June 18, 2020: Thank you all for 517k reads and13.1k votes! 💜

Alexander POV

The old man sits at the other end of the table. I stare at him, he stares back. Alec and Shawn sit on either side of me; Shawn on my left, Alec on my right. It's silent between both assembled gangs, everyone analyzing one another or watching the old man and I stare it out.

It's now quite evident, the resemblance between him and Amy. I've been acting like an idiot the minute I showed up in this good for nothing state. We left New York to expand the gang, to make a new name for ourselves in no man's land. Here, no man's land managed to fuck us up. I couldn't even notice that the one girl who immediately befriended everyone closest to me in the gang was the heir of our biggest rivals, both in New York and here.

"You have something to say, say it." The old man is the first to break the silence. I look into his brown eyes, similar and yet so different than those of his daughter. His nose is crooked and too big for his face. His lips tighten into a straight line at my lack of words.

"What is your connection with the Night Howlers? Why do they want your Heir so freaking badly?" I ask. I already know the answer. The web of lies spreads deeper than that of Amy. Riley is not to be trusted, not until I know where she gained the information about who Amy truly is in the first place. I needed to see if they were to be trusted - at least somewhat.

He sighs, running a hand over his face. "It's a long story, one that goes back, before you or Amy were born." His face has a faraway expression on it and he glances at the table in longing. "The day I met Rosalinda, Amy's mother, was one of the happiest of my life. I had just gotten promoted. I had worked as a construction worker and after a year working, I had been promoted to the head of one of our newest projects, paid by some of our newest clients. I was sent, the day after my promotion, to the site where the construction was to be placed. There, I would meet with the clients and finish setting up some of the last details."

There's a tired look in his face, yet one side of his mouth lifts in joy at the images only he can see and recall. "It was a beautiful, green, empty meadow full of wildflowers. I got there twenty minutes early, so excited and practically shaking from anticipation at the way my career was going - I was only twenty two, a college drop out, yet how this project went, it could define the rest of my life. The meadow wasn't empty. There was a girl - a woman - sitting in the middle of it, her knees pulled to her chest, her hair up in a ponytail and her back was to me, her face as well, was facing into the forest that surrounded the meadow."

We stay silent, and even Wendy, who's sitting on his left side, looks intrigued at the story. This, obviously, is the first time they're hearing this story as well. "There are times I regret my next actions, they could have saved me from the life I'm living now, but deep down, I couldn't have stayed away. I walked forward, slowly, gently, as though I were approaching a wild animal. In a way, I kind of was. I hadn't known it at the time, but the Night Howlers were the new clients who hired us for construction.

"She knew, the whole time, she knew I was there. She heard me approaching, but she didn't move. She didn't react, only continued to stare off into the woods, almost as though she were expecting someone already - someone to come and save her, or to put her out of her misery. I sat down next to her and for the first time, I got a real look at her face. Her eyes, they were hazel and with a bit of gold mixed in. Behind it, there was sadness lurking and swirling beneath. Tears were streaming down her face and her fingers twitched in surprise when she saw it was me and not whoever she was expecting."

"Who was she expecting?" Shawn whispers and I elbow him as the old man glares.

"I still don't know, I never asked. But it wasn't me. I looked at her and realized she was younger than I had initially thought. She wasn't a woman, but a teenager. Barely past the age of sixteen, yet looked as though she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders. Later, I find out that she, in a way, actually did." His eyes darken in anger at whatever memory it is that he's reliving. In a way, I almost feel guilty for bringing this up, but I need to know.

"We didn't talk, only stared out into the woods together. A few minutes later, she got up and left. We never said a word to each other, but she was on my mind for months. It wasn't Jose Martinez that came to talk to me that day, but it was his second in command, Jared." My gang sucks in a breath at the mention of his name. "He seemed nice, and we were the same age. Instantly, we got along. He invited me to a bar and I went along with a few of his friends. It was six months after our initial meeting, but there was no doubt about it, when I saw her dancing with a sixty year old that it was the girl from the meadow. I didn't intervene, only watched from the shadows. She could feel my stare, I have no doubt, but she had a mission and she did it. When she came out of the room minutes later, her hair was messed up and her dress rumpled. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had gone down, except a genius wouldn't get it right.

"She approached the bar and sat down a few feet away from me. I hadn't moved from the shadows, but when she talked, there was no doubt the words were directed towards me. 'How's the construction going?'. Having been caught, I sat down in the open seat next to her. We opened the conversation and that conversation soon led to more. Soon enough, I was her boyfriend. Now, she practically threw herself at me and I refused to touch her in any way until her eighteenth. She didn't like that idea. The night of her eighteenth though, that was . . ." The old man trails off and I scrunch up my face in disgust, not really wanting to hear how Amy was created.

