Legacy

LEGACY SHERIDAN ANNE Copyright Sheridan Anne Legacy: Empire #2 Copyright © 2023 Sheridan Anne All rights reserved First Published in 2023 Anne, Sheridan Legacy: Empire #2 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of the binding or cover other than in which it is published, and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Cover Design: Sheridan Anne Artist: Tatyaby Editing: Fox Proof Editing Formatting: Sheridan Anne Alpha Team: Holly Swain-Harvey & Kat Uluave To my high school boyfriends, You’re all assholes. Fuck you. And yes, your junk smelled weird—I’m looking at you, Michael! There’s a reason I never went near it. I mean, clean that shit up! Is basic personal hygiene really so hard to achieve? God, that feels good to finally get that off my chest! Oh, and no, this doesn’t include the one high school asshole I married. He’s okay, I guess! INTRODUCTION Death was to become me. Death was my fate. But I’ve never been one to follow the rules. Zade, Cross, Dalton, and Sawyer stormed into my life with their cocky grins and bad attitudes. And for a while, I believed they were going to protect me. But nothing could prepare me for what’s to come. I need to run, need to get away from Empire, but there’s nowhere I can go where they won’t find me. Everywhere I look, every step I take, there’s someone ready to use me for their own sick agendas. I’m not safe in this world I was destined to rule. The secrets. The lies. The backstabbing betrayals. I’m not cut out for this. They have me right where they want me, my back against the wall. But I haven’t made it this far to give up so easily. Especially now I’ve got my finger on the trigger. I’ve found my ace and am not afraid to play it. And what’s best . . . they’ll never see me coming. Legacy is book 2 in the Empire series. It is a Reverse Harem, Enemies to Lovers, Dark Secret Society, Gothic Contemporary Romance series. It contains explicit sexual content, extreme graphic violence and murder, cult-like material, human sacrifice, and coarse language. This series is not suitable for young readers. FLOORPLAN EMPIRE PRISON CELLS Contents 1. OAKLEY 2. ZADE 3. OAKLEY 4. CROSS 5. SAWYER 6. DALTON 7. OAKLEY 8. OAKLEY 9. OAKLEY 10. DALTON 11. OAKLEY 12. OAKLEY 13. OAKLEY 14. CROSS 15. OAKLEY 16. OAKLEY 17. OAKLEY 18. OAKLEY 19. OAKLEY 20. OAKLEY 21. CROSS 22. OAKLEY 23. ZADE 24. ZADE 25. OAKLEY 26. OAKLEY 27. DALTON 28. OAKLEY 29. SAWYER 30. OAKLEY 31. OAKLEY 32. OAKLEY THANKS FOR READING COMING SOON EMPIRE EXTRAS STALK ME! MORE SERIES LIKE EMPIRE OTHER SERIES BY SHERIDAN ANNE Chapter 1 OAKLEYZade DeVil is a raging cunt. If he ever felt the overwhelming need to eat my ass, I wouldn’t hesitate to let out a little fart right into that motherfucker’s face. And I hope the asshole gets pink eye. Actually, he deserves a shitload more than a bad case of pink eye. He deserves a life of misery for what his bullshit Empire has put me through. He deserves to share in my fate—his heart torn right out of his fucking chest.I’m. His. Sacrifice. A pawn used in Empire’s sick fucking games.If I had known this was the shit waiting for me in Faders Bay, I never would have returned. But something tells me that no matter where I was in the world, he would have found me. Zade won’t rest until it’s my heart served up on a fucking platter.Since the moment I got here, Zade and his crew of loyal assholes have done everything in their power to haunt me. They stalked me through the streets, watched me as I worked, and didn’t allow me out of their sight for one fucking second. I’d understand it if they were the overbearing jealous boyfriend types, always needing to keep tabs on their girl, but that’s not it at all.I’m their target. Their fucking game. Zade’s one-way ticket to claiming the power of Empire—a society which should rightfully be mine.They made me into a fool. I was their puppet with strings welded to my body like cast iron cuffs. They led me right into their trap, and I followed them blindly.Never again.I clench my jaw as I grip the small piece of paper, rolling the weathered note between my fingers. It’s a stark reminder of Empire’s brutal betrayal.I’ve memorized every fucking word.One cannot flourish in the power of Empire without first giving his soul.A sacrifice to be made, an innocent life to be lost.In sixty suns and sixty moons, he shall sacrifice an innocent in the hour before dawn.Her still-beating heart carved from her body, he shall offer it to the sacred fortress.For this is his offering to his Empire. This is his sacred ritual to bind him in blood.Like I said, Zade DeVil is a raging cunt.What kind of fucked-up bullshit is this anyway? Who just decides they’re gonna find a girl and tear her heart out of her chest so they can offer it up to their people for power? I mean, fuck. I’ve heard of some messed-up culty shit over the years, but it’s always in movies or on true crime documentaries, not in real life. And it especially does not happen to me. I’m supposed to graduate college and make a life for myself.Instead, I’m sitting here in Empire’s darkened prison cell, across from a man who I thought was dead.My father. Matthias Quinn.The man was killed when I was eight years old