Broken Wings: Dark Legacy book 1 Read online

  Metal crunched and my head snapped to the side as our cars collided, then in the next second I bounced across into the Merc. My ears were ringing, my vision blurred, but survival instinct kicked in. I slammed my foot down on the brakes as my beautiful blue Aston entered a spin and skidded off the road into the grassy shoulder.

  It seemed like forever that my car skidded before finally coming to a stop with a hard thump against a tree. My heart, though, continued thundering so hard I worried it was about to burst. Tears stung at my eyes and my breathing came in heavy, harsh gasps while I desperately tried to get a grip. But the fresh memories of my parents’ death refused to be silenced, and a low, keening sound began to wail from me.

  Get a grip, Riley! Hold it together. You’re not dead, you’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine.

  Dante’s car, though...

  “No,” I sobbed, trying and failing to unbuckle my seatbelt several times before my trembling fingers made it work. My door was stuck, and I needed to kick it a couple of times before it popped open and spilled me out onto the chewed up grass.

  In short... my beautiful Butterfly was destroyed.

  I was no mechanic, but I could only imagine how much it would cost to repair the kind of damage done. The idea made me sob, and I hugged my knees as I sat in the dirt beside Dante’s hundred and eighty thousand dollar write-off. Or, not even Dante’s anymore. By now the other drivers would be long finished, which meant Dante had just lost his car.

  As I sat there, rocking back and forth, fighting down the mounting despair, a sleek black car rolled up and stopped on the road where I’d spun out.

  Sickness pooled in my belly, and I quickly swiped the tears from my cheeks as that dark haired, arrogant asshole stepped out of his Bugatti and crossed the grass toward me.

  “Come to gloat?” I snapped at him, scrambling to my feet. He was still an easy half foot taller than me, but at least I wasn’t cowering.

  The smile he gave me was tight and humorless. “I hope you learned your lesson, Butterfly,” he said in a cold, serial killer sort of voice, flicking his gaze over the decal on my poor, destroyed baby. Behind him, several more cars pulled up—probably to gawk at the poor little new girl who couldn’t handle racing with the boys. “Go back to where you came from. You don’t belong here.”

  He started to walk away again, and I spluttered a protest. “Hey, wait!” I yelled. “What about my car?”

  Turning slightly back toward me, he arched a brow over one of those dark eyes. “You mean my car?” He gave a cold half-smile. “I’ll probably get it towed to the wreckers. It was a piece of shit anyway.”

  I was left speechless, and he strolled back to his sexy-as-sin car and slid in. In the dim light while his door was open, I spotted that same brunette girl who’d been all over him before the race, and her smug grin was enough to make me see red.

  Bugatti-boy took off, closely followed by three other insanely expensive cars—including Jasper in the yellow Aventador. The other kids who’d stopped to stare all left a bit slower, the last one leaving just as a vintage mustang pulled up and Dante leapt out of the passenger seat.

  “Riley!” he yelled as he barreled toward me, sweeping me up in a huge hug. “Are you okay?” he demanded when he finally set me down. His hands cupped my face as he peered at me, like he was a human x-ray machine and could scan me for injuries.

  “I’m fine,” I replied, peeling myself out of his grip. “Just a bit shaken up. And Butterfly...” I choked up, looking over the wreckage of the beautiful car again.

  “Fuck the car, Riles,” Dante growled. “When we saw the wreck, I thought you’d—” he broke off with a cringe, and I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

  “You thought I’d died. Like my parents did.” I shivered hard, and not just because my sweater was too thin for the winter temperatures. In my attempt to avoid Dante’s too intense stare, I spotted Eddy standing awkwardly on the edge of the road.

  “Hey,” I called out to her. “Your car?” I indicated the mustang, and she nodded.

  “Yeah. Want a lift home?” Her smile was sympathetic, and it made me want to burst out crying again.

  With one last look at my poor, broken Butterfly, I heaved a sigh and trudged back to the road where Eddy waited beside her car. “Thanks,” I muttered, taking the front passenger seat as Dante hopped in the back. Suddenly something occurred to me. “Fuck, you’re going to think I’m a total spaz, but... I don’t actually know how to get to, uh, the place I’m staying.”

