Blood & Heartache

Blood & Heartache . Copyright © 2023 by Creative Wonder Publishing LLC All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be used to reproduce, scan, or be distributed in any printed or electronic form in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Knight, Elizabeth Blood & Heartache Editing: Swish Editing Cover artist: Jodielock Designs Formatting: Creative Wonder Publishing ISBN: 979-8-88958-003-4 (ebook) / 979-8-88958-004-1 (paperback) Dear Readers, Blood & Heartache is a book that contains quite a bit of darkness including Suicide, torture, brutal violence which could be triggering to some people. If you feel like this could be a problem for you, please protect yourself. No work of fiction is worth your mental health. 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: https://988lifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/ The full list of content warnings is available on my website. Link found here: https://www.elizabethknightbooks.com/caprioniqueen Contents 1. Astin 2. Astin 3. Ryker 4. Astin 5. Atticus 6. Astin 7. Luca 8. Astin 9. Astin 10. Astin 11. Astin 12. Astin 13. Jace 14. Braxton 15. Astin 16. Astin 17. Astin 18. H∅und 19. Astin 20. Astin 21. Astin 22. Ryker 23. Astin 24. Astin 25. Astin 26. Astin 27. Astin About Author Also By Chapter 1 Please read author's note - this book has many dark undertones The sound of rain as it hit the tent they’d erected over the burial site was so loud it almost drowned out the priest’s voice. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t listening to the words he was saying—they meant nothing. How could a person who’d only seen my father five times in his life say anything meaningful? Daddy wasn’t a religious man. He believed in making his own path and wealth. He was god and king over the Caprioni Family, so what use did he have of a poor man’s deity? A chilled hand grasped mine, and I almost flinched at the foreign feeling of it. Casimira’s hand held onto mine so tightly that even if I wanted to remove it, I couldn’t without a scene. Her handkerchief was clutched in her other hand, covering her mouth as she tried not to burst into tears. Today was the first day she wasn’t drugged with tranquilizers, numbing herself to the pain. Four days—had it only been four hellish days since that fateful meeting with two long-term business partners and supposed friends? Four days since I returned to my childhood home with my father’s lifeless body? I’d already lost one parent to those seeking to destroy us. Now, now I have lost the other, the last thread of family I had in this world. Flora, my father’s legal wife, scoffed under her breath as she sat next to me, glaring at Casimira from the corner of her eye. The frigid bitch had graced us with her presence just last night, claiming her grief made it impossible for her to return any sooner from her mountain retreat. The ice witch hadn’t seen my father in years, only using his money to fund her life and fuck whatever pool boy was serving her that day. I’d always known their marriage was a sham, but for fuck’s sake, she could put a little effort in when her husband had died. “Any last words before we lower our dearly departed Colmazio Caprioni into his final resting place?” Father Kendall asked those of us who had gathered under the tent. While the church service and the visitation the night before had been beyond overwhelming with people paying their respects, this, this moment right here, this was for us—his family—to say goodbye in peace. Casimira got up first and walked to the casket, placing a red rose on top before she dropped to her knees sobbing. “No, no, no,” she wailed. “You can’t be gone. Mazi, please come back. Don’t leave me like this. We finally got our family back together.” When it didn’t seem that Casimira would come to her senses, Jamison, my half-brother, and Liu, my adoptive brother, picked her up gently and escorted her to the limo. Her personal doctor was standing there to give her the drugs to make this pain go away. “Thank God, that woman was shaming us all carrying on like that,” Flora muttered. The last strand of the fuck I’d been clinging to having to deal with her today snapped. “At least no one would ever question the fact she loved my father dearly. Not sure why you even bothered to show up, or did someone cut off your credit card?” “Now, Astin, is that any way to speak to a woman who’s just lost her husband?” Flora asked, clutching a hand to her chest in mock horror. Shoving to my feet, I planned to explain how she was a lying sack of shit, but I forgot to use my cane. Pain shot through my leg up the right side of my body, making me grit my teeth as my leg refused to hold my weight. Strong arms grabbed hold and pulled me to their chest before I could crumble to the ground. The pain mixed with the anger I had swirling in my chest sent me back to that horrible day. Braxton’s hands were covered in blood as he held someone’s shirt to my leg after he’d cinched his belt tight around my thigh. “Hold on, Astin, we’re almost to the hospital.” “No, we can’t go to the hospital. They’ll know Daddy is dead,” I argued. “That can’t get out before we’ve told everyone back home.” “Astin,” Jace snapped. “Your leg is bleeding far more than it should if it was just through the muscle. We lost the