Tarnished Empire: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Billionaire Romance Read online

  Tarnished Empire

  Ava Harrison

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  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

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peak Of Corrupt Kingdom

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Ava Harrison

  Copyright

  Tarnished Empire

  Copyright © 2020 by Ava Harrison

  Published by AH Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, including photocopying, recording or by information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products, brands, and/or restaurants referenced in the work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Tarnished Empire

  Cover Design: Hang Le

  Editors: Editing4Indies, Polished Pen

  Proofreader: Marla Selkow Esposito, Amy Halter

  Dedication

  To my mom.

  Thank you for always listening to me ramble about my crazy plot ideas.

  P.S. Please skip all scenes where the characters are . . . kissing.

  Epigraph

  Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

  ~ Carl Jung

  Prologue

  Alaric

  Life is pretty fucking good.

  My business is thriving. Money is plentiful, and a willing girl is always available to entertain me.

  Tonight, I have a business meeting that could change the whole trajectory of my life. Word around town is Michael Lawrence is thinking of retiring. When I heard this, I jumped on the opportunity to speak with him. Apparently, he’ll sell for the right price, which is cause for a celebration, considering he’s the leading distributor of guns in the Southern Hemisphere.

  The honey-colored liquor beckons to me from across my desk. Leaning forward in my chair, I reach for the decanter. My staff always know to keep it full.

  This information almost seems too good to be true, but it’s exactly what I need to get to the next level. To make this business my own instead of the floundering one my father left me when he passed away a few years back.

  A person will always show their true colors, you just need to be watching them to see. I wasn’t watching my father.

  A valuable lesson learned.

  One I will not forget.

  But all the anger in the world won’t change the past, so instead, I need to look toward the future.

  I’m lost in thought until a sound coming from across the room has me looking up from my desk. My office door swings open, and my brother, Damian, walks in.

  I haven’t seen my brother in what seems like forever. He looks different standing there. Older. His dark eyes are the same—a complete contrast to my light ones—but his hair is longer and disheveled. Like me, he always looks like he has bedhead, but this is more. He looks like he just doesn’t care.

  He strides across the room toward my desk as if he owns the place, and he should.

  Hands in his pockets, head cocked, he asks, “What time is the meeting?”

  Despite his absence, I apprise him of my dealings.

  “In an hour.”

  His mouth thins with displeasure. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you think—”

  My hand lifts to silence him. “Damian. When you run your own business, you can do what’s best for you. This is my business, and this is what we need.” Low blow, even for me, talking about the big fucking elephant in the room.

  Years ago, when my father was still around, and Damian’s actions mattered, he was reckless. He spent the early years of his life doing things he shouldn’t, and it cost him everything.

  What should have been his life is now mine.

  He hates me for it—resents me—and I don’t blame him. I’d hate me too. I took his birthright.

  But his loss is my gain, or at least that’s what my father told me when he handed me the keys to the almost crumbled castle.

  My father was always quick to tell me this wasn’t my fault, but rather Damian’s. He deserved everything he got because he let a woman come before family.

  When he should have been working, he was nursing a broken heart.

  A lost love that was never his to have.

  In the world I live in, there is no time for love. No place for it.

  Always my father’s punching bag, I listened and learned not to show weakness at an early age.

  The most important thing is the “Business.”

  Family second.

  And a wife …

  That wasn’t on his radar.

  My mother was easily forgotten once she left. After he knocked her up, not once but twice, she was more than happy to leave with fat pockets of cash.

  Damian is an idiot who let his feelings get in the way.

  When my father died, drugs and booze were Damian’s only friends.

  Even if he’s never around, he still works for me.

  “Lawrence could be up to something.”

  I shrug. “The old man wants out.”

  “Ever think it could be a ruse?” His question takes me off guard. Rarely did anyone question my judgment, let alone him.

  “No,” I answer firmly. Damian is silent, but then his hands reach out and rest on my desk, his fingers tapping out a beat. I wonder if he realizes he’s doing it. He’s always had that nervous tic. I cock my head and wait for him to say what he so badly wants to.

>   “You should consider it. Never can tell who to trust.” His words cut through me. They reach their intended mark. The thing is, even if I do care, even if I feel guilty for my part in his dismissal from the family business, I don’t respond to his dig.

  I narrow my gaze at him.

  “You want to go for me?” I ask.

  “What?”

  My eyes search his face as I take him in. “Do you want to go in my place?”

  “Because …” His jaw is tight as he inhales in deeply before continuing. “Why would I do that? You already took everything from me. Do I really need to be your errand boy now, too?”

  Sitting forward in my chair, I hit my fists on the desk. My scotch glass shakes, and the amber liquid inside swooshes toward the edge. It doesn’t spill, though it made its point. “It’s not my fault you fucked up your life.”

  A heavy silence falls upon us. My brother’s face is unreadable as he coughs and then speaks. “This should have been mine.” His voice is lower and more somber than normal.

  “Should have,” I stress, “but you fucked that up when you were banging hookers and snorting coke.” No need to mince words. My brother was a real fuckup.

  “I was in mourning.”

  Even fifteen years later, he still hasn’t learned. I shake my head at his ridiculous comment. “You act like she was your wife.”

  “She could have been …” His eyes bore into mine. I can feel the pain in his words. She was never his.

  But in his mind, she could have been. Should have been.

  He’s loved her since we were children.

  She was the daughter of my father’s colleague. We all assumed that one day they would marry and combine the families. And maybe that would have been the case, but fate had other plans.

  He continues to stare at me, his unwavering gaze making me uncomfortable. The old scar that runs from his left brow down his cheek looks darker than normal. A stark reminder of all the ways I hurt my brother in the past. Pain and regret seep into my blood, making me want to take away his pain. It’s not an easy task, but emotions like this have their way of making me want to drink.

