Fractured Secrets

FRACTURED SECRETS LIES OF THE UNDERWORLD BOOK TWO HALEY JENNER Copyright © 2023 by HALEY JENNER All rights reserved. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or transmitted in any form or by any means; graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the prior written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations or excerpts used in a book review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is intended for those 18 years and older. It contains content of an adult nature. Published by Haley Jenner. Editing Team: Ellie McLove ~ My Brother’s Editor Jenny Sims ~ Editing4Indies Cover Design: Cat Imb ~ TRC Designs Photographer: Wander Aguiar Cover Model: Travis S. This book contains topics that may offend some readers. For a full list of content warnings, please visit our website. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 two years later 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 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Epilogue FS Playlist VIRTUOUS LIES Acknowledgments About the Author Also by HALEY JENNER To everyone who has dipped their toes into a real-life version of the brother’s best friend trope. And regretted every minute of it. Trust us, it was him, not you. Let’s all live vicariously through these pages and know that it didn’t work out because he wasn’t Lorenzo. CHAPTER ONE LORENZO The heavy wood of the door pushes open, disturbing the haunting silence I was content to suffer within. My hand, wrapped loosely around my father’s gun, tightens. I move my focus to the door, my arm lifting to take aim. Vincent smirks, stepping into the space I warned everyone away from. He pays no mind to the warning of my words or the ominous way I watch him. Closing the door behind him, he traps himself with my mood, a dangerous tangle of melancholy and rage. “I thought I made it clear that I wanted to be left alone.” I keep my aim, my free hand hugging the neck of the cognac bottle my father was saving for a special occasion. I move the bottle to my mouth. Death seems a significant enough circumstance for me to have spit on his memory by breaking the seal. Left hand adorned with silver metal, Vincent twists at the rings, readjusting each one. Raising an eyebrow, he’s unperturbed by the barrel of my gun focused on his heart. “Feel free to shoot me,” he says. “Cognac, like most spirits, doesn’t have the best aim. You’d graze my shoulder at best. I’ve had better.” Motherfucker. I snort, dropping the gun and letting it fall to the desk I’m nestled behind with a heavy bang. My father’s office remains thick with his scent. The dwindling touch of tobacco and the cloudy remnants of the aftershave he always wore a little too much of hang in the air enough to suffocate me with loss. It’s not enough and too much all at once. A half-smoked cigar sits discarded in an ashtray on his desk. I stare at it, visions of him sitting where I am now, stogie caught between his lips, smoke dancing around him like a halo of the devil. I strain my eyes, working as hard as I fucking can to keep the image as I see it now, afraid the moment I blink, it will be lost forever. People speak of death in its finality. The end. Game fucking over. I wish that were true. I wish these fucking reminders of a man I thought invincible disappeared the moment he did. The knowledge that I can still fucking smell him when his heart hasn’t beaten for over a week is a kind of torture those left behind shouldn’t have to endure. His home and belongings should have been engulfed in flames the moment he was carried out on a stretcher, the harsh reality of his mortality lodging itself in my chest like a nightmare come to life. I don’t want to cipher through his personal possessions. The memories he kept for himself are now up for grabs, a decision between two brothers as to whether it means enough to us to keep or to discard like trash, unbeknownst to its meaning. “Has everyone left?” I blink long and hard. “No.” Vincent settles into the seat across from me, flicking his jacket open as he sits. “They won’t until they can say goodbye to you, but you know that. Everyone made a decent dent in the food filling up the fridge, though.” A bark of laughter puffs from my chest. “Good. I’m fucking sick of lasagna.” Vincent smiles when he speaks. “I’d watch your mouth. One of the zie would kill you if they heard you say that, and then Leo would be sitting where you are. We both know I would have to strangle his miserable ass. Running the family isn’t high on his priority list when he has willing pussy lining up.” Dropping my elbows to the desk, I palm my eyes with the heel of my hands. “Leo said