Page 31 of Shattered Vows

Will I ever find somewhere I belong?

Chapter

Fifteen

KOL

The spark on the lighter flares, lighting the joint in my hand. I take a pull and hold the smoke in for a beat before exhaling. I close my eyes against the sunshine that finds its way through a break in the clouds overhead.

“Pass it over,” Nero says, sitting on the grass to my left.

I take another pull off the joint and pass it over. God knows he has more to want to forget than even I do today.

We’re sitting by the pond, a place I always come when I want to clear my mind. When Nero told me earlier that he’d called off his engagement, I suggested we bring a couple joints and a bottle of whiskey out here and get fucked up together. Forget this day even exists, for more reasons than just his failed relationship.

“You wanna talk about it?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Fair enough.”

I take the offered joint from him, content to sit in silence and consider all the things we’re not saying. Mostly about what went on this day nearly nineteen years ago.

As for the present, I have no idea why Nero would’ve called off his engagement, but he’s clearly pissed and stewing over it. It’s for the best, if you ask me. I never liked Maude. She looked good on paper but… something always bothered me about her. Like she was oily under the calm, serene surface.

“What’s your plan for Rapsody?”

I blow out the smoke and pass the joint back to him. “No plan.”

He scoffs, takes a drag, tosses it ahead of him on the grass, and crushes it with the heel of his boot. “Bullshit, brother. You always have a plan.”

“Whatever.” I pick up the bottle of expensive whiskey and take a swig.

“I don’t know if it’s a special forces thing or if it’s just you, but you always have a plan. So what is it?”

The truth is, my mind is a mess where Rapsody is concerned. One second I’m trying to draw her in as part of my plan to destroy her, and the next, the rage at what she did to me, what she made me feel surfaces, and I’m lashing out and pushing her away.

She was on my mind the entire time I was gone, and the only reason I didn’t tell her I returned Saturday evening was because of what day it was and what I had to do. She surprised me when she confronted me in the gym. Rapsody has a set of claws she’s kept hidden, and I found myself just as enamored by that side of her as I am by her innocent one. I might have been impressed if I wasn’t so pissed off by her questioning me about shit she has no right to know about.

“I don’t know what went down with you and Maude, but if I had to guess, I’d say you might have some idea now how I felt four years ago when Rapsody up and left me.”

I look at Nero, and his jaw clenches while he puts his hand out for me to pass him the bottle.

“So you do have a plan.” He tips back the bottle.

“Of course I do.”

He chuckles and takes another swig.

“I’m going to make her fall for me again. Make her think all is forgiven and that I’m the same man she met back in Atlanta. Show her how wonderful our life together could be. Ruin her, in all the ways that count, and leave her the same way she left me.”

I can do it. I have to do it. I’m convinced the only way I’ll be able to move on and get Rapsody out of my mind and my life for good is if I claim my revenge.

Nero passes back the bottle, but I set it down in the grass. I feel good now that the weed is hitting me, and I’ll just enjoy the high for a while.

“You think you can do that without falling for her?” he asks.

“Of course I can.” I glare at him.

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