  When I look at him, I still see the man who crumpled upon the news, who vanished into a shell from the loss he suffered. The loss he blames on me. He thinks her death is my fault, and maybe it is. I can still feel the heavy burden of guilt that sits on my shoulders. And if he’s right, and it is my fault, it’s made even worse because I’m also the asshole who stole his life.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” he repeats.

  “It’s my business,” I remind him. Regardless of whether my actions brought us here, his inaction sealed the deal.

  “Would it kill you just to stop?”

  On a large exhale, I stare at the man who I once looked up to.

  The man who helped me become who I am today. The clarity and resolution in his eyes haven’t been present for years. He looks like the brother I lost, and I realize what a fool I’ve been.

  My anger from the years I lost with him has blinded me to the fact that he’s here now, and maybe he’s right. Maybe we could run this business together. It’s what my father was training us for before Grace.

  “Sit.” I gesture to the chair across from me, and he doesn’t think twice before he takes a seat. Maybe this can be the beginning of something new. It always should have been two brothers working together. I reach for the glass to hand him one.

  “What are you doing?” His deep brown eyes watch my every move.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m inviting you to have a drink with me.”

  Dark eyebrows slant into a frown before he nods. Still uncomfortable, still waiting on my answer.

  “You’re going,” I finally say, and he stares blankly at me. Knowing my brother, he probably doesn’t want to get his hopes up. “You will go in my place. You want in? This is what you have to do. No objections,” I say smoothly.

  His expression freezes. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s not the final meeting. It’s only a talk to go over details. But if you want to be active in this, you have to start somewhere.”

  His face continues to be unreadable, but I expect little from him. I won’t tell him my plans until I’m sure he can handle it. But when the time comes, I’ll give Damian the keys back to his portion of the castle.

  “To the end of an era.” I lift my glass to make a toast.

  “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” He smirks as he says his signature catchphrase that he stole from Plato, making me chuckle in response. I hadn’t realized I missed it until now.

  “This is the beginning.”

  “We shall see.” He rubs the back of his neck as he stands from his chair.

  “Take my car. And pass along my apologies. Tell him something unavoidable came up.”

  “Will do, brother.”

  The word brother causes a stabbing pain to radiate inside me. It’s been too long since we’ve interacted like this.

  As he walks out the door, he puts his phone to his ear. I’m not sure who he’s calling, but I lean back in my chair.

  For the first time in a long time, things don’t seem so heavy.

  1

  Phoenix

  Four years later …

  My father paces the office.

  Back and forth. Back and forth.

  What’s wrong with him? This isn’t normal behavior.

  Right after college graduation, he demanded my presence back home. Then he tells me to come to his office to talk about “work.” A part of me wonders if he’s planning to pass down the company to me, but that wouldn’t make any sense. He refuses to ever talk about it, but something is obviously driving him to act like a madman because no sane person acts this way at two p.m.

  Sure, the pacing isn’t necessarily a sign of an issue, but it’s his office that has set off red flags.

  Disarray.

  Complete and utter disarray.

  Those words clearly depict what is going on inside the four walls of this office.

  I pull my gaze away from my father and allow myself to take in what should be a clean sanctuary for him to do business. Instead, it looks like a construction site that just had demo work done.

  The first thing I see is the desk. It’s turned over. My forehead scrunches as I look at it.

  Wow.

  That takes real strength to knock it down like that.

  I can’t believe the man who raised me could do that.

  I’m impressed.

  Not only is the desk on the floor, but so are the papers that should be resting on his desk. The phone is smashed.

  I have to assume whoever called him pissed him off.

  “What happened?” I take a step closer, and he steps back. From the way his brows knit together and his fist clenches, it’s apparent that he’s hanging on by a thread and trying not to snap at me.

  “Leave, Phoenix,” he grits out through clenched teeth.

  I advance toward him, shaking my head on my approach. When I’m standing close enough that I can touch him, I place my hand on his shoulder.

  “You asked me to come, so I’m here. Talk to me,” I say. He turns his head and looks at me. Then he closes his eyes. They don’t stay closed for a long time—just a beat—but long enough for his chest to rise and fall with his breaths.

  With his gaze on mine, the look in his eyes begins to soften. “I don’t want—”

  “No.” I place my hand on my hip, indicating I mean business. “You no longer get to push me away. You summoned me here for a reason. I’m your daughter, and this is my legacy too …”

  “Don’t you want more?”

  “No. Dad.” I say the word and let it hang in the air. He might not be my biological father, but he raised me, and this is my choice. “I want to help.”

  His shoulders drop, and he walks toward the couch in the corner of his office. I follow suit and sit across from him.

  “If we are going to talk business, we might as well drink.”


  “Agree.”

  Sitting down, he pours himself a glass of scotch and me another one. I’m not one for scotch, but if I’m trying to prove myself, I’ll accept.

  “What’s going on with the business?”

  My father rubs at his chin. “Nix, there is something I need to tell you …” he says, and I laugh. He used my nickname, one he rarely uses. It’s reserved for times when he thinks he’ll disappoint me.

  “Dad, I know what you do.” My voice is nonchalant. He can pretend all he wants that he’s simply in the import-export business, but I’m no fool.

  I watch as he opens his eyes wider, surprised by my revelation. “How?” he asks.

  “You might have sent me to boarding school and then away to Switzerland for college, but I have always known.”

  From where I sit, I can see the muscles in his jaw tighten. He’s not happy, and I know it. It doesn’t matter, though. This day was going to happen sooner or later.

  “You have?”

  “Of course.”

  His eyes go wide at that, and his mouth hangs open. He rights himself rather fast and cocks his head, still staring at me in complete shock. “And you don’t hate me?”