  Eddy arched a brow at me in curiosity, and I felt my cheeks heat.

  “She’s going to the Deboise Estate,” Dante offered, slouching across the backseat so he could look between Eddy and me.

  My new friend spluttered and coughed a laugh. “Excuse me?” she exclaimed, gaping at me. “Why are you going to the Deboise Estate?”

  I heaved a sigh and cradled my plastered arm to my middle as I peered out the window. “Long story,” I mumbled. “Do you know how to get there?”

  Eddy snorted. “Of course I do. I just live two houses down.” I gave her a puzzled frown and she rolled her eyes. “Edith Langham,” she explained, pointing to herself. “You sort of met my brother Jasper earlier.”

  Blame the head injury, but it took a moment for my brain to make the right connections. “Langham,” I repeated slowly. “Langham Finance?”

  Eddy nodded. “Yup, that’s the one. So behind those ridiculous gates there are just the five estates. Ours—Langham—as well as Rothwell, Grant, Beckett, and obviously Deboise.” She flicked a quick glance at me while she drove. “You met Sebastian Beckett tonight, of course, and my brother Jasper Langham. You didn’t see them, but Evan Rothwell and Dylan Grant were tagging along in Beck’s shadow like they always are.” She rolled her eyes and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

  “Sebastian Beckett?” I repeated, and that sexy, smoldering asshole popped into my head. Of course that was him. I groaned and dropped my head into my hands.

  “You didn’t know?” Eddy exclaimed, with a small laugh, then tossed an accusing look at Dante in the mirror. “That was rude of you not to introduce her.”

  I frowned, turning in my seat to glare at Dante. “You knew who they were? What the fuck, Dante?”

  He just shrugged and looked unapologetic. “Like I give a shit about a bunch of entitled rich kids. I just wanted to see you shit all over their egos.”

  Grumbling, I turned back to my window. “Look how that worked out.”

  There was a long, awkward silence, then Eddy hummed under her breath. “School is going to be so much fun this semester.”

  5

  Eddy wasn’t questioned at the first set of gates, driving through with barely a pause. I was still pretty shaken up, my pulse racing. Heavy emotions pressed on my chest as well. Not only was that the first car I’d driven since my parents, it was the first race I’d ever lost, and I’d had to do it in spectacular fashion in front of a bunch of rich fucking assholes. Poor, butterfly.

  “So, are you going to tell me your story? Or should I guess?” Eddy picked up the conversation, as she maneuvered along the dark road.

  I looked over my shoulder and exchanged a glance with Dante. He didn’t give me his usual head shake, and I was surprised that my jaded best friend seemed to be okay with Eddy. Usually it took him ages to warm up to someone new, especially enough to trust them with life stories.

  Deciding I could use one friend in this piece of shit place, I decided to give Eddy a chance. A real chance. “My parents were killed—” I choked on that word, swallowing hard and attempting to stuff all of my burning pain down again. “In a car accident. The Deboise are adopting me, or re-claiming me more accurately, because I’m apparently the biological daughter they threw away at birth.”

  Eddy blinked at me and slowed her car before pulling it to a stop. We were in front of the gates I’d escaped from only a few hours ago. “Fuck me. Seriously, the Deboises are your birth parents?” Something seemed to oc
cur to her because her eyes widened and she sucked a deep breath.

  I nodded, shrugging off her weird facial expression. “Oh yeah, and Catherine Deboise is an ultra bitch. She is trying to morph me into a rich asshole. The next time you see me, my name will be impossible to pronounce and I’ll be wearing designer heels.”

  Dante snorted from the back. “You’d kill yourself in heels.”

  He wasn’t kidding.

  Eddy was quiet, her face drawn. “Is this about Oscar?” she asked quietly.

  I blinked at her. “Oscar?”

  The name was not familiar to me at all.

  “Oscar Deboise…” she trailed off.

