Page 65 of Cruel Vows

“I don’t have a wife.” Aiden stalks toward me as I kick the head to the side, but Royce steps into his path. “She is my sister. I raised her after the hell you brought down on my family. I’ve done everything I can to keep her safe. She’s with you for a couple weeks, and then she gets attacked. Even when you know Noah is watching her, you left her alone.”

“You don’t think I know that?” I open the door to the room. “Dominic!”

He jogs down the stairs and into the room. “Yes?”

“Take the head and mail it to one of Noah’s businesses. I don’t care which one. Just make sure that he gets it.”

I storm out of the room and down the hall to the small bathroom at the end. I spend time scrubbing the blood from my hands, cleaning beneath my fingernails.

Aiden is behind me in a couple minutes. “You had no right.”

“I had every right.” I look up at him in the mirror, shoulders stiffening.

Though I don’t want to keep fighting with him, I can’t keep allowing him to disrespect me the way he has been.

Even our friendship has limits.

“She ismywife. You need to take a step back and realize that this is what you wanted, and this is what you got.” I turn off the taps and dry my hands, turning to face him. “I had every right to kill that man, and I did.”

Royce appears in the doorway. “The two of you can’t keep doing this.”

“We’re not.” After tossing the paper into the trash can, I cross my arms. “This is where it ends. You either decide that you’re okay with this or you start a bigger problem.”

Aiden’s jaw clenches, teeth grinding together before he nods. “You didn’t tell me that something happened with Ellie last night.”

“Because she is my wife. She is my priority now. Not your feelings. What she needed last night was someone to sit there with her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. She didn’t need me running back to her older brother and telling him what happened.”

Royce leans against the doorframe. “Aiden, drop it.”

“You should have told me.” His voice is tight, eyes flashing with anger. “I don’t give a damn what she needed.”

My fist collides with his face before I fully register what I’m doing. I send him stumbling back a step before advancing on him again, shoving him back into the wall. “If you think that Ellie’s needs aren’t going to come first to me, you’re wrong. Itis her above all else, whether that hurts your fragile feelings or not.”

Aiden shoves me off him, stalking toward the stairs. “I never should have trusted you with her. Not after all the damage you’ve done to our family.”

As he climbs the stairs, Royce at his heels after shooting me an apologetic glance, I start to think he might be right.

I’m the last person who should be trusted after I killed their father, but we are the only chance each other has at taking down the Rinaldos.

Hopefully Aiden sees that soon.

18

ELLIE

“You can’t spendthe rest of your life hiding in the house and hoping that nothing hurts you,” Rebecca says as she sits forward on the lounger, wrapping her arms around her legs. “You need to get out of here and prove to that bastard that you’re still standing.”

I sip on the margarita, looking out at the sparkling blue water of the ocean just beyond the edge of the pool. “It’s only been a week.”

“A week too long.” She smiles and twists toward me, stretching one leg out to press her toe into my thigh. “You survived hell. You’re strong. Show them that.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, wishing that she would drop it.

When Sean said his sister was going to come over today to keep me company, I didn’t know what to think.

Things with Kara have been tense. I don’t know what Sean said or did after the attack, but she’s been keeping her distance from me.

Rebecca is the only person I have to talk to right now. She’s the only one who might understand what’s going on in my head.

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