Bitter Truths: A Twisted Arranged Marriage Romance (Crimson Falls Duet Book 2) by Dani René (best fiction novels to read .txt) 📗

at Scarlett before leaving us. The heavy thud of his steps echoes as he reaches the first floor and shuts the door behind him.

Once we’re alone, I turn to her. “Would you like to sit up?”

“Fuck you!” She spits blood and saliva on the floor, which will only mix with the rest of the crimson from our evenings down here questioning criminals.

“You know, we can do this the hard way,” I taunt. “I quite like it like that. I’m sure my brother trained you for the darkness that comes with a good hard beating.”

Shock paints her pretty face like a mask as she regards me. I may not be able to fuck her violently, but I can make her scream. And I’m certain it would be a beautiful symphony to listen to.

“Why are you doing this?” Her plea is quieter than her curse. Tears trickle down her face, falling to the floor where her head is leaning on the cold concrete.

Tipping my head to the side, I regard her for a long while, contemplating if I should admit my pain to her. “Do you know what it’s like to be sent away by your own parents?”

Scarlett’s gaze lingers on my face before she nods. “Yes, yes, I happen to know what that’s like. From the outside, my life might seem perfect. It might look like I have everything, but my father sold me to Lycan. He signed my life away.”

“Did he? I mean, you didn’t seem all too bothered to walk down the aisle to marry my brother.” Rage simmers through me. Her words only seem to turn up the heat on my already volatile emotions. Perhaps that’s why Lycan was so taken with her. She does something to a man. Her sweet innocence mingled with the seductiveness of a vixen.

“No, I wanted to marry him because I learned to love him,” she spits out, a sneer curling her pretty face, and I want nothing more than to grip her by the neck and haul her up to my level where we’re eye to eye. I want to see the fear in her eyes, not the goddamned fire. Because that shit makes me hard as fuck.

“And you think he loves you too?” I challenge. I’ve known my brother all my life. He isn’t capable of love. Even when she left him all those years ago, I knew he didn’t love Yasmine. She was nothing more than a slave he could find pleasure with. She enjoyed the darkness he exuded.

“Yes.” Comes Scarlett’s response. It’s a mere whisper. And if it weren’t so quiet down here, I wouldn’t have heard it. “You killed him.”

“Not yet,” I answer quickly. It seems the shots weren’t fatal. There’s always time to right my wrongs. “But I’m sure when I see him again, I’ll finish the job.” Shrugging, I turn to grab a chair and drag it along the cold concrete, making sure that the noise is loud enough to cause Scarlett pain.

“Why do you hate him so much? Why do you hate me?”

I settle in my seat while considering her questions. When people are in danger, or when they’re hurting, that’s the question they always throw out. Why?

I ponder my response for a while, wondering if I should tell her more about myself. If I should offer her honesty. “I wanted nothing more than a family to care for, but what I got instead was shame for being who and what I was.”

She shifts, tilting her head so she can truly look at me. But it’s when she finally speaks, do I realize she’s really concerned. “I don’t understand.”

It’s not a plastered-on worry that’s creasing her brows. She truly has no clue what her family is like.

2

Scarlett

He looks at me with an expression much like his brother’s. I didn’t realize it was him when I walked out of my bedroom, but now that I’m really looking at him, I notice the similarity to Lycan.

“When I was born, my mother gave me up because I wasn’t the son of the man she was marrying. She didn’t want me.” I want to shrug it off, to act as if it didn’t hurt me. Back then, it cut like a mother fucking blade, straight to the heart. Now though, I’ve learned to hone my pain into anger.

Scarlett shakes her head. “You can’t know that.”

“I do, because she told me.” His expression, drenched in heartbreak, steals my breath. “When I walked into the Bardot mansion, she gave me a job, not realizing who I was. I spent months with her, learning about who she was. When I realized my mother was a cold-hearted bitch, I knew I could never find happiness or family with her.”

There’s breathtaking agony in Darius’s tone, which has me wanting to comfort him, but this is a man who stole me and shot my husband. His fucking brother. I have to remind myself there’s nothing human about him. He’s nothing more than a criminal.

Then what was Lycan?

My chest tightens when I think about him. All I can do is hope and pray he pulls through, and I can convince Darius to let me see him. Once Darius gets the money from my father, I’m sure he’ll release me. Hurting me won’t do him any good. He must know that.

“Can you please help me up?” I whisper, trying to break through the fog of rage that’s so clear in his eyes. He moves slowly, and my gaze trails his movements. He pulls out contact lenses, turning his eyes to a similar green as Lycan’s.

Now, without the eye color differentiating them, I realize Darius looks just like his brother. Their father must have some very strong genes because when I look at Darius, I don’t see any resemblance to my grandmother.

Darius rises then, as if he forgot I was here for a moment, pushing the chair which I’m bound to upright. The pain radiating through my arms eases slightly. He leans over, fixing me with a