CHAPTER THREE

"Cousin." Ice clinked in my father's most expensive crystal tumbler before being drowned by a healthy amount of scotch. The good stuff. "Drink?"

I ignored the fact that he thought it wise to serve me drinks from my own cart, in my own house, and went straight to the point.

"What are you doing here, Ronin?"

A worm had more substance than the man sipping booze he couldn't afford. Both were spineless and disgusting. Only a worm actually had a purpose. Ronin had nothing but a smug smirk and millions in debt.

The little fuck swaggered over to my favorite chair and flopped down. I must have reached my threshold because Cyrus had a firm grip on my elbow, stopping me mid-march to grab the piece of shit and chuck him out the door.

"I just had a little chat with my lawyer. I came straight over to tell you the good news."

I shook Cyrus's hold off but made no move to get closer to the floppy haired prick slurping at his drink like a little bitch.

"Unless it's to tell me you have the next five minutes to live, I really don't give a fuck," I told him honestly.

Ronin lapped at his upper lip with a white and crusty tongue. "That is the kind of hostility that is just uncalled for. We are cousins, after all, and we should be friends."

I would have laughed at the delusion if I could just reign in my rage. "I haven't shown you hostilities yet, Ronin, so get to the point."

The cubes of ice clatter restlessly at the bottom of the tumbler with the swirl of his bony wrist. "It seems you neglected to mention just how important the next two months are to us both."

I didn't glance to where Vance sat, face the perfect line of calm indifference. Oliver was nowhere to be seen, and I momentarily believed miracles were possible. But I knew where Ronin was headed with this line of useless bullshit. I knew what had that shit eating grin on his face.

Fuck!

"Something you'd like to share, cousin?"

There was a lot I would have enjoyed unloading on his fat, empty head — like ten tons of wet concrete — but anger was the root of all downfalls. He wanted me mad. He wanted me to lose my temper and break my fist in his face ... again. His father wasn't there to stop me this time, but I wasn't eighteen anymore and I had a better grip on my homicidal tendencies.

For the most part.

"I don't think there is anything to share." I ventured, moving to stand at his side. I kicked his naked ankle with the tip of my steel toed boot. His yelp of pain was satisfying. "Get out of my chair."

No longer smug, Ronin rolled to his feet and limped to the sofa facing Vance.

"Bullshit there isn't," he huffed, rubbing at his shin with the hand not holding his glass aloft. "How long did you think you could hide this from me?"

"Given that I have no idea what you're talking about..."

"Bullshit!" he yelled again, muddy, brown eyes peering through a tangled, unkempt mop of hair to glower at me. "I know about the will, Thoran. I know this place is half mine."

I sank my fingertips into the stiff foam of my armrests but kept everything else securely bottled up. "Your lawyer is clearly as stupid as you are. Lacroix manner is mine. It belonged to my father who left it to me."

Mostly, I added silently.

But Ronin knew that. At least, part of it.

"Only until your thirty-fifth birthday and only if you're married." He must have thought he'd gotten one over me because his smirk returned as he reclined against the sofa, one arm extending across the back. He swirled his drink. "Too bad all the women who agreed to marry you died unexpectedly. What, did they see you naked and died from shock?"

"My dick is pretty impressive," I countered without missing a beat and was amused to watch the grin slip off his face.

"That wasn't what—"

"You came all the way here for no reason, Ronin. You should sue your lawyer for wasting both of our time," I broke in before I had to listen to him try and explain his poor insult.

"You're not married, Thoran, and your birthday is in two months," he pointed out, a dark, twisted sort of glee in his eyes. "In two months, Lacroix House will be mine. There is no way..." he threw back his drink in a sloppy swig that dribbled down his stubbled chin to stain his baby blue dress shirt, "you're going to find any woman by then, especially not with your reputation." The tumbler that cost more than his entire filthy apartment hit the glass coffee table with a jarring crack. "No one will want you once they know what you did to your other wives."

Cyrus showed Ronin out with a hand twisted into the back of the little rat's collar. Ronin sputtered and flailed but he was no match for the other man's seven feet of muscle. His shouts of protest carried through the corridors right until he was chucked out into the night and the front door was closed in his face.

I let the silence extend until Vance spoke for the first time.

"He isn't wrong. The people of the village know what happened here—"

"No, they don't," I broke in. "They know what the police report told them."

Vance put a hand up. "I understand that, but it wasn't one or two. There were five. Each one died mere days before your birthday one year apart. That is no longer a coincidence. That's a pattern, Thoran." He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "No one is going to take that chance. You need to find a woman not from around here who hasn't heard the stories and lies."

Who hadn't heard the story in the age of social media? For a while, I even had a name in the news, a label that had guaranteed I would never find another candidate.

The Beast of Lacroix House.

The bride killer.

I was a serial killer. A monster who butchered the women I was supposed to marry, and they weren't wrong.

I had killed them. It was my fault they were beautiful corpses rotting in the family plot behind the manor. Five perfectly dug plots. Each bride a year older in decay than the next.

I exhaled and rubbed the tips of my fingers into my sore and gritty eyes. "Ronin can't have Lacroix House. He'll gamble it or sell it to anyone with a dollar." I lowered my hand to my lap and squinted at the blurry silhouette on the sofa. "I want more than anything to burn it all to the ground, but I promised my dad I would keep it in the family, not let that troll take it."

"The contract is very clear on the matter," Vance settled back. "You must be married before your thirty-fifth birthday or you forfeit your inheritance which includes the house, the cars, and everything in the bank. This would also extend to businesses your father had before his passing. You will be left with nothing but your clothes and any business that you own."

Maybe letting Ronin captain a sinking ship was the better plan. He could take the rot and mold. And the whispers at night. And the ghosts. And the fucking curse and shove it all up his ass. I could move somewhere with real sunlight. Somewhere the fog and perpetual dampness didn't exist. Somewhere I could meet someone the normal way and start a normal family where I wouldn't have to watch her die.

My fingers reflexively rubbed the five intertwining blooms twisting around scarred flesh.

Somewhere I wouldn't have to add a sixth rose to the vines.

Was that even possible? Would the curse just stay in the walls of Lacroix House? Or would it follow me for the rest of my life?

Maybe it didn't matter.

I was a killer.

A murderer no one could touch. What woman was going to want a life of worry, wondering if I would do to her what I did to the others? How was I supposed to explain? How was I supposed to assure her I could protect her when I had failed five times already?

Blunt fingers dug into veined forearms. Into the lives I couldn't save.

"I can't bring another here," I told the man watching me with all that quiet wisdom behind dark eyes.

Vance, if surprised, made no indication. "Then perhaps it's time we began making preparations."

"To move." It wasn't a question, but Vance inclined his head.

"The will was clear. You will be removed as head of the Lacroix family and Ronin will take your place."

I knew why my father did what he did.

I knew he hadn't put the clause in to make my life harder. It was as he always said — Lacroix House must stay in the family. As next in line after him, it was my job to build that family and leave them the manor when I died. Failing my duty meant losing the family legacy. That couldn't happen. Having a fail switch in the form of Ronin made sense.

Initially, it would have been my uncle, Father's youngest brother. Byron died five years after my father, leaving his worthless, idiot son in the running.

No.

I couldn't allow a man who gambled his own mother's ashes to take my family's home. I loathed it and would happily burn it all to the ground, but it was mine.

"Do they still have mail order brides?"