A Reckoning in Blood Chapter 2

My heart sank like a stone.

This casino was something Louis and I had built together, and he'd just handed it over to Vivian like it was nothing.

I headed for the VIP room, but the guards at the door blocked my way and shoved me back.

"Unauthorized personnel. No entry."

"Are you blind? Do you have any idea who I am?"

I clenched my fists, squared my shoulders, and forced my way through.

The guards couldn't stop me. I shouldered past them and carved a path forward.

I stormed down the corridor and burst into the brightly lit banquet hall.

The room was packed with guests, buzzing with celebration.

The people who had once fought alongside us, the bosses from allied gangs, were all smiling and raising their glasses to the two of them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Louis spotted me barging in.

He went rigid, then pushed through the crowd toward me.

"What are you doing here?"

I heard the irritation in his voice, my chest heaving with each breath as I stared at him in disappointment.

"Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing. Why did you give away our casino to some whore without my say-so?"

The words had barely left my mouth when Jenny appeared in front of me.

"What are you doing here?"

"I told you to stop making scenes!"

The two people who once cared about me more than anyone were now interrogating me like an enemy in front of all their men.

The humiliation and heartbreak crashed over me in waves.

My hands balled into fists.

Louis let out a long breath.

"Hurts, doesn't it? Then remember this feeling and stay out of Vivian's sight from now on.

"She's been with me this long without anything official. Giving her the casino is the least I can do."

He reached out to touch my shoulder, and I jerked away.

His hand froze in midair, and undisguised disgust flooded his eyes.

"Fine, what do you want this time?

"More of my time? All of my attention? Or do you want me to cancel every engagement just to be with you?

"I'm never going to have just one woman. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

It felt like something blunt had slammed into my chest, sending a dull, throbbing ache through me.

Every time I caught Louis tangled up with someone else, Jenny would tell me she'd handle it.

"I'll talk to Louis. Don't get involved yourself, or it'll just damage your relationship."

But Louis came home less and less, and every time we saw each other, it ended in a fight.

At first, he still had enough patience to give in and humor me. But his resentment toward me deepened with every passing day.

Vivian fixed her eyes on me, her voice shrill and cutting.

"Like father, like daughter. A traitor's child, selfish and vicious to the core, never satisfied."

My eyes burned instantly. My father was a wound that had never healed.

"My father was not a traitor!"

I started toward Vivian, but Jenny shoved me back and stood in front of her.

"Enough! Your father sold out the Family during a mission and put his partner in danger. That partner was Vivian's father!"

I froze. It felt like all the blood in my body had turned to ice.

Years ago, my father, Michael Bennett, and his partner, Victor Hale, were sent on a job for the Family. Something went wrong, and my father came back badly wounded.

But his partner was never seen again.

Rumors spread fast. Everyone believed my father had secretly betrayed the Family and gotten Victor killed.

The crushing guilt destroyed my father, and he put a bullet through his own head.

But they all insisted he'd killed himself because he knew his crime had been exposed.

"You know he couldn't have been a traitor!"

No traitor would return to the Family after being exposed, let alone kill himself to prove his innocence.

Louis stepped forward, placing himself in front of Jenny, and glared at me.

He didn't say a single word in my defense.

"That's enough. How far are you going to take this? Stop embarrassing yourself."

The irritation in his eyes was impossible to miss.

I stood there, stunned.

Every memory came rushing back at once.