 by Alta Hensley.jpg)
Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I’ve watched their secrets rise from the ashes and emerge from the shadows.
As part of a family tree with roots so twisted, I’m strangled by their vine.
Imprisoned in a world of decadence and sin, I’ve seen Gods among men.
And he is one of them.
He is the villain.
He is the enemy who demands to be the lover.
He is the monster who has shown me pleasure but gives so much pain.
But something has changed…
He’s different.
Darker.
Wildly possessive as his obsession with me grows to an inferno that can’t be controlled.
Yes… he is the villain.
And he is the end of my beginning.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter
One
Apollo Godwin
“You shouldn’t have come,” my brother says as I approach, not trying to hide the sound of my boots mucking their way across the rain-soaked ground.
Ares Godwin stands where I expect to find him. He’s stoically planted with his hands in his pockets on the edge of the cliff overlooking the Salish Sea. Olympus Manor—our family estate—to his left, and the tree of forgiveness to his right.
He doesn’t turn to face me, but keeps his eyes focused on the water crashing into and over the rocks below. “Does the family think I’m going to skip out on bail and leave the country? Is that why they sent you?”
I huff as I stand next to him, mimicking his stance. “Hardly. And they didn’t send me. You should know better than that.”
Through the corner of my eye, I see the side of Ares’s mouth lift in a smirk. “Scared I’d jump to my death then?”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
“But you knew I wouldn’t.”
He’s right. I know he won’t. He’s a Godwin. Godwins don’t give up.
We are gods who walk the earth. We are the monsters, the beasts, the villains in the story. We are the vipers who strike our enemies when they least expect it. The Godwin family wields the mighty thunderbolt like Zeus, and yet…somehow the powerful have fallen.
There is a chip in our shield. A crack in our protection. We are vulnerable now, and for the first time in my life, I see my family is human. Flawed. Even weak. Everything has changed.
My brother—my identical twin brother—is going to jail for the rest of his life for murder.
“But you were an asshole for taking the helicopter by yourself. I had to travel here by boat like a true savage,” I say, trying to cut through the thickness of our air with jest.
The island of Heathens Hollow, hidden in the fog of the Puget Sound, beckoned to my brother in his last hours of freedom, and I can completely understand the pull. I knew he’d come, and regardless of how I had to travel, I’d be here by his side.
He sighs. “Part of me wishes they’d insist on the death penalty. I think that’s far less severe than having to live in a cage for the rest of my life. Hard to imagine I’m never going to see this view again.”
I turn my head and look at the old willow tree that has stood on the edge of this cliff for centuries. “Have you asked the tree for forgiveness yet?”
Ares chuckles. “I’m not in the mood to whip myself or kneel on rice hours before sentencing, thank you very much.” He shifts his weight, releases a deep breath. “What I’ve done, even that tree can’t forgive.”
The tree of forgiveness… The bane of my siblings’ and my existence. Both our parents forced us to come to this tree to punish ourselves whenever we did anything wrong. They didn’t believe it was their duty to teach us the lesson, rather it was our job to search our inner selves to find the lesson and learn from it ourselves.
I walk over to the leather strap still hanging from the lower branch. “Maybe I should be the one to whip myself.” I look over my shoulder at Ares. “I should be the one going to jail today. Not you.”
“Stop,” he snaps. “We’ve had this conversation over and over, and I’m sick of it.”
“You didn’t kill that man. I did.” There’s a part of me that wants to throw myself off the cliff just so I don’t have to live with this guilt any longer. “I can’t let you take the fall for me. I don’t care what you, Athena, or my father say. I can’t.”
“I’m not going to jail because of you,” Ares adds, his attention going back to the sea. “I’m going to jail because my sins caught up with me.”
“You’ve sacrificed your entire life for this family. There isn’t anything you wouldn’t do for them. But you don’t have to for me. I’m not asking you to.”
“Listen to me,” he says with a voice of fire as he storms toward me. “I’m going to say this one last time so we can put this topic to rest. I’m not taking the fall for you. When they first thought I killed that man, they got my DNA. They were able trace me back to all the murders I did do in the past. I’m going to jail for all those hits, regardless. Not just the single one you did. There is no reason for you and me to both go to jail. It’s inevitable I’m going down. You don’t need to.” He shrugs. “I couldn’t be the family hit man and not expect to get caught, eventually.”
“You can tell me this until you’re blue in the face, but if I didn’t kill that man at Medusa Enterprises—in the goddamn boardroom—you’d never have been arrested. It’s because of me you got caught. I was the reckless one.”