AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turn. My hand flexes as I recognize the photograph. “A family holiday.”
Tyler passes the picture to Sebastian. My brother hesitates before handing the image to Beck.
“Your parents must have been your age,” Beck comments.
“We thought we had forever ahead of us, but they had such little time left. We all wasted so much time.”
“Impossible.” Beck holds out the photo. “You look at this picture and all you think about is what you didn’t have instead of the memories you had with them. You had people who loved you exactly the way you are. Still do. Love them back the same way and you won’t waste a second.”
We’re all staring at Beck. It’s easy to think of him as the joker, the role he prefers to play, but he notices far more than he’s given credit for.
Raegan was always fond of him, and I’m starting to see why.
I tuck the photo securely back in my pocket, and Tyler clears his throat. “Harry. Don’t move.”
On my dress shoe is a scorpion the size of my hand, its tail curled high.
I force my breathing to stay even, but my heart rate doubles. “Are they poisonous?”
“Some of them,” Beck responds.
Without warning, it scurries up under my pant leg.
The taste of blood fills my mouth from the spot I just bit my tongue. “Which ones?”
Beck holds his phone to the sky, trying to get reception.
My eyes close. I refuse to survive my parents, build a global empire, and end Mischa Ivanov only to die in the desert one day before my wedding.
I inch my pant leg higher.
“You’re going to make it angry,” Tyler says.
I tug the cloth higher until I can just make out the dark edge of the creature attached to my leg, then the rest of its body, menacing tail, and sharp pincers.
“Get off,” I tell the scorpion. “Get the fuck off.”
It doesn’t move.
I lower my voice. “If you depart immediately, I will give you a million dollars. If you stay, I will bludgeon you with this rock.”
The stone is still in my hand. I grip it tighter.
I’d need to be quick, with impeccable aim.
“Don’t kill it.” Sebastian reads my mind.
I glare. “You’d choose a scorpion over your only brother?”
“Fine. But I won’t watch you do it.” He averts his gaze.
My focus has always been building and acquiring and attaining. When I want something, I don’t hesitate, and I don’t compromise.
Except that the reason I wanted those things is in front of me.
My fiancée. My wife. My heart.
She’s twenty-seven, and she wants to live her life as normally as she can.
