Page 87 of Legacy

She loved me. She said she loved me.

“Don’t think,” I argued as gently as I could. “Knowthat I’m telling you the truth. Know that I love you.”

“You love me?” she asked with shock in her tone as she stared at me, her head cocked slightly and a crease forming between her brows.

Why was she surprised by this?

I couldn’t believe she was unprepared to hear those words, especially after the other night in the bathtub.

I squeezed her hand. “I mean it. I love you, Avra. The last thing I want to do is ruin what we have and what we are building. I will never want to hurt you.”

When she closed her eyes and sighed, it told me everything I needed to know. She still didn’t believe me.

I poured my heart and soul out to her and kneeled before her, and it wasn’t enough.

The knowledge that she couldn’t trust my words shredded my soul.

“I will prove it.” I stood.

She remained on the couch. “Eli, what are you doing?”

The immediate worry in her voice showed the first traces of emotion since she sat.

“Like I said. I’ll prove I’m telling you the truth. I’m going to speak to my father right now.”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

I looked at her. “I’ll tell you what makes no sense. I’m thevillain in a story I didn’t even know I belonged in, and since Ozias is at the root of this, I’ll find out from the source.”

I should have dug deep into Ozias’s business. I was well aware he planned something, but putting my name into anything went too fucking far.

“You truly don’t know?”

I clenched my jaw as I reached the living room door. “It is all I’ve tried to get you to believe since I walked through the fucking door.”

“Eli.” She stepped in my direction, and I raised my hand, telling her to stop.

“No, I never want any doubt between us. I swear it to you now. On my life, on my mother’s place in heaven, I will never help him with his pursuits. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

I turned, stalking through the house and heading to the garage. Once in the car, I tore down the road.

I would reach that son of a bitch as fast as possible.

Visions of killing him with my bare hands filled my mind, choking him, watching his eyes bulge and the veins on his face and in his eyes burst.

My fingers flexed with every scenario of death I played out, each one more violent than the last.

As I approached the estate, I sent a few voice messages to my top lieutenants telling them to gather every scrap of information circulating about Ozias. I wanted rumors, gossip, any tiny mention of that fucker’s name.

I ran the family, and they obeyed me. Ozias had his little team, but everyone around him knew the truth.

Years of work, of proving myself, of dealing with the same shit as my soldiers garnered loyalty my father could never think of receiving. In a war between us, he’d come out the loser.

His ego kept him from accepting truths. Now, he’d face facts.

He was my genetic donor only, never a parent, and not a father in any form or fashion. I was his son. But he wasn’t my boss. He’d ceased earning my respect when I was a child. He’d been the recipient of my loathing since the day he struck my mother. And since the day he killed Eudora Vitalis, he’d been on my shit list, one of the people I’d love to see suffer and beg for mercy.

I pressed my foot on the pedal harder, despising every mile that made up the distance between me and Ozias. I wanted to be at his stupid house now. I wanted to get this over with and return to Avra.

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