Page 58 of Shattered Vows

“She’s not bad at all.” I defended her immediately and then tried to backtrack on that statement: “She’s just in my space.”

“Kind of what a wife does.”

“You know this is a legal marriage, that’s it, right?”

“Well, sort of. You have to fake it enough for it to look real. If someone believes she’s not an untouchable, that puts her in harm’s way again, right?”

I punched the backseat of the Rolls Royce. The pressure of this damn will shouldn’t have been on me. “I’m so sick of carrying Mario’s shit on my back.”

“Dad was great at building shitty partnerships.”

I cleared my throat. “Morina doesn’t know he was importing illegal shipments, okay? I need that kept out of the equation. I’m working on showing her that we’re here to shift Tropical Oil to clean energy and that it will help her city thrive. We’ll clean up the other shit quietly. Got it?”

“Why not? We ended the drug imports years ago when dad died. She should be thankful.”

“Maribel didn’t trust us enough to sell those stocks to me for that very reason. You think her granddaughter is going to want to sell them to me if she knows our father lied to her grandmother?”

“Right.” Cade sighed. “I’ll wipe it from as many places as I can. The dark web might have some mention of the drugs that were coming in.”

“See that you do. I don’t want any more complications. This marriage is a big enough blip on our radar.”

“It’s for damn sure not something I was expecting.” After a beat, Cade cracked up. “I never would have thought you would be the one getting married now.”

“Why?”

“Man. I don’t know. You’re the head of our family. It’s enough work as it is. You have to right all dad’s wrongs and you take it way more seriously than you should.” There was rustling. “Ivy’s back. We’re going to eat a snack. A little advice, bro. I’d start letting your fiancé know a bit more about what’s coming up. You have a damn charity gala to attend for the oil ports in a week. Does she know?”

“There’s nothing to know. She’ll get dressed and go. We can announce our engagement publicly and put together a small ceremony a week later.”

“You're planning all this without your bride like it’s going to go over so well.” He chuckled into the phone. “I’m excited to see how it all crumbles.”

“You’re a sick fuck most days, Cade.”

“Proud of it too.” He mumbled something to Ivy and then said to me, “Be a pal and let Katie know we’re safe and sound if she calls you.”

Then he hung up.

Not twenty minutes later, Katie’s number popped up on my screen.

There was a time way back when I thought she and I could be more than what we were. She was this powerful girl who didn’t bend to anyone. We found out she had ties to the bratva and slowly she chipped away at all their businesses and ours. She’d become one of the most powerful people in the world and I loved that we had a great relationship, the type between colleagues, but also like a family. We all worked together to make sure our businesses ran smoothly, that our families stepped in line.

“Yes, Katie?” I answered on the fifth ring and eyed the tall building that my penthouse was located in. We still had another 30 minutes of traffic to navigate before I arrived.

“So, your brother says his fucking flight just landed with my child.” Her voice was filled with venom.

“I had nothing to do with this.”

“I don’t know if I believe that. Except that you’re probably hiding from your soon to be fiancé and so that may just be the case. Either way, you now have everything to do with it. Ivy can’t stay up all night flying back on a plane. So, she’s staying with you and Morina. Take her to the park, feed her well, and watch her like a hawk. Those parks have got to be crowded. Cade needs to get a team together if it’s to be safe.” She paused. “I can’t get there fast enough, Bastian.”

The concern at the end of her commands put out all the fight in me. “I got her, Katie. She’s fine. We’ll have fun, huh?”

“Oh, you won’t have fun. It’s going to be absolute hell. If she comes back unhappy, though, I’ll break all the bones in your body before I skin Cade alive.”

She was the second person to hang up on me that day.

I didn’t flinch at her words. I’d been threatened enough times. I knew she meant what she said. I also knew that I would die before anything happened to the little monster that was about to tornado through my penthouse.

I told the driver to speed the rest of the way, but we still didn’t get there in time to intercept my family. Instead, I’d have to face the woman I’d been avoiding for days with my brother and niece there to witness the awkwardness.

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