Queen of Thorns by Lana Sky

Author:Lana Sky [Sky, Lana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lana Sky

15

Don

No one spared their praise while I was rising in the ranks of the famiglia. I heard it all, from mindless worship to having grown men pledge their lives to me.

Fuck modesty—it felt good to be king.

No one warns you what happens when you fall from that high perch, though. Life isn’t the same at the bottom as it is on top—and sure, you thought you knew that from the outset.

But you didn’t.

The truth is that hardly anyone experiences what it’s like to have it all, and fewer understand the pain of losing it. Not just the money or the prestige—that shit is secondary. It’s the stuff you put by the wayside on your ascent that you miss the most. The people you took for granted, the memories you minimized, and the lovers you exploited for your own gain.

Their silence is deafening, and no amount of money or power or booze can fill the void.

All you can do is bury the agony and fixate on useless distractions. Like plotting your ascent back to the top, even if you gotta kiss a few asses on your way there. Or stab them. Butcher.

Bloodied hands are a sight preferable to an empty house and full graves any day.

I lack the foresight of a Giovanni Rossi this time around, though. Forget power and influence. My focus is restricted to one target—Mischa. Now that I have his daughter in my grasp, the world is figuratively mine to take all over again via checkmate.

I could always kill her to achieve that aim—or go a step further and bind her to me in a way that humiliates him more than her death would. I could marry her…

A part of me scoffs at the notion, though I’m the one who proposed it, initially as a way to fuck with her head. But now? It’s an insane gambit. Only a true madman would actually go through with it—a wedding for my new bride with her father as the honored guest. You can’t make that shit up.

Forget her. I shove the Stepanovs aside for the moment, returning my focus to Vincenzo. His safety is all that matters tonight, dominating my thoughts as I exit Giovanni’s old apartment into the cool night air.

I’ve wasted enough time already. The “one hour” I promised Luciano unintentionally stretched into several—all spent staring at myself in the closet mirror, pondering the figure staring back. Who was that bastard?

A stranger I barely recognize with the face of an old man and the eyes of a murderer.

I’ve spent seven years too drunk to function, but sobriety feels more disorienting than the worst hangover. It’s like my entire body is a shell that no longer fits, though I could blame the discomfort on my clothing. Antonio’s old suits just enhance the feeling of wrongness I haven’t been able to shake since losing Vin. I can’t even keep the days straight anymore. Or the time.

“You’re late,” a voice calls disapprovingly. I look down the wooden steps leading below, surprised by the change in the landscape.

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