Page 61 of Vendetta

“He doesn’t have any cameras inside the house, but I was able to pull the footage from outside the front door. It’s enough to get an idea of what happened.” He sat at his desk, not looking up from his computer.

I came to lean over him, watching him drag the black and white video box to one of his larger monitors before enlarging it and hitting play.

A few seconds passed before I watched Landry run out of the house in the same pajamas she’d shown up in, tripping down the first set of steps, and falling to the first landing. I could make out her father, partially hidden from the camera behind one of the pillars, but enough to recognize Senator Andrews.

I watched as he berated her, clearly drunk from the way his words slurred, watching Landry recoil at each word. Though the video was black and white, the only lighting coming from the ground lights lining the stairs, I could practically feel her terror through the camera. The sound of her voice cracking as she begged him made my jaw tick.

I heard everything the bastard yelled at her, and when I watched the liquor bottle fly from his hand and shatter the car window next to her head, I nearly lost it. My fists were balled so tightly that my knuckles turned white, every muscle in my body tense. I was going to fucking kill him.

I watched as he told her to get out, letting her run away in the pouring rain. He was a dead man. I would make sure of it. And when he told her that she was nothing to him…

The exact same words that I had used on her. I felt like an absolute piece of shit. She had always seemed so perfectly put together that I hadn’t even considered the fact that she might already have her own shit going on.

It had crossed my mind, but I had forced myself not to care, too focused on getting the vengeance that I thought I was owed. But it had been a lie, because she was far from nothing to me. And realizing that had frightened me to the point of pushing her away.

But I didn’t want to push her away any more. I didn’t want to pretend she was nothing to me. She was infuriating, sure—And I had made it my mission to make her hate my guts, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. I had wanted to see her broken, but now that it had actually happened, I wanted nothing more than to undo it.

“What do you want to do?” Kaptan asked, and I realized I hadn’t spoken for a few minutes since the video ended.

“That fucking bastard,” I growled. “She’s not going back there, that’s for damn sure.”

Kaptan nodded in agreement.

“I don’t want to leave her here alone. I say we wait for Olivia to come over in the morning and then we go from there.” I continued.

“You think we should pay him a visit?”

“You don’t have to come, I can handle this myself. You’ve already pulled so many strings for me. I got this one.”

“Are you kidding me? This is my favorite part.”

Of course it was. Kaptan was a scary motherfucker, silent but deadly. I had to admit, having him by my side could prove to be quite the intimidation tactic.

“I’ll go see if Zayn wants in,” I started, turning to find him already walking through the office doors, twirling his zippo between his fingers.

“Whatever it is, count me in.”

With that, I headed back to my room, finding Landry still wrapped up in my comforter in the center of my bed. I slid in next to her, gently pulling her to me. She nuzzled in closer, her arms tucked against my bare chest.

Her hair was still damp as I pressed my face into it, the smell of her in my arms soothing me. I was going to fix this somehow. Whatever it took, I would put her pieces back together.

CHAPTER 31

LANDRY

I woke up with my face pressed against a warm body. My eyes felt dry and swollen, and it took everything in me to slowly blink them open. My entire body ached.

“Good morning, princess.”

The smell of mint and cedarwood enveloped me.

My eyes widened, realization dawning on me. Everything from last night hit me all at once—My dad coming home unexpectedly, the things he had said to me, running through the pouring rain, and then freezing half to death before ending up on their doorstep.

The rest was blurry, but I remember the set of green eyes. I vaguely remember sitting in a hot shower, a warm body cradling me in his arms.

Embarrassment flooded me, the fact that anybody had seen me in that condition. That I had ended up on Cashton’sdoorstep after telling him that I would stay away. I wanted to curl up into a ball and go back to sleep forever, to not face any of it.

But it was Cashton whose bed I currently laid in. His strong arms wrapped around me as I laid my head on his bare chest.

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