Page 1 of Sweet Wicked Vows

Chapter One

“Did you hear me?” Frederic tapped his knuckles on the desk between us. “The oldbâtardis finally dying.”

“Are you sure?” I stifled a yawn.

“I have it on good authority.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “That’s what you said the last time. Turned out he was down with the flu. Nothing a couple nights rest and a bottle of cough syrup couldn’t fix.”

I wanted more than anything for it to be true, for the man who ruined our family to finally meet his end, but I gave up hoping for karma to catch up on Lexington Reynolds long ago.

He was as sly at evading death and misfortune as he was rich.

“Stefan confirmed it last night.” Frederic passed a photo from inside Lexington’s home. Whoever managed to snap the shot got all the way into the bedroom, and sure enough, the man was as close to death as a corpse six feet under.

He lay in his four-poster bed, surrounded by machines and wires going in one direction and out another.

Well fuck.

I let out a low whistle. “I’ll be damned.”

Frederic grinned. “It’s about time he did everyone a favor and spent the rest of his life down in the pits of hell.”

Attached to the grim photo was a copy from the Reynolds family’s private doctor, confirming Lexington’s latest results andbleak terminal diagnosis.

If he was lucky, he had six months left.

I handed Frederic the information back. “It’s a shame.”

My brother frowned. “How so? The man ruined our family. He’s the reason ourmamanis no longer with us. He’s the reason Father is so desperate but too fucking weak to join her.” A vein in his throat bounced to the surface. “He’s the reason you and I had to give up so much. You should feel no remorse for such a man.”

Sometimes, it was easy to forget about our past whenever we were surrounded by wealth and success as men.

My brother was right. We’d given up so much and worked so hard to fix the wrongs Lexington Reynolds had done to our family.

He destroyed our father’s business, took everything from him, and left him without a single penny to his name. I never understood why ourmamanwent from being the sunshine in our lives to a meek shadow of herself until I was old enough to understand that she did not want to live in a world where her one true lovedid nothing but try and drink himself to death.

“I don’t feel any remorse for him.”

“Then why is it a shame?”

I smirked. “It’s a shame I won’t be there to watch him die. I’d give good money to be the one to unplug his life support. To be the last face he sees before he dies.”

After ourmamandied, I saw the truth with my own eyes. Our father was a weak man. He let his own business partner and so-called friend leave him and his family with nothing.

The real kick in the teeth? Our father simply accepted his fate.

Pathetic excuse for a man.

We swore we’d get revenge, not for the man who was busy poisoning his liver and wallowing in self-pity, but for the woman who gave us life.

“Funny you should say that.” Frederic smiled without feeling.He twisted the black ring on his right hand—a tell he did when he was leading up to revealing something. “What if I could give you exactly what you wanted?”

My jaw clicked into place.

Whatever my brother had planned, whatever scheme he had mapped out—he usually kept me in the loop. Watching him toy with the black platinum band on his finger, the corner of his left eye twitching, I knew whatever was going on, he’d kept me out of it for a reason.

And I knew I wasn’t going to like it one bit.

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