Page 63 of Malevolent Secrets

“We worked together before she quit. She’s focused on getting revenge on you for Jeremy. Fucking Jeremy. I told you I didn’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anyone.”

“And with good reason, case in point, fucking Jeremy.”

This conversation is getting away from me.

“Backtrack a bit for me, will you? How did you start working with her?”

“The week after you hired Jeremy to clean up our books, I knew he was sketchy. You wouldn’t listen to me, so I found out everything I could about him, including the fact that he was engaged to the beautiful Daniella Roberto. I thought they might be planning something or working together, so I got hired at her workplace to keep an eye on her. Suffice to say, she was really fucking clueless about her fiancé’s double life. You should’ve seen her crying for the bastard.”

She takes my glass and downs whatever was left in it.

“She’s all right…actually, she’s pretty amazing…except for her shit taste in men, case in point…” She looks at me with one brow lifted.

“Fucking Jeremy?” I ask with a small smile, and she narrows her eyes.

“You.”

Ouch. My sister always knew how to wound me.

“How long have you been in her life for?” I ask, and she looks away.

“I told you, six months.”

“Liar.”

She rolls her eyes again and I see Vincent swallow. What on earth is going on with him?

“Fine. I know you only hired Jeremy officially this year, but he'd been trying to weasel his way into this family for a while.”

She leans back in the chair and crosses her arms. Renee never liked Jeremy. She also was never shy about letting us know just how much she didn't like him.

Even the man himself knew that she hated him. I always thought she was being a little much, but then she disappeared a year ago.

“It didn't take much to find out about Daniella from Jeremy. The guy was showing everyone with fucking eyes his fiancée. I think he was more proud of how insanely hot she is than anything else. He was such a brag.”

I raise my brows at her.

“You're a braggart too.”

“Yeah, but when I do it, it’s cute and charming. When he did it, it was gross and creeped me out. I once heard him joking with the guys at the docks about maybe letting them have a go at her.”

She shivers from a non-existent chill, and my blood boiled. The thought of another man touching Dani makes me want to kill Jeremy all over again.

It’s unfathomable to me that he could even joke about letting that happen. It’s a fact that she is insanely beautiful and has a body that would send any living man into overdrive, but I want to bottle her up and keep her so I'm the only one who gets to look at her, who gets to touch her, who gets to have her.

“Go on,” I say, and Renee continues.

“I got curious. I wanted to know what kind of person would be with a sleazebag like that so willingly. And that was when I started thinking that maybe she was in on whatever he was planning too. Maybe she knew all about his sleazebag ways and could tolerate it because he was bringing in the money. And so, I got as much information about her as I could to make an informed decision. It was very easy moving things around and getting a position at her office. What wasn’t easy was getting close to her.”

She shakes her head and scoffs.

“The girl was wound tighter than a grandfather clock and so firmly welded shut. The only person she let close to her was Jeremy. Believe me, I tried. I’m not even joking when I say that the guy was her whole world. Him dying gave me the perfect opening to get close to her and that was when I realized that she really didn’t know anything about him other than the fact that he was an accountant, making barely above minimum wage. The house they lived in together was so tiny. My closet is bigger.”

I’ve seen the house, and she’s not wrong. It was a small place, but Daniella had somehow managed to make it hers. Beautiful, inviting. The small bungalow was tucked away in a quiet neighborhood, with a charming exterior painted in soft blue and white.

The front yard was meticulously kept, with a neat lawn and flower beds bursting with color. Inside, the house was modest, with a cozy living room that welcomed you with warm, inviting tones.

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