On a daily, I vacillate between needing to feel those undoubtedly tight and slick walls collapse around my dick and seeing that beautiful brain decorating the wall behind her.
I’m obsessed with fucking my stepsister and killing her.
Up until today, I haven’t done either. But depending on what this will reveals, the latter will be another sin to stain my already dirty, questionable soul.
Will justify why I’ve remained this long with House of Cross.
Nah, not justify.
Reward. Finally, I will receive my reward for sowing all these long years as Marcus Cross’s loyal second.
He owes me. And I’m about to collect in not just money but flesh.
His daughter’s flesh.
“Now that we’re all here, we can begin,” Sam says as Ember sinks onto the couch across the room from the rest of us. Nothing in the casual cross of her legs or the relaxed slope of her shoulders belays the tension riding everyone else in this room. Her expression remains cool as glass, revealing nothing of her thoughts or feelings. But then again, this has been the dynamic of our “family” for the past thirteen years—ever since she was twelve and me, seventeen. Different. Distant. Separate.
“Finally,” Michelle mutters.
Sam glances at her, and wisely, she shuts the fuck up. Then he glances at Ember, and that black gaze slightly softens. Though he’s been in her life since Marcus nutted in his wife, a fierce, brutal urge to snap his neck punches me in the chest. She’s not mine. And this damn near primal need to harm is not rational. But then again, neither am I.
“As I was saying”—Sam stares at Michelle—“since we’re all here, I can begin.” He opens his briefcase and removes a stack of papers. “I, Marcus Lamar Cross, a resident of Los Angeles, California, being of sound mind and body, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament.”
Silence permeates the room, and a fine tension invades my body. It seems as if I’ve been waiting for this moment for half my life, and now that it’s here, a foreign burst of nerves crowds my stomach. It takes every scrap of control to remain leaning against the wall and to school my expression.
“Let it be known that if any beneficiary under this will contests this document or any of its provisions, any share or interest given to the contesting beneficiary is revoked and will be disposed of as if he or she had not survived me.” Sam pauses and his dark gaze meets each of us in the room. “To my wife, Michelle Denise Cross, I bequeath the Pacific Palisades home, the second home in Aspen, Colorado, ten billion dollars, and ten percent ownership of House of Cross. If she precedes me in death, her sons, Asad and Kareem Prince, will receive her inheritance.”
Anyone else receiving a fortune in real estate, money, and stocks would be ecstatic. Fucking transcendent. Not my mother though. Her lips flatten until they damn near disappear, and her fingers ball into tight fists on her thighs. Knowing her like I do, she probably expected Marcus to leave her everything. The money, the property, the company. All because she let him fuck on her for the last thirteen years. I shake my head. That mu’fucka didn’t even do shit for his own flesh ’n’ blood. I don’t get why Michelle thought she was so special just because she spread it low and wide.
“To my stepson, Kareem Malcolm Prince, I bequeath the Bel Air penthouse, eight billion dollars, and five percent ownership of House of Cross.”
Unlike our mother, Kareem seems pleased. He nods and gives Sam a small smile, but I glimpse the gleam in his eyes. Greed. That’s more money than he’s ever seen, much less possessed. I can practically see his brain calculating how many bitches he’s going to trick off on.
“To my daughter, Ember Belle Cross, I bequeath the trust left to her by my first wife and her mother, Kimberly Jacobs Cross, in the amount of twenty-three billion dollars. I also leave Ember an additional twenty billion, also to be held in trust until she reaches thirty years of age or enters into marriage, whichever comes first. I nominate my stepson, Asad Grayson Prince, to serve as trustee of the trust. If Asad is unable or unwilling to serve as trustee, I nominate my wife, Michelle Denise Cross, to serve in his place. Lastly, I bequeath Ember thirty-four percent ownership of House of Cross, with Asad Prince as proxy to the voting shares.”
Her swift intake of breath pierces the silence like a razor-sharp scalpel. I switch my attention from Sam to her, and though her expression remains aloof and reserved, those light brown eyes tell another story. Scream that story. And it’s one of rage, betrayal, and pain. Of hate. Seeing as how I’ve seen those emotions reflected in that gaze often over the last thirteen years—shit, I’ve been the cause of them more often than I can count—I easily recognize them.
But in the next moment, it’s as if those eyes shutter, and there’s… nothing.
Like everyone else in this family, she’s mastered the art of pretending. But of us all, she’s perfected it. She’s had to, given the family she had the misfortune to be born into.
Marcus was as disloyal and dismissive of her in death as he was in life. When, in truth, House of Cross wouldn’t exist without her.
That knowledge won’t stop me from stealing her birthright though.
With a will that’s been forged in the fires of rage, pain, and helplessness, I don’t move a muscle. Not even an involuntary flinch. Nothing in my face or demeanor betrays the vicious and primal exhilaration sweeping through me like a destructive twister.
Three inheritances read and revealed. Only one more left. I can nearly taste the victory, fuckin’ feast on it with bloody, grasping hands.Mine.
Michelle turns in her chair and looks at Ember, a malicious smile turning up the corners of her mouth. Even before the words escape her, I know they’re aimed to maim, to eviscerate. To see Ember bleed. I won’t allow it. Not here, not in this room with the ghost of her father not even fully formed yet. Nah, Michelle won’t get the chance to draw that first blood. Even if it’s me who has to make the initial slice.
“Anything to say, Ember?” I ask, embracing the ugly, slick slide of anticipation weaving its way through my veins like a bloated, filthy river.
That unblinking gaze of sunshine and syrup shifts to me, and my dick thumbs against my thigh, stretching and hardening at the heated punch of her eyes meeting mine. My whole body tightens with an eagerness that’s usually reserved for dirty fights and dirtier fucking.
Will this be it? Will this be the time she unleashes all that banked and beautiful rage on me? I’ve waited for over ten years for it to happen.
But as she inhales, then slowly exhales, and her head slightly tilts to the side, apparently today won’t be that day.