Dahlia Wellburg hates her misery as much as she loves it. She sees herself as a stone: ordinary and unwanted. Yet, they know her to be a rose: soft, but with thorns.
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Mature Content. Check the tags.
"He knew me by heart. It infuriated me that he knew me by heart." - Fyodor Dostoevsky
. . .
Hedeon Kozlov
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"No one else has seen him," Isaak said, sitting on a chair in my office. "I asked around and talked to the cops again. No one has seen him." Issak's eyes were a perfect copy of mine. He looked like a younger version of me. That was something that always made me want to keep him away. I had been a starry-eyed kid like him ages ago. That always ends with the stars being ripped away.
"The car?"
"There was no number on it. We tried to find the model, but-" he shrugged. "nothing. What do you want us to do now?"
"Keep an eye on Noah's family, for now." I rubbed my jaw. It hurt. Lucian had landed a punch earlier in the ring because I had been distracted by thoughts of Dahlia. I had spent the night in her bed.
"What about Dahlia's friends?" He asked. "They know about you guys."
"No one will believe them," I said. "Our disguise is too thick. Still, keeping an eye. Keep them safe. We know the twisted ways they like to attack."
He kept sitting, even though my tone had been dismissive.
"Well?" I asked.
"Are we only going to be defensive?" He asked.
"We will attack when there is something to attack. A war right now isn't required, but if they hurt anyone from Noah's family, it will be. We won't start it."
"But if they do, we'll finish it."
"You learn fast, kid."
"I'm a Kozlov, after all." He gave me a grin and walked out.
Issak was seventeen and my cousin. He was my paternal uncle's son. He started living with us after I burnt his father, my father, and my whole paternal relatives to the ground. We had taken a lot of the kids under my wing. Some were at boarding schools, some lived with Lucain and Alexandre's parents. Those who had grown up were either at college or worked for us or at the company.
I didn't feel guilt for killing their parents. I did, however, wondered why the fuck they had so many kids when they couldn't care for a single one.
I sat back in my seat, letting my tense muscles breathe for a while. I had been tense since I saw Dahlia crying on the deck. She had cried herself to sleep after that.
If there was one thing I had realized after spending just a few days with her, it was that Dahlia was a lot softer than what I had initially expected.
She had a rough exterior, but that exterior had cracks. It had so many cracks it made me wonder just how blind her family was to not see how close to the edge she was all the time.
