Page 5 of Hunted Vengeance

A knock on the door causes me to sit up straight. Glancing at my watch, I frown at the time. It’s well past midnight, and I can’t imagine who would be at my condo and how the hell they got up here without going through the doorman downstairs.

Standing, I make my way over and peer through the peephole. There is a man standing on the other side in an ill-fitting suit with a comb-over. Jesus Christ, I can’t imagine who this motherfucker is and what the shit he wants with me.

Wrenching the door open, I arch a brow as my greeting. “Merrick Steele?” he asks.

I want to tell him to fuck off. But the moment he asked my name, I already knew who he was. I’m just not sure why he’s here.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“You have been served,” he states, shoving an envelope toward my chest.

Placing my palm in the middle of the envelope, I hold it against myself to keep it from falling to the floor. I’m in shock, mainly because I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about or how he got here.

I watch as the man scrambles away as if he thinks I’m going to chase him down or something.

I couldn’t give a fuck about him.

I step backward and close the door, locking it before I flip the lights on so that I can dig inside and see what the fuck I’m being sued for. Walking back over to my chair, I flop down, hearing it groan beneath my body, and then I shove my hand into the envelope and pull out the bound papers.

Divorce.

Annulment.

Whatever.

I should have known this was coming, but honestly, I didn’t think it actually would. I thought that Adriano would have decided he really does need Securus and send her back home… here—to me.

Since Colette is Catholic, I assumed there would be some sort of annulment paperwork stating we didn’t consummate anything because we didn’t have kids. But I was hoping that it wouldn’t come.

Even though her father walked in on said consummation and saw that shit with his own two eyes, he’s still going to claim it didn’t happen because we didn’t have any kids. Fucking shit what people will say and do in the name of a semblance of self-preservation is astounding.

That memory still makes me chuckle.

The absolute fucking asshole.

I didn’t want to be faced with the truth of it.

Now I am.

Chapter Two

COLETTE

Standingin front of my father’s desk, I wait for his instructions because I am under no illusion that he wants to actually speak to me for any other reason than to demand something from me.

That is just who he is.

He uses people for his own gain, for the Bellucci family’s gain.

And he’s going to speak to me, which does not mean I will be speaking to him. That is another part of who he is. He doesn’t care if that person is his daughter or a stranger off the street.

Nobody is safe.

We are all just pawns to him. Whether it is because everyone around him is scared of the power he yields or just plain scared of what he could do to them or the people they love, he gets away with it all.

“The wedding planner will be arriving tomorrow for a sit-down consultation with you. I’ve already discussed the size of the reception and given explicit instructions on the church that will be used,” my father announces.

I stand stock-still, unsure of what to think, of what to say… butwedding? I’m not even divorced yet. I didn’t know I was evengettinga divorce. My father showed up in North Carolina, had a meeting with Merrick, came out and told me that it was done and demanded I leave.

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