Page 101 of Scorching Sienna

“Don’t thank me, Sienna. I would do anything for you, but it doesn’t require your gratitude. I want to.”

“But I do nothing for you. Not really a symbiotic relationship, now is it?” she jokes, but I can see she means it. She still doesn’t see all she gives me, which is so much more than I give her.

“You see it from your side, which is fine, but if you could see it from mine, you would see how wrong you are. Before you, there was only darkness. There still is, but it is interspersed with colors. A rainbow in the dark. It is like giving a blind man the gift of sight. Can you even imagine how priceless that is?”

She shakes her head and smiles.

“For someone who uses words so sparingly, you always arrange them so beautifully. You missed your calling as a poet.”

“The greatest poets in life are inspired by others or by feelings evoked by others. You are the muse behind them. If not for you, they would be meaningless.”

Her smile is like a fucking Arora Borealis, and I hate that what I have to say next will snatch it away. But I was running out of timeandneeded to tell her what was coming.

The song ends, and I lead her away from the guests mingling around the center towards a secluded spot at the rear of the hall.

“We need to talk.” She looks concerned but nods as we sit at a table.

“It’s about your father and The Reaper.” I wait, letting my words settle in so she can somewhat brace herself for what I am about to say.

“I have found your father's murderer.” Her eyes widen, and shock swims in their depths, followed by a glassiness that tells me of heremotions. Fuck, I hated that she was going through this. But I couldn’t go through this for her. I could carry out the revenge, but her feelings were her own to bear.

“Your father was investigating a massive fraud case involving acouple of high-profile figures who were cashing in on insurance monies by either staging robberies or undertaking arson on properties that were worth more destroyed. One even staged a kidnapping of their son to cash in on the ransom money. Your father's investigation and the evidence he collected played a role in putting away several of these figures, including the one carrying out these scams. A guy by the name of Lowrens Briar.”

She nods, moving forward so she is just about sitting on the edge of her seat.

“He has a rap sheet and has been in and out of prison since the age of eighteen. Because of your father's evidence, he was convicted and received a five-year sentence for his involvement.”

She nods slowly, my words pulling the color from her face as she processes what I am saying.

“He was released on the 20thof November last year.” She frowns, piecing the dates together.

“That was close to when you and I met at Nero's,” she says, as I nod in confirmation.

I fish out the picture I found at his house, the one he had obsessed over in prison, and hand it to her. She shakes her head in disbelief as she looks at it.

“He came to Nero’s that night to find you. He took that picture the day he murdered your father and came looking for you when he got out. It was that drunk guy that approached you when you came out of the ladies.”

Her eyes flare with shock as she looks up at me and then back at thepicture. If this was shocking, the rest was going to downright destroy her.

“Where did you find this picture?” she asks, her voice thick with emotion.

“At his house yesterday. It was the first of many.” She shakes her head as if that will stop what I am about to say.

“He has been following you since then. Taking photos of you. Sending you torn-out pages from books. Stalking you, Sienna. Waiting for the right moment,” I pause, hating what I am about to do, “like Lady Chatman's party.”

She stands up abruptly, her eyes wide as saucers as she realizes what I am saying. There is a panicked look on her face, and I bet if I placed my hand on her heart, it would be trying to escape her chest.

I stand up and step towards her.

She shakes her head wildly in an attempt to deny what this means.

“You’re saying…” The words die on her lips as she tries again.

“You’re saying that the man who killed my father, the man who destroyed my life back then, is the same man from Lady Chatman’s? The Reaper?”

I nod, placing my hands on her shoulders as her eyes lock with mine.

“No. No, Damon, this can’t be.” Tears rise and then fall down her face, reminding me of the promise I made when I saw the tears streaming down her face in the video of The Reaping—a cut for every one.

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