Page 23 of Sinner's Vow

But I don’t wait. I close the door in their faces. I spin on my heel and go straight for my bag. I dress quietly, wishing I could just make Kennedy sleep for a few days straight so she never has to know what’s happened.

Three minutes later, I walk out of our suite, phone pressed to my ear. And just thirty minutes later, I’m sitting on a plane, my final destination Las Vegas, Nevada.

The house ismodern and large. A big garage with hazy glass doors reveals three high-end cars. Desert landscaping rounds the building, meticulous and well-kept. But all I take note of is the red-hot rage inside of me as I knock on the door and wait.

I did my research on the long, long flights. Nico Gasteon is fairly well known. He’s worked with a few celebrities. He had a contract with a few high-end clothing labels for a while. But he hasn’t had much commercial work for the past four years, claiming partial retirement.

His Instagram feed shows a man who spends too much time in tanning beds, trying to live the life of a twenty-one-year-old. He’s frequently surrounded by women far too young for such a leathery old bag.

So, I know it’s him the second the door opens, and I take in his tanned face and white hair.

I step forward, shoving my hands against him, pushing him back, against a wall in his entryway. “If you think you can humiliate my wife because she’s married to me, you can think again.” I coil a fist and let it fly, connecting it with the man’s jaw. He snaps back to the left, landing on his white marble floors, hard.

“Who the fuck—” he growls as he turns to look back at me, wiping at the blood running down his chin.

“The crazy as fuck husband who has nothing to lose but her, that’s who,” I huff as I grip the man by the front of his shirt and haul him to his feet, pinning him to the wall. I feel insane, possessed. As I look into his eyes, I want to kill him, thinking about him preying on a desperate twenty-one-year-old woman, trying to take care of her dying mother as she loses her memory. Using the one thing she has to scrape together enough money to not lose their home. “Now, you’re going to take me to your studio, your office, whatever disgusting lair you work out of, and you’re going to show me as you destroy and delete those pictures. The originals, any copies, any prints. Because if you don’t, I will make sure you have no fingers left to jack off with for the rest of your sad, pathetic life.”

“The press is going to have a field day with this,” the man sneers. “You’ll lose everything, I’ll make sure of it.”

I laugh, the sound coming out demented. “You make the mistake of thinking I’d regret any of this. I’d do anything for my wife. You don’t understand the lengths I’d happily go to to protect her from slime like you. I’ll happily live out the rest of my life in jail if that’s what it takes.”

I’ve had fourteen hours on a plane to think this over. When I say the words, they are not impulsive, empty threats. I’ve thought them through. I’ve made up my mind.

For Kennedy, I will give everything, everything up.

“You’re fucking crazy,” the man growls in my face, even as blood runs from his chin, down his neck.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I say with a smile. “Let’s go.”

I shove him down the hall, every muscle in my body coiled, poised, to lay this man to waste.

Nico glares over his shoulder at me, but sets off down the hall.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I ignore it. I’ve gotten dozens of calls and texts since I took off from France. We’re supposed to be in Madrid now. In less than a day, we’re supposed to be up on stage.

But the entire world has stopped until I get justice for my wife.

The man’s home is just as nice and modern as the outside and it disgusts me that he gets the money to pay for it doing what he does. As we walk down a hall, I see prints on the walls. Women, men, all beautiful people posing for the camera. These aren’t downright scandalous, but they push the limit.

And finally, we reach the end of the hall, and Nico pushes the door open.

It’s a large space, a studio. I’ve done enough photoshoots to know his equipment is top of the line. I shove him inside, and from against a wall, I grab a solid, heavy, camera stand. This isn’t one of those hollow, aluminum types. This thing feels made of steel.

“The files,” I say, nodding to the computer sitting on his desk. “Any SD cards you have the originals stored on. Any prints. And this supposed contract you have with Kennedy’s signature.”

“It was all legal, fucker,” the man growls, stumbling as he looks over his shoulder at me.

“Doesn’t make it right,” I say with the shake of my head. “How much did you make, selling my wife’s pictures to the media?”

“Screw you,” Nico hisses.

I swing the stand around, smacking him on the outside of his knee. He collapses, barely catching himself in an office chair. “How much?” I yell.

“Fifteen thousand each,” he gasps, his eyes wide. He grips his knee, little shrieks escaping his lips.

It’s not broken. It’ll be a hell of a bruise, and it will probably hurt for a week, but I know I didn’t break it.

Eight photos. There were eight scandalous pictures of my wife posted on the internet. This fucker made over a hundred grand on her pictures.

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