Page 21 of Legacy

“First, love is the last thing on my mind. This is a means to an end. Second, it doesn’t matter how I feel.” I nodded to my sisters. “We will avenge our family.”

“I feel so bad, though.” Cali stood, brushing down the creamy blue dress she’d chosen as my bridesmaid.

Oh, Cali, there she went, feeling too much.

“We agreed. We follow the plan.”

Cali sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll ever stop feeling guilty about how you’re…you’re just sacrificing yourself like this.”

Sacrificial lamb for the big, bad wolf.Elias’s words returned to me, and I held back a scoff. “Don’t worry, Cali. I’ll be fine.”

Why had my words sounded like a badomen?

In the back of my mind, an uneasiness grew, not about the plan but that unsettling attraction to Elias.

I never responded to anyone the instant I met them, but it had happened with him.

Since that dinner with him and his father, I could not shake the memories of how he’d known just how to push me to lose my composure. His dominance seemed to incite a side of me to fight with him. When he’d warned me not to play with him, my immediate reaction was that he’d thrown down a challenge.

Then there was the fact that I kept thinking of his lips and wanting a taste of them.

How could such a brief interaction leave me in this confused state?

From the start, my sisters and I understood that the plan demanded we become wives in every sense of the word, including intimacy. We agreed to feign it, just as countless women had throughout the ages.

However, something deep in my gut told me nothing with Elias would go as planned.

“We’ll all be fine,” Laya said in a no-nonsense way. “Because we’re back for what is ours, and no one will take it from us again.”

“Soon,” I told my sisters, “everyone will regret stealing from us.”

The former Vitalis territories and land remained under our names despite other families taking over the area, completely unaware that Papa began dividing his assets long before anything happened to him. At each of our births,Papa transferred ownership of parts of his estate into trusts for us. Most of what our enemies believed they’d taken as spoils of their plot against Juno Vitalis had legally never belonged to them. Even after marriage, what belonged to us remained ours. And if anything were to happen to one of us sisters, our trust would be divided between the remaining sisters or left to the next-in-line Vitalis to take over the family.

Papa had understood the ways of the world long before the deceit that resulted in his death.

It made no sense that no one in the last fifteen years had bothered to research the deeds and records for the land upon which they lay their heads. Or perhaps Ozias had, which was why he had so readily agreed to this marriage. Before he’d known I was alive, he knew the members of the Vitalis family in America were the only ones with the power to challenge him, and they were too busy expanding their reach locally to put effort into Europe.

As an extra precaution, before leaving Prague, my sisters and I had created wills stating upon our deaths, all of our assets would transfer to the Vitalis cousins in America.

Their support and loyalty to Papa meant more to me than they could know. I’d never forget their help with sorting through the lies of the past to unearth the facts about my parents’ deaths.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t attend the wedding due to issues in their territories. Havingsomefamily would have been a nice show of force, but it was what it was.

“You’ve got that right,” Laya agreed with an unladylike grunt.

“I hate that we have to see those bastards today.” Cali clenched her jaw.

Many of Ozias’s co-conspirators planned to attend the wedding, especially the three who helped him mastermind everything. Inside the church would be a sea of enemies with a sprinkling of Vitalis soldiers as the few friendly faces.

“We have to hide our contempt,” Laya advised as she came to my side, looking into the mirror before adding, “No matter how hard it may be.”

“Yeah. Wear your cold, infallible mask,” Cali added.

It was time to implement Vik’s training and slide on the shield impenetrable to our enemies.

Except, they wouldn’t get the unemotional part today. They would glimpse what simmered underneath.

I shook my head. “No. I want them to see the wrath in my eyes. It doesn’t matter if they underestimate me or laugh at me. What they will know is that I am coming for them.”

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