  “Is that my father?” I wondered. I had no clue what his name was, or if he actually existed. If I had to guess, I’d say Catherine had long ago diced him into small pieces and cemented him in her basement wall. Psycho.

  Eddy went really pale then, reaching out to grasp my hand. “Holy shit, you don’t know. Okay, so Oscar is—was—your brother. He was killed a month ago.”

  I had a brother? “How old was he?” I asked in a breathless whisper. Why the fuck a dead brother’s age was important, I’d never know, but for some reason I pictured him as a tiny child, and that made me feel even more ill.

  “Twenty,” she said, surprising me. “Almost twenty-one. His birthday would have been in April.”

  Something dark and painful slithered across my mind, adding to the layers of confusion about this new life I’d found myself in. “My birthday is in March,” I said softly. We’d been born almost in the same month, just three years apart. A brother.

  “Why the hell did I get the boot when they kept him?”

  I had no idea if this was something Eddy would know, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  She cleared her throat before swallowing hard. “Oscar was the planned successor for the Deboise fortune, and you—according to my parents anyway—were an accident. I seriously just remembered the story when you said it before. But here’s the thing… she said you died during the birth.”

  It shouldn’t have hurt to hear her say that, because I didn’t give a single fuck about the Deboises, but for some reason, my chest was aching.

  “Catherine isn’t really a ‘kid person,’ ” Eddy continued. “And maybe it was just easier to fake your death and then put you into foster care, rather than deal with another crying child? Even with nannies, my mom said she still struggled with Oscar.”

  Her lame reasoning was a clear grasp at straws, but there wasn’t much she could say to justify Catherine pretending I was dead.

  Dante made a rough, angry sound from the back, but didn’t interrupt.

  Eddy grinned, and it was a little evil. “It’s not all bad news. You were a breeched birth, and you tore Catherine to pieces. She ended up having all of her shit ripped out to stop her from bleeding out,” Eddy finished, and I blinked at that unexpected ending. “So, she couldn’t have more kids, and that was the perfect karma. You got your own back.”

  “Maybe that’s why she hates me so much?” I pondered.

  Eddy shook her head. “Catherine hates everyone.”

  I was distracted then by the gates opening. Catherine knew we were out here, and that was my signal to get my ass inside.

  “How did Oscar die?” I asked as I opened my door.

  Dante opened his as well, even though there was no reason for him to get out. Catherine Deboise would not let him within five feet of her house, that was for sure.

  Eddy leaned over so she could see me, the interior light in her car illuminating her doll-like features. “No one really knows. He took off one night, on his own, and then his body was found in the lake behind town the next day. He was banged up pretty badly, but there had been a storm that night so the local police believe it was just an accident.”

  “That’s a lot,” I whispered, not sure what else I could say. It didn’t sound like Eddy believed the police, and I was sure she had a lot more information, but there was no more time for questions tonight. I probably wasn’t in the right headspace for any more life changing revelations like that anyway. Switching subjects, I turned to Dante. “What are you going to do? Thanks to my fuck up, you don’t have a car?”

  He shrugged, looking relaxed. “I have friends in town; I’ll crash there tonight. Don’t worry about it.” His eyes narrowed. “Still got your phone?”

  I patted my pocket, having completely forgotten about the little device he’d given me. “Yep, still there,” I said, pulling it out and checking it for cracks. Everything looked good.

  “Keep it on you at all times,” he warned me. “My number is speed dial one. If you get into any trouble, any at all, you call me immediately. Okay?”

  I saluted him. “Whatever you say, Sir Dante, sir.”

  He relaxed before winking at me. “That’s my girl. Okay, I’ll let you go now, but I’ll be around.”

  He took off into the dark, Eddy and I watching him until he disappeared completely into the night.

  Eddy let out a low whistle. “Holy fuck. My panties are seriously wet right now.” Her wide brown eyes met mine, and she looked a little flushed.

  I grinned. “Dante has that effect on chicks. They’re always hanging off him.”

  Eddy fanned her face. “Is he yours?” she asked. “Just say the word, and I will remove him from my vibrator spank bank.”

