Page 31 of Crimson Vows

“What?”

Marco nods. “Apparently, your father told Vincent on the boat that night that he was the one who set the fire. Vincent thinks that’s why Edward made him captain.”

“I mean... that’s pretty fucked up. I knew my dad did some pretty terrible shit in his day, so I can’t really say that I’m all that surprised,” I confess. “I still don’t understand what any of that has to do with me, though.”

“That’s the part I’m scared to tell you about. I’m afraid if I do, revenge will consume you.”

“Revenge? Jesus, Marco. Dancing around it is so much worse. Please, if you care about me like you say you do, tell me. Why was Vincent talking to Alexei about me?”

“Fine.” Marco exhales. “He told them on the night your father died, it wasn’t your shot that killed Anthony. It only incapacitated him.”

I shake my head in confusion.

“Vincent killed your father.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why let me think I did it?” My head feels like it’s spinning.

“I don’t know. Because he’s fucked in the head.” Marco’s voice is heavy with anger. “Maybe he thought it would go over better with the other captains if his own daughter was the one who pulled the trigger. Shit, maybe he was even worried about you coming for revenge if you knew it was him. I don’t know.”

I sit quietly, processing the revelation. “Vincent King has never been afraid of me, that much I can assure you. But maybe he should be.”

“Look at me,” Marco urges, and reluctantly, I do. “This path—the one I know you’re thinking about—is dangerous. For both of us.”

“You know I can’t let him get away with this,” I counter, my voice ragged with the edges of pain and anger.

“Please,” Marco continues, his voice now a thread weaving safety and sanity back into my unraveling thoughts. “You have to let this go.”

I stare at him, my heart a drumbeat of conflicting desires as I wrestle with the darkness clawing its way through my insides. “Let this go? How can you let this go? You said you love me, then you’re going to let him do this to me?”

“Gia, he’s the head of the family now. We can’t move against him. It would be suicide.”

“He needs to pay for what he’s done.” I seethe with a newfound determination. Vincent King had orchestrated a cruel charade that devastated my world, leaving me grasping at the fragments of my shattered reality. “He not only murdered my father and let me think it was my fault, he’s left me practically begging for a chance to run everything my father earned. Maybe you’re not who I thought you were—”

“Don’t do that. Don’t you dare act like I’m anything like him,” Marco says in a commanding voice when suddenly the doorbell’s chime presents a sharp note against the soft cadence of Marco’s voice.

“Who—” Marco grunts, but the words die in his throat.

“I told you I had plans,” I reply as I stand, my head moving back and forth between the door and Marco. “It’s probably Nico and Dante.”

“You were just with Nico this morning,” Marco says as his eyes widen.

“And what’s your point?” I ask, my brows narrowing in his direction.

He shakes his head, ignoring the question. “They can’t know about this.”

I move toward the door, my steps deliberate and purposeful. Marco launches from his place on the couch, and his hand reaches out to stop me. He grips my forearm tightly and pulls me back, spinning me around to face him.

“I’m trusting you with my life here.”

“What?”

“I eavesdropped on a conversation I had no business hearing, then I did the one thing the head of the family would not have wanted me to do. I came straight here and told you about it.” Marco looks torn, his gaze shifting between me and the door as if contemplating his next move. “Gia, please. If you tell them, I’m a dead man.”

“I won’t tell them.”

“Thank you—”

“If you promise me you will help me make sure he pays for what he did to me.” I interject.

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