Page 1 of Nemesis
PROLOGUE
SOFIA
I’d always found it fascinating that life could lead you one way and then turn on its axis the next, completely changing its trajectory.
Like here I was, just shy of my twentieth birthday, visiting my parents after a year abroad for college, when, just like that, my life changed completely. Fragments of bullets shaping where it went next.
They say there are five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Mine only encompassed one.
Revenge.
He stripped me of everything I had and I would be back to end him.
Patience was a virtue and I’d waited seven years to avenge their deaths. The promise of blood, chaos, and revenge filled the air, wrapping around my body in a tight grip while I watched him from afar.
Click.
Click.
Click.
CHAPTER1
SOFIA
Gasping for air, I jolted awake, bolting upright. Terror seized my veins as I frantically pressed my palms overthatside as though it would somehow prevent what happened next. But of course it didn't. The end result never changed.
A gunshot. Followed by piercing pain.
Blood.
So much fucking blood coating my front and pooling underneath my body, life seeping through the veil separating me from reality.
Utter stillness warping my senses before everything went dark.
Seven years.
Eighty-four months.
Two thousand five hundred and fifty-six days.
And yet, I could still clearly see the gun pressed to my father’s head.
My motherbeggingfor mercy as a bullet shredded my father’s skull.
My motherpleadingfor him to spare us.
But none of it mattered.Hecertainly didn’t give a shit. He just shut her up, gifting her the same fate my father faced.
You would expect the person executing your family to look like a movie villain, a sneer decorating their scarred face. But the man who stared me right in the eyes before pulling the trigger looked as normal as they came.
He didn't even bother to shield his identity because he wasn't expecting anyone to survive him.
My body was drenched in sweat, the thin material of my shirt matted to my heaving chest, my breathing ragged. I threw my legs off the side of the couch and ran a hand through my tangled curls.
“Fuck,” I breathed out, allowing my eyes to adjust to my surroundings. My eyes roamed around me, the dim glow from the TV unveiling that I was in a different living room.
Relief washed over me when I realized I was in my run-down apartment and not where I once called home.
