Ruthless Heir

RUTHLESS HEIR THE SEVEN DEADLY SINACORES BOOK TWO AIDÈE JAIMES Ruthless Heir The Seven Deadly Sinacores, Book 2 by Aidèe Jaimes copyright@2023 by Aidèe Jaimes All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be copied, reproduced, or shared without written consent from the publisher. TRIGGER WARNING: As with many dark romances, readers should expect explicit, dubious consent scenes, as well as gore and violence. Cover Design by: Kim Wilson at Kiwi Cover Design Copyedited by: R.C. Craig CONTENTS Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Epilogue About Other Books by Aidèe Jaimes PROLOGUE EMILY Love is the deadliest weapon. It’s sharper than a sword. More precise than a sniper’s rifle. It takes without discrimination of age, gender, or race. If you’re human, you’re defenseless. There is no barrier that can stop it. Once you’ve looked into its shadowed eyes, there’s nothing you can do to arm yourself against something so powerful. My father warned me about love. “Keep your head down,” he always said. “Stay focused on what’s in front of you.” He told me love would only bring me betrayal and deception and pain. That loving someone would put me in a vulnerable place. That it was like handing someone a loaded gun, placing their finger on the trigger, and pressing the barrel right over your heart, daring them not to pull. “Their fingers always twitch, Em,” he’d say. “And a bullet to the heart is impossible to survive.” I’d grin at him in that way I knew melted some of the frost from his expression. “I bet I can find someone on the internet who survived a bullet to the heart. Surely if someone has, I can survive falling in love.” There were people who’d survived being shot in the heart. A quick Google search always popped up their stories. Not many, but enough to make my case. I’d show my father, but he’d remain undeterred. “It will kill you.” His expression would fill with the pain that never ebbed, because it didn’t matter how many years had passed, his wounds couldn’t heal. “Don’t fall in love, Em. Promise me.” “Don’t worry, Dad. No one will hold a gun to my heart. I promise.” We had that conversation so many times, the words came without thinking. His dire prediction of what would happen if I ever fell for someone. My inability to promise not to do the one thing I so desperately wanted. The young and naïve don’t listen, and I was something even worse than that. I was hopeful. I hoped one day I’d meet the man who would complete me in every way. I hoped I’d find passion that would set me on fire and turn me inside out. I hoped to find the kind of love that would cut deep, that would make me ache and heal me all at once. I hoped my father was wrong. He wasn’t. I should have listened. Should have heeded the sound advice that came from a man who’d loved and paid the price. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be here now, my arms tied behind my back. The barrel of an actual gun pressed between my breasts by the man I love. I wouldn’t be staring into his cold, dark gaze and listening intently as the hammer is pulled back and clicked into place. Their fingers always twitch. He’s going to pull the trigger, ending this once and for all with one deafening boom. His revenge finally complete. I want to beg him to stop. Beg him not to hurt me. Plead with him not to do this. But when he leans in and grazes my lips with his, he effectively shuts them. He whispers something I can barely make sense of, then moves away with a clear message in his eyes. Do not beg for mercy I cannot give. For a moment, I can’t inhale. Can’t fill my lungs with air, even though I should be relishing what could be my last breath. I laugh inwardly at the irony of it all. I never would have imagined I’d end up with a literal gun pointed at me. A million thoughts race through my mind in the span of a millisecond. Will this hurt? Like the people on the internet, will I too survive a bullet to the chest? If he kills me, will I love him still in death? Even now as he narrows his eyes on me, his hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of his Glock, I love him. As deeply as I did the first time I saw his gold-flecked stare and he lit that torch inside my belly. I want him as much as the first time he touched me. I have no more control over that than I do the desire to punch him in the face. Because right now, I hate him too. It’s true that betrayal can spark to life a bone-deep hatred of someone. But love and hate aren’t natural opposites that cancel each other out. They can reside within the same heart. Bleed into each other. Become so tightly wound around each other that it becomes impossible to tell which is which. Guess I won’t have the time to sort that mess out. “Good night, Emily.” His deep, warm voice rumbles through me just before the crack of the hammer against the bullet. Pain spears me through the chest and I go down to the floor. White-hot fire blazes from my ribs to my back and I futilely gasp for air. He stands over me, looking at me the way I imagine he has with the dozens of others he’s killed. Then he lifts his arm and aims at my chest once