two years, the realization that I would never hold my daughter…the ache in my heart only worsened.
I watched as Alessio laced his fingers with Ayla’s and they walked toward the woods that led to the streams and a field of flowers. A sanctuary, a piece of heaven in this hell.
I watched as my son leaned down and kissed his woman on her lips. Ayla threw her head back and laughed. Even from far away, I saw Alessio’s lips tilted up in a smile. The way he looked at her, it reminded me of the times when I would look at my Maria. I was sure I had the same look in my eyes, on my face. That look of love and absolute adoration. A look of protectiveness. A look that said this woman…she was mine.
They walked further into the woods together. My hand came up, and I touched my silver chain from under my shirt. My fingers rubbed over Maria’s wedding band. I could almost feel her presence, as if she was right next to me. I could feel her smile…her warmth.
I imagined she was here right now, standing beside me, watching over our son and his Angel.
I gripped the ring tighter. “They are happy, Maria. Alessio found her. And I think…I think they are going to live happily ever after. Just like you always wanted for him.”
Alessio and Ayla disappeared into the trees, and I couldn’t help but smile. They were beautiful together.