Page 34 of Sacred Vow

Reminding myself killing him isn’t an option, I glare at him.

“Besides.” He lifts a shoulder. “Craig’s not here to get to be a problem now.”

“I promised to take care of her.” I don’t break vows; he knows this.

“Yeah. But you didn’t promise to marry her.” He points at me.

“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?”

He laughs. “Sure.” Another crash upstairs, and he bursts out laughing again. “You’ll have to tie her up to get her to say her vows. Please make sure I’m invited.” He waves a hand as he walks away.

I take a steadying breath as I approach the stairs. She’s having a hard time; I have to remember that. She understands she’s in danger. I just need to give her time to adjust to the idea that she’s going to have to marry me.

And if she doesn’t adjust…

I have plenty of rope.

The damn window refuses to break. Searching the room, I find one more thing I could hurl at the glass before I resort to the furniture. I pick up the blue vase from the corner end table and admire the dragons painted in such a way that from a distance they only appeared as swirls. Too bad it has to go. I pull the white orchids from the vase and dump the water into the trash bin before taking it to the window.

I hoist the vase over my head with both hands. It’s as heavy as it is beautiful.

“Don’t you dare.” Andrei’s voice startles me. The vase slips from my fingers. Thankfully, I’m close enough to the bed that it bounces on the mattress.

When I turn around, I half expect flames to be bursting from his ears. His gaze drifts from the vase to me to the window then back to me.

“What the actual fuck do you think you’re doing?” He rounds the king-sized bed, stepping over the remnants of another vase and two little statues I’d found on the bathroom vanity.

He goes to the window and lightly touches the tiniest little ding in the glass, before turning back to me.

“The window wouldn’t open,” I say gently.

“It’s not supposed to open.” He points at the two windows flanking the large poster window. “Those windows open.”

“Yes. But not enough.” I wouldn’t be able to squeeze out of either of them.

“Not enough for what?” He takes a challenging step in my direction. A piece of porcelain cracks beneath his shoe, stilling him for a moment. His jaw clicks and he flexes his hands at his sides. I think he’s trying to calm himself down, but the longer his eyes stay fixed on me, the tighter his jaw gets.

“You locked me in here,” I point out, shuffling back a step only to be blocked by the damn bed.

He advances another step.

“And you thought it better to jump to your death?” He jerks his hand at the unbroken glass.

“I wasn’t going to jump.” I’m not a complete idiot. “There’s enough of a ledge outside the window. I could climb along there to get to the patio.”

“You mean the three-inch ledge?” He might pop a blood vessel. “You wouldn’t be able to balance on that. And what would you have held onto? You would have fallen with your first step, right to your death.”

He looks down, taking another breath. “That was my mother’s vase.”

His mother passed away when he was in high school. It was only six months after my father had died. He’d been such a good friend to Craig during that time, and when his mother passed Craig had been there for him.

Guilt rushes over me.

“I’m sorry.” And I am. “I didn’t know.”

He takes a long breath then notices the blue vase on the bed behind me. Without touching me, he reaches around and picks it up, looking it over for damage.

“This was hers too,” he says softly, carrying it back to the dresser it had been on and placing it back down, easing the orchids back into it.

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