Page 15 of Vengeful Secret

“Declan.”

Her eyes nearly pop out of her head. “Declan settled down? I can’t believe it, the way you used to talk about him.”

“You and me both.” I chuckle. “Tell me more. What do you do?”

“I’m still a graphic designer, but now I work from home.”

I smile at her.

That’s always been her dream, to be self-employed and doing what she loves.

She flushes slightly, looking away, and a part of me wants to grab her chin, force her to look at me. But that’s not something I can do right now.

She almost ran away from me—I can’t ruin this.

“How are things with you?”

“They’re.... okay,” I lie.

Sutton and I haven’t seen each other in five years.

She’d known Lara in high school, and she’d heard about Declan and Paige, and of course, everyone in this city knows my father. But that is no reason to burden her with my troubles.

Declan was right when he said that Da is on the mend, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still feel a lot of pressure from the responsibility of the clan, and the push for retaliation for what happened to Paige.

I shake all that off. I just want to enjoy the here and now with her.

“That’s lovely.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and I’m quiet, and it’s not quite awkward. It’s more of a comfortable silence, but some part of me still wants to fill it, some part of me aching to tell her everything, to open up to her like I’ve been unable to open up even to my brother.

I thought tonight, with the lubrication of alcohol, Declan and I could talk plainly about things, that I could confess how worried I am about everything. How afraid.

But he left, and Sutton has been my distraction.

“You look…off. If you’d like to talk about it?—”

That opens the floodgates.

“I’m bloody terrified.”

My brain is screaming at me to stop, that this isn’t the right time to break down, but I can’t seem to help it. “Dad is…not his best lately, and I had to step up. And there’s so much pressure from the clan to run everything the way that Da did, but it’s notlike he had time to train me into taking over with how quickly everything went down.”

Sutton nods, remaining attentive, silent, allowing me to let it all out.

I shouldn’t be telling her. I shouldn’t be tellinganyone, but it’s like it won’t stop coming out of me.

“He almostdied, Sutton. He had open-heart surgery, and he was on the ventilator for nearly a week. The doctors didn’t know if he was ever going to wake up. And even now, even awake, he’s weak as a?—”

I’m revealing too much.

But then Sutton puts her hand on my arm, and I realize that she’s not going to tell.

She’d never sell me out. I can trust her.

“You’re probably doing a better job than you know, Gray. You were always good at this kind of thing—running things. You’ve done it before, remember? When your dad was out of the country, visiting home?”

I take a deep breath, nodding. “Sure, but that was for a week. This could be for months.”

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