I looked at his hand clasped tight around Desiree's, and something old and bitter rose through me.
I was fifteen when my father was killed saving Conrad. Murdered for it.
My mother heard the news. She waited until I was asleep, swallowed a fistful of pills, and went after him.
I didn't even have time to grieve.
The relatives came like wolves, circling my parents' distillery, ready to tear it apart.
It was Conrad who stood in front of me with a knife, his eyes cold and vicious as they swept over every single one of them: "Anyone who takes one more step today, I'll take them down with me."
He came out of it with three broken ribs. Spent a full month in the ICU.
If his bodyguards hadn't arrived when they did, he would have died there.
That became his permanent get-out-of-jail-free card in my heart.
He'd held me tight and sworn: "Tracey, don't worry. Everything your parents left you, everything that's yours—no one's taking any of it. Including me."
From then on, no matter how large the Graves Group grew, it remained the distillery's shield.
The day I took over the distillery after graduation, Conrad and I registered our marriage.