  I was already shaking my head, laughter bubbling from me. “Nope, Dante and I are just friends. Best friends. There’s never been anything romantic between us.”

  Except the recent “lingering looks” had caught me off guard. And that damn new tattoo. It almost felt like he’d gotten my name on his ass or something. We probably needed to have a chat soon, establish those boundaries again, but right now I had too much other emotional shit to deal with.

  “I better get inside,” I said, gesturing over my shoulder to the open gates. “Debitch doesn’t strike me as the patient type.”

  Eddy snorted. “She’s been way worse since Oscar. He was her pride and joy.”

  I felt a sliver of sympathy for her then, having suffered my own loss recently. Had she gotten me back just to fill the void Oscar’s death had left in her life, or was this about needing another successor? I mean, surely, she didn’t need a child that badly to inherit the money. Give it away to a charity or something.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said to Eddy.

  “Wait!” she called. “What’s your number?”

  I actually had no idea, since this was a phone Dante got for me. “Just put your number in here,” I said, handing the screen across to her.

  She took about eight seconds, clearly familiar with the device. “Okay, awesome. Send me a text and we can catch up. School starts Monday, and I’m guessing you’ll be going to the same school as me. Catherine doesn’t strike me as the type to send her child to public school.”

  “As long as I have one friend there, I can deal,” I said. School was school. And I was almost done, thankfully.

  “I’ll show you the ropes,” she promised before she gave me a wave, and I closed the passenger door. Her engine revved, and she took off in a rush, tires slipping on the soft grass for a beat before finding traction. When the tail lights disappeared, I let out a low breath and faced my new home.

  As I took the first step inside, it almost felt like I was walking to my death. I’d barely made it five feet from the gates, when they slid closed. I looked up into the trees and hedges nearby. It took me a minute, but I eventually found the cameras, hidden away and covered in greenery.

  Baring my teeth, I raised my good hand and flipped her off.

  Of course, it could have just been some overworked security guard watching, but I sensed it was Debitch herself. She had that psychotic air about her—particularly when she’d smacked me across the face.

  Touching two fingers to my bruised cheek, I winced. It was a long trek back up to the main house, and I didn’t see anyone hurrying down to collect me in one of the ridiculous golf bugg
ies that I’d seen parked by the front door. Why were rich people so lazy?

  I folded my arms across my body, hugging my plaster cast close and gritting my teeth at the twinge of pain I was feeling. Somehow in my failed race, I’d cracked the plaster between my thumb and forefinger so it was no longer limiting movement like it should.

  Stewart was waiting at the door when I finally arrived, and he politely held it open for me to enter before shutting and locking it.

  “Did you have an enjoyable evening, Miss?” he enquired with a totally straight face. Was he fucking with me or actually serious?

  Unsure, I responded with a tight smile. “Delightful.”

  “Splendid,” he murmured, following me as I made my way up to the room I’d been assigned. Just as I was about to enter, I paused, staring at the door opposite mine. The door with an intricate, twisted gold “O” on it.

  “Stewart?” I started, chewing my lip as I stared at that letter. “What happened to Oscar?”

  The gray-haired man grimaced, glancing at the door in question. “I suggest you don’t say that name again, if you value your skin, Miss.” His lips pursed, and it was clear he wasn’t saying anything more on the subject.

  I sighed and pushed open my door. I’d try getting more information out of Eddy at school on Monday.

  “I do apologize, Miss,” Stewart murmured as I sat on the edge of my bed to take my shoes off. “Madam Deboise gave me clear instructions. You’re not to leave your room until she returns from her business trip.”

  Outraged, I gaped at him. “And how long is that?”

  “Monday morning, I believe.” He cringed a little as he said this and my jaw dropped further.

  “That’s two whole days from now! What am I supposed to do in here?” I stood up to gesture my anger but he just stepped back and place his hand on the door handle, preparing to close it.

  “Your school books have all been delivered. Madam suggests you might start catching up on everything your subpar education might have missed.” He indicated the pile on my desk, which hadn’t been there earlier. “I’ll ensure that meals are brought up as permitted.”