Page 36 of Bound in Promise
“Things change. You need the distraction of classes,” I tell her. “You’re not ready to talk about what happened. People will carry on with their lives. They’ll look somewhere else for gossip.” I inhale a deep breath. “I need to talk to Liam’s mother about how we’re going to handle things.”
“He’s dead?”
Oh, my sweet wife. You know he is.
I understand needing the confirmation, but I don’t want to be the one to give it. And I can’t pretend to be even the slightest bit upset about it either. Liam was in my way, he jeopardized my plans—he kidnapped my wife—and now he’s dead.
I nod my head once and Victoria loses it again.
A choked wail hits my ears, and she tucks her chin into her chest and begins to cry. I don’t understand why she’s so upset over Liam. Her grief fills me with rage and makes me suspicious of her real feelings for my brother’s son.
I can’t change what happened. And after everything, her empathy for him is unwarranted. Liam doesn’t deserve any of it. For God’s sake, he hit her when she turned him down and was about to let his buddy rape her in that junkyard of a house.
There’s nothing heroic or noble about it.
He could’ve killed her—probably would have if I hadn’t gotten there when I did.
Victoria is too good for this world. She doesn’t deserve any of this.
“Don’t cry,” I soothe, running my fingers through her hair. “He’s not worth your tears, princess. Especially not after what he did to you.”
It’s still hard to look at her and see the fading bruises and not want to throttle Liam until he takes his last breath. Angelo stole that from me, the fucker, and while I can say I’m not the one who murdered him, I still wish I were. The issue is lying to Victoria and denying that his death is something I wanted with every fiber of my being.
“I want you to start thinking about Paris,” I elaborate. “And your degree?—”
“I won’t have it by the time?—”
“Pick a school. I’ll pay for it—” Victoria attempts to pull out of my grasp and I allow her some space, but not as much as she tried for.
This is the reality of our situation.
She can’t stay here in the States. It isn’t safe. It’s not realistic for me to be glued to her side forever. My goal has always been to make sure she gets out of this shitshow alive. And I can’t do that here. When Angelo is taken care of—or not, if he’s on high alert and suspects us of plotting something already—someone will take his place. And they’ll either let bygones be bygones or we’ll be hunted forever.
And then there’s that dinner he’s plotting.
“I can’t do this,” Victoria states, still not looking me in the eye. “I had everything planned out. I don’t know how to finish my culinary degree in Paris. I was supposed to get a pastry certification on top of having the base credentials. I’m still working on my French. I’m not sure if my credits can transfer over and I probably can’t even look into it because Angelo might find out, and then he’ll know where we are?—”
“I’ll take care of all of that.” Fuck me. I didn’t think about her school credits. She’s fucked unless I can get the administrators at Thronewood and Graham to give me copies of her transcripts with a different name on them. One would be difficult enough, but two?
It’s a long shot of epic proportions.
“How?” Victoria argues back. “There’s no possible way I can continue on like this. My life is literally ruined because of your brother. Because of Liam. Because no one will leave me alone!”
She has every right to be pissed, and I refuse to feed her a bullshit line about everything being okay eventually.
I can’t promise that.
“We could change your name,” I suggest evenly. “You can start somewhere new, with a new identity?—”
“Great,” she huffs, her blue eyes turning icy. “Just what I’ve always wanted. To never be myself and to always have secrets?—”
“I’m sorry, princess, I’m trying. I know you didn’t ask for this, but I’m doing the best I can.”
“Just leave,” she cries, making my skin prickle with unease. “Go do what you need to do somewhere else. Get away from all this bullshit and save yourself. There’s no need to keep bending over backward to try and make all this happen. I’ll fake a pregnancy and pay Angelo off with my trust fund and we can put an end to this massive headache.”
That’s the thing.
Angelo would gladly take the money, but I saw how he looked at her. I caught the once-over and the approval in his eyes.
