Prologue

Ares

4 years ago,

“You THINK I'd be crazy enough to get your child in ME?” She laughs at my face, pointing at herself with her shiny black nails, and her long jet-black hair bounces on her shoulders.

“Iris, the fuck you’re saying?” My heart is racing so much, I’m afraid I’ll have a fucking stroke.

“Use your brain asshole, this baby isn't yours! I'd never let your fucking child grow in me.”

“What?” I ask as I watch my seven-month-pregnant girlfriend grab her handbag in the entryway.

“I'm done with this. I thought you'd spoil me more,” she says. “The only reason I agreed to this stupid deal anyway.”

“What deal? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I seriously can’t believe you haven’t seen the resemblance with my uncles. Shit, you’re so pathetic.” She shakes her head. “I’m the niece of Allen Farrow, the prez of —”

“The Canyon Raiders,” I finish her sentence, my guts torn upside down.

“Yeah, I'm one of them. My uncles thought we could destroy you from the inside. Well, I'm bored and I want to go back home now.”

“Your fucking with me, right?” She smiles at me, the devil painted on her face.

“Oh, look at you, all sad and confused. Little Ares needs a hug?” She laughs some more. She has two sides: one that’s nice and docile that she fed me for one year, and one I'm discovering now. I don’t love her but I thought it was going well enough. She has her life, I have mine, and in the midst of this, there is our kid growing in her belly. A belly I used to put my hand on at night when she was asleep ‘cause she didn't like me touching it, and I'd tell the little one about the things we would do once he'd or she'd be here. I'd tell the kid I loved him already, like a fucking softy. She’s from the other side and I never even thought of it once.

And the kid, fuck, the kid isn't mine.

I sit on the doorstep, my guts and my chest so fucking empty. I thought we'd had a kid, thought I'd become a father, yet all my hope disappears in the cloud of dust filling the driveway from her car leaving.

I should have listened to my father.

I’ll never make this mistake ever again.