Page 69 of Vengeful Vows

“May I be excused?” Her voice breaks, but my father shakes his head.

“No, Bree. You need to hear this.”

She stands up, knocking her chair over as she does so.

Fuck. I wish that my father and Gray had waited to bring this up.

Bree is still fragile from getting the letter from her father, from missing his birthday. But it’s too late now.

“Why are you even doing this? Why did you all kidnap me to mess with my father? What is the big deal? You’re just rivals? So what? My father has half a dozen rivals in this city.”

“I wish it were that we were just rivals,” my father murmurs. “Sit down, a’stor. Listen to the story, and you’ll see that there’s more than meets the eye.”

“What does that even mean?”

I look over at Bree.

Could she be innocent? She lives with the man. There is no way she doesn’t know, is there?

Deep down I could avoid falling for her because I could see her as a bit of a monster. Not as much as her father, of course, but still.

But what if I’m wrong?

Because if she doesn’t know, she’s innocent, and in her eyes, we’re the monsters.

“Please stay,” I tell her, but she storms out of the room.

I stand up quickly and follow her, catching her at the base of the stairs and grabbing her by her elbow.

“Don’t touch me,” she hisses, and tears roll down her cheeks, each slicing a piece of my heart. “I can’t sit here and listen to your plans to kill my father.”

“You don’t understand,” I say fiercely. “You don’t understand what he’s done.”

“What could he possibly have done? What could he have done that is so bad that makes you want to take him away from me?”

I look down at her wet cheeks, the way her mouth is parted and turned down at the corners. I just want to take her into my arms and comfort her. But I can’t. She has to know the truth.

She told me that her mother left, and taking away her father too does seem cruel—or it would, if he hadn’t done the things he did.

Bree needs to know what kind of man her father is.

“Go and get yourself together.” I tilt my chin up the stairs. “Then meet us downstairs, in the living room. We’ll be waiting.”

Her bottom lip trembles as she glares up at me. “You can’t make me listen to this.”

“I can. I can and I will, because you need to know, so just listen to me, Bree, okay?” There’s just a note of a pleading edge to my voice.

She will listen to the truth, one way or another. But I really don’t want to have to tie her to the recliner.

Bree swallows hard and stalks up the stairs.

I sigh, going back into the dining room.

My father looks at me expectantly.

“She’s coming downstairs in a few minutes. I told her we’d meet her in the living room.” I pause, looking him right in the eyes. “I want you to tell her everything.”

“Everything? Even—” Gray starts, but my father holds up a hand to stop him.

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