Page 16 of Vow of Vengeance

She chats when she’s anxious, so I appease her. “Sonny?”

“Sonny,” she says. “Sonny to suit your sunny disposition.”

“No.” I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

“How about ‘Little Ray of Sunshine?’” She grins. “Sunny Sunshine Man?”

Inwardly, I groan. “Stop.”

Enjoying how uncomfortable her game makes me, she waggles her brows. “Sunny Bunny? Honey the Sunny Bunny?”

Referring to me having a cotton tail is my hard limit.

“Enough.” I bend toward her, whispering in her ear. “Unless you want to give the driver a show and end up back over my lap.”

She shifts away from me, finding a safer place by the car door. Changing the subject, she says, “I like Haze. Where did that come from?”

“My father.” Mentioning him shoots a pain through my chest.

“Is he a Bachman, too?” she asks.

I don’t need to tell her that my father’s dead, let alone about my estranged mother killing him. My harsh tone attempts to end the topic. “No, he’s not a Bachman.”

Staring out the window, she murmurs to herself. “I don’t know much about my dad.” Suddenly, deep in thought, she goes quiet. She must be shifting into her quiet nervous phase.

Her silence allows my mind to wander, and I wonder what she does know about her father. Did he give Ophelia’s mother the pearl necklace that’s now absent from her neck? Is that why she never takes it off—is it a connection to him?

What I know about her father is minimal. His name was Tartan Erwin. He was involved in the King’s Mafia in Scotland. A rival gang member shot him. Ophelia had been in his arms only moments before the murder.

Her mother and grandparents moved with her to Italy soon after.

If I didn’t have to marry to move up in the Brotherhood, I’d never take a woman home to the Villa. For sure, I wouldn’t be sharing a car with a girl still in school. Our paths would never have crossed if it weren’t for her mother’s mistakes.

Was it fate that brought us together?

Some would say there are no coincidences. They would argue that there was an underlying reason I felt the need to go to Emilia’s that particular day and set up the online dating profile. That fate guided my hand, making me click on the fake picture Leah had posted to her profile, forcing me to write back andforth, flirting. Even—I cringe—allowing me to let my guard down enough to set up a meeting with her.

Far from the Villa, putting myself in a vulnerable position.

I don’t believe in fate. I was foolish. I took the bait.

I think of that day in the park. Even a hardened bachelor like me could agree it was a romantic spot for a first date. I waited anxiously for Leah, barely able to believe I’d finally connected with someone—online, no less.

I stood there, the sun warming my face, the tall grasses blowing in the breeze, my chest filled with something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Meeting Leah online, all those chats, the flirty emails, the provocative pictures I’d later find after tracing the IP address, weren’t even her; they gave me the illusion that someone like me—bitter and ruined by his past— could have a real marriage.

Leah forced the most dangerous thing onto me.

Hope.

She made me think I could love someone.

Then, she stole it away.

I stood there, even when she was fifteen minutes late. Twenty. Even when she was thirty minutes late, I hadn’t given up. She’d asked me to leave my phone in the car so we could have a simple date. Just us and the moor.

I needed to return to the car park and get my phone. There would be a message from her or a missed call explaining her delay. Instead, an elderly couple appeared from the trees, wandering off the path.

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