Page 22 of His Last Will

Cutting into humans and making them bleed is a lot easier than dealing with family and facing the fact that I am about to spend my life with someone who despises me.

That was always going to be how my future ended, though.

Because the man who thrives on torture doesn’t get a happy ending. He gets what he deserves.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

ARI

FOUR DAYS AFTER BRODIE’S DEATH

Blood stains your soul before death takes its first breath.

Death is an overwhelming feeling that, once it touches you, can never be erased. It is a constant presence that lingers in your body, trying to suffocate you and take you with it.

Loss began to steal my breath when he took his last. And that feeling of constantly gasping for air has not left me for the last four days.

Four days without him.

How am I supposed to make it an entire lifetime?

Aiden sits across from me—stoic and cold. Not looking at me or anyone else in the family. He sits and stares off at the wall of bookcases, a glass of whiskey resting idly in his hand. We’re gathered in Anthony’s office for the reading of Brodie’s will, alongside the highest-ranking members of The Order, including the most prominent of the council: Vivian, Adrian, Cole, Ryder, and Ashton. The voting members. People who can make quick decisions if need be.

When the dead heir of The Order has a secret will, people are going to show up.

My presence was requested by Nico, Brodie’s personal lawyer. Someone no one knew about before he showed up to the funeral, briefcase in hand, to discuss a date and time for this meeting.

I am not sure why Brodie would have needed his own personal lawyer, outside of the ones The Order had on retainer, but whatever his reasoning, it wasn’t good. Worry eats away at me as we wait. Anxiety slithers just beneath my skin, waiting to envelop me whole.

Aside from the funeral, I have not left my bedroom since he was killed. It was a miracle I was sitting upright, given I spent half my time hunched over a toilet.

The door opening grabs my attention as a tall man strides in. This must be Nico. Very few people have the arrogance to just stride into a room full of members of The Order, but Nico doesn’t seem to give a shit.

He looks relatively young, maybe a few years older than us, with raven dark black hair and a prominent silver streak above his eye. The way his pressed suit is tailored to his body makes me think Brodie didn’t just find this guy off the street. It was more thought out, planned—which somehow makes all of this worse.

Walking up to the desk, Nico opens the briefcase and slides a folder out. Surveying the room, he briefly pauses on each person, likely taking note before looking directly at me and clearing his throat. “Okay, let’s get started. This should be rather quick given that Brodie did not have many sole assets that didn’t revert to The Order, but the ones he had, he wanted protected if something ever happened.”

“His personal fortune will go to Arianna Ashbourne.” The rock sitting in my stomach for the last few days grows in size. Brodie’s plan was to protect me even if he couldn’t be with me. He wanted to give me some semblance of security outside of the family, knowing I might very well be blackballed the second the dirt covered his casket.

Nico continues on, “The safety deposit box and all of its contents at Southern Regional Bank go to my brother, Aiden Araneae.” Stepping away from the desk, he hands Aiden a small key, predictably for the box at the bank.

Nodding his head, Anthony gets up to leave like Brodie could have no other things of value, but Nico halts him. “There is one more thing…a short letter that I am to read.”

He pulls an envelope from his folder, unseals it, and begins to read aloud.

“To Whom It May Concern,

I, Brodie Araneae, with sound mind and clear-headedness, upon my death, give Arianna Ashbourne to Aiden Araneae. To be his lawfully wedded wife until death do them part.”

I stop breathing. Glass shatters from somewhere in the room. A muttered, what the actual fuck, comes from someone’s lips, but I can’t determine who with the blood pounding in my ears.

Only pausing for the brief outburst, Nico continues to read.

“I know that this is highly out of the ordinary, but Ari, my love, my life, my queen, that collar around your neck says that you are mine.”

I bring my hand up to my neck, fingering the now-empty space. The collar now rests, buried, with the man himself.