"I never knew of her family's profession, of her's, but when she found out about her pregnancy, well, that's when she knew she had to tell me. We'd been together in secret for months, she knew her father would disapprove. And he did. When he found out, he screamed at her, asking her what the hell she was thinking and that everything they had planned out was in vain. They were going to marry her off to another gang - one in Mexico - and when she found out, well, my belief is that her pregnancy was intentional, not by me, but by her. In result, she married me, by orders of her father, in secret. It wasn't until Amy was born and that her father wanted to introduce her as the Heir that I was finally told the truth."

There's a pause and I itch to find out more. However, once again, Shawn opens his big fat mouth. "What happens next, do you leave her? Kill her? What does her father do?" He has something wild in his eyes, and his anticipation for information must have triggered something in the old man because he continues reliving through his memories.

"Our love, despite being built off of lies, survived the truth and the pregnancy. However, it wasn't until I found the truth that I discovered more about Rosalinda. She was depressed. She was shaped into an assassin from the minute she was born and those kills she had been forced to make, they were getting to her. She didn't want the same life for our child. So, we left the gang life and lived off the charts for years. When Amy was three, that was when Jose made the first contact with us again. He wanted to meet her. I told her it was a bad idea, I was there for the nightmares, I was there through her scream and panic attacks and everything. I was there. She didn't listen, she craved for the fatherly love that he hadn't provided her. We went and he tried to threaten her. Amy was meant for greatness he had said. She was meant to lead. And for that reason and fear alone, we hadn't told him about Brenda. She stayed here with a family friend instead of going with us."

Something shimmers in the old man's eyes as he looks at his connected hands on the table. I look away, awkwardness filling my veins at the realization that he was tearing up. "When we got back home, we didn't talk with them again, not for years. When Amy was ten, we went back - only because we had received the news of Rosalinda's mother's death. Again, Brenda, Parker, and Sophie stayed here. We didn't know what would happen if they found out that there were three more potential heirs after Amy. That was when they threatened us once more, this time, they threatened to kill Rosalinda. They didn't need her anymore. They had an heir at a reasonable age. All they wanted was our compliance, but we couldn't give it to them. Again, we disappeared in the middle of the night. Rosalinda, having grown up on the grounds of the gang house, knew the ins and outs of the place. In the end, we never did attend the funeral.

"We lived the next two years in fear, constantly trying not to be seen in public, we even had someone pull the house off the grid, we faked moving, we got new numbers, we did everything we could. Then, the first phone call happened. And the next, and the one after that. It wasn't until someone approached Sophie after school that we realized just how real this had gotten. Our realization came too late. The night they struck, I made her a promise to protect our children. That didn't go the way we had planned. I drowned myself in sorrow and alcohol. Soon, I gave myself Substance-Induced Mood Disorders. I didn't recognize myself, not anymore. She had died. They killed her."

The first tear fell from his eyes and his gang members turned their gazes away. I stared at his face and watched the sorrow wash away the resentment he held towards my gang and I. "You defied one of the top gangs for love." Shawn murmurs next to me. He stares at nothing, yet there is deep thought in his face.

What the old man - Fred - had just told us, it was more than what I had expected to be informed about.

"How do you know it was the Night Howlers who killed her?" Alec asks, always being the one to know all of the facts.

"A picture of a howling wolf upturned and howling upwards would be the indication. They left it on her left wrist upon making her breathe the poisonous gas that killed her."

"Now they're after Amy," I conclude. "They had threatened to kill Rosalinda, and then they went after Amy, the rightful Heir . . ."

"They aren't just after Amy," Fred replies, still staring at his fingers. "They killed my second oldest as well. Amy, she doesn't know much about any of this, of the history behind her. Her skills as Rose, they didn't just come from nowhere. She was born for this world, she wasn't raised, but she will be trained for it. It's too late for her to leave, she's too far in. And so are they."

This time, when he looks up at me and meets my eyes, there's almost no trace of hatred in them nor of sorrow; instead, there's fierce determination and a gleam of vengeance.

"We are not going to wait for Jared to make the first move. Amy is my Heir, my daughter, Rosalinda's daughter, and they are not going to get what they want. We are not going to sit around as though waiting ducks. They want a battle? Well, then we're going to have to bring the battle to them."

Hey! 👋

Hope you enjoyed that little backstory! Anyone feeling sorry towards Fred? Anyone not believe him?

I've got a challenge for y'all. First of all, I'm grateful for how far you've travelled with me on this writing journey, and for getting us here. Thank you 💜

Second of all, I noticed how so many of you add this book to reading lists, but aren't voting. Now, it isn't cause y'all hate the book cause the reading lists are titled 'Luv' and such.

Therefore I've come up with a challenge 😉 if you can get this book to 13.3k votes, next update is a double update.

If you can get the book to 13.5k votes, you'll get a triple update.

Now, this isn't blackmail cause you're gonna get a chapter regardless, how many you get, that's up to y'all.

You have until June 27, good luck!

Till next time!

Bye! 👋

P.s. this update was early