Page 108 of Vengeful Lies

I take my first step. And that’s when I spot the other familiar faces.

His parents. Hawke and Ford. Dutton and Billie. Hope and Ivy. Sage.

Even the rest of the Ivanov family are here.

My heart is pounding, but I use Eli as the anchor he is, allowing my feet to take me home. To take me tohim.

Eli’s gaze devours me, and heat rises up my neck. Suddenly, it feels like it’s only us again. Just him and me in that small room the night of the masquerade. Him looking like a monster coming out from the shadows, and me holding a dagger. He was my target. My enemy. And now he’s my everything.

Craig slides my hand into Eli’s, and all the tension and fear I felt evaporates because I realize this wedding means nothing. Because it’s only Eli and me.

His fingers curl around mine as he leans in. “You’re so beautiful. It’s a crime, really, and I can’t wait to rip this dress off you just like I did the last one.”

My core throbs as I think about the last time he ripped apart a wedding dress I wore.

“Are you ready for this, Mrs. Monti?” he asks as he leans back. Dutton, Hawke, and Ford are his groomsmen. Sage, Hope, and Ivy stand as my bridesmaids. I’m not that close with these women yet, but have a feeling that I will be soon.

“I was ready for you the day your name came across my desk, Mr. Monti,” I say with a smile. And I once again lean into the man that my world was always going to collide with. And now I’m sure as hell going to make his life go up in flames and enjoy every moment of it.

CHAPTER 57

Eli

Ididn't think I would ever wait at the end of the aisle to marry for the right reason. But I know I’ll enjoy my life with Jewel. I lean in and breathe her in; she smells of so many possibilities, and I really can’t wait to see what the future holds. She doesn’t know it yet, but her wedding gift when we return home after our honeymoon is her father’s guns. The truth is, I always intended to give them to her; I just needed her to fall in love with me first.

The party has already begun, and everyone congratulates us. She awkwardly thanks people she doesn’t know, and I hate myself for somehow falling in love with her even more.

She pulls back when everyone heads for the dance floor, and I can see her searching for the only other person in this room she cares about. A part of me is jealous that I’m not the only one.

“His car is still here,” I tell her as she searches for Craig, probably afraid he’s already left. She nods and grips her dress before she walks off, and I watch as she goes.

“Beautiful wedding,” Dutton says as he comes up next to me. “It seems to have worked out in the end, I suppose.”

“I’m not going to apologize if that’s what you’re looking for.”

He smirks. “Knowing I left that scar on your cheek is more than satisfying for me.”

I turn to him and pull him in for a hug. My cousin and I might have our differences. We might, at times, be tempted to kill each other because of them. But no matter what, we’ll always have one another’s back.

“But thanks to you, now my parents are asking me when they’re due for a wedding and daughter-in-law.” He pins me with a glare.

“That sounds like a you problem,” I tell him. “But I’m here to tell you it’s not all bad.”

“Wow, you really are pussy whipped, aren’t you.” He grins, bringing his glass to his lips. The mischief leaves his eyes as he notices a man looking in the direction of his sister. The twins are with her, Hawke holding her drink above her head where she can’t reach it, even when she jumps. Ford is looking at me, shaking his head.

Without so much as another word, Dutton is stalking in their direction, quickly intercepting the guest who had his eye on Billie. I’ve never had the heart to tell him that perhaps he should be looking closer at his friends than at other men. If anything has happened between Billie and one of the twins, Dutton will definitely kill them first and ask questions later.

“Your mother is finally speaking to me again,” my father says as he comes to stand by my side.

“Well, that makes one of us.”

I can see his smirk in my periphery. “Don’t be mad that I got one up on you for a final time. I’ll miss it, you know. The mind games.”

I sigh and look at my father. For all his cold calculation, he is the person who taught me almost everything I know about business. Respectfully, I should’ve known he was scheming something.

He pulls out a folded letter and hands it to me. “I pressured Jewels into handing me information regarding the Monti family as her client. I wanted to know what she’d give away and if she was, in fact, someone I could trust. You can keep it.” I take it, and then he pulls me in for a hug. “I’m proud of you, son. With or without marriage. I only wanted the best for you.”

I pat him on the back because my father might be many things, but he’s not a liar. When he spots my mother, he gravitates toward her, and I unfold the letter. I chuckle. It might as well be a personalized love letter to me, even when she tried to make it professional.

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