Dirty Wicked Prince (Court Legacy 1)

The physical abuse of my dad, though, turned out to only be the cusp of my grandfather’s dark deeds. There was a reason he’d been in prison a good portion of my life. My parents kept the reason as to why close to the cuff until I was about thirteen. They’d wanted to protect me from the reality of what my grandfather truly was.

A monster.

I knew that as true as I was reading the letter he’d sent me. As I took in the fine cursive, I realized exactly why I had taken it. I needed to know about the man’s audacity, why he could possibly think he could or should see me. Fuck no, I didn’t want to see that motherfucker, and I actually ended up starting my own little fire in my bedroom’s fireplace that night. I got it nice and big, ready to see that letter turn to nothing but ash. I had full intentions of burning the letter and even held it over the flame.

Something had me squeezing the remains, though, and eventually pulling it back and putting out the fire. I later found out what that something was when I found myself outside of Wolf’s room that night.

I tapped the window like I always did, and he woke up, letting me in around 3 AM.

“You know you can use the goddamn door,” he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. I half-expected to find a girl in here with him. He tended to bring them up and sneak them out before morning.

I dashed my eyebrows. “This is way more dramatic, don’t you think?” I stated. Plus, I didn’t have to wait for his string bean ass to pull himself out of bed and come downstairs. If I was pounding at his window like a motherfucker, he let me in right away.

“Right.” He smirked, then sat on his bed in his boxers. I took a seat on his desk, trying to find his eyes under all that hair. He got all that curly shit from my god dad.

I folded my hands on the desk’s edge. “I was thinking about something.”

He put his hands together, his smile fading. “What kind of something?”

Something he wasn’t going to like, but I took the letter out of my pocket. I gave it to him. “It’s from my grandfather.”

“The fuck?” When he ripped it out of the envelope, I thought he’d tear the remains in two. His eyes blazed. “The fuck?”

“Right?” I braced my arms. “He wants to see me. Bastard must be crazy.”

“Fuck, yeah. He is,” he said. Wolf shook his head. He lifted it. “Why is it burnt?”

“Dad. Threw it in the fireplace right in front of me. Told me about it after.”

Wolf fingered his curls, pulling them out of his face. “Deep, man.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what are you thinking about?” He lounged back, but then my buddy’s eyebrows dashed up. “You don’t want to see him do you…”

“Fuck no.” I hopped off the desk, taking the letter back and sitting beside him. “Not ever in my life.”

“Then what?”

I faced him, forcing myself to brave the fuck up. Ares wouldn’t like this at all.

But I wasn’t sure we had a choice. We’d reached a dead end in our search for Mayberry. “I was thinking maybe we could use him.”

“Use him?”

I nodded. “Use his resources, I mean.” I gazed around, restless. “He has a lot more pull than we do, and we can’t find that bitch Mayberry.”

Wolf looked at me as if I’d lost my goddamn mind, and maybe I had. I was desperate here.

I was more than desperate.

What else would actually compel me to even think about asking the man who’d caused so much terrible shit in my family’s life? I didn’t feel I had a choice here.

Wolf frowned. “D, what are you talking about?”

“Just hear me out. I make him think I want a relationship with him. I even go see him a couple of times.” Wolf was already shaking his head, but I kept on. “We use his ass. You know how powerful my grandpa is.”

We were Prinzes, part of the foundation of this town. We did what we wanted, and prison time wouldn’t have hurt my grandfather. It was a media circus once he’d finally gotten out. My parents had actually taken me out of town for the weeks surrounding it. They’d wanted to protect me.