Page 76 of Sweet Revenge
“Hello, Evelyn. I’ve been looking for you.”
Evie looked up to see him standing just inside the door, dressed all in black, a sinister grin on his face. She scrambled to her feet and took small, slow steps backward to put distance between them.
“You’ve gone back to blonde, I see,” she said, flicking a glance at the door. If she could scramble across the bed fast enough, she might be able to make a run for it.
“The brown was a nice touch, though, wasn’t it?” He ran a hand through his hair, taking a step forward as if reading her thoughts.
“It wasn’t my favorite, but then I can’t say I care one way or the other, Peter. Or do you prefer Richard?”
Heart pounding, knowing she’d thrown him off by using his real name, she launched herself toward the bed, but he was faster, leaping toward her and yanking her back by her hair, chuckling when she cried out.
“Now, now,” he tsked. “I only want to talk. We have a lot to discuss, you and I,” he whispered in her ear.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she spat, struggling against his hold on her.
He held a gun up, tracing a line down her cheek with the muzzle, and she stilled. “I thought that might change your mind. You took something very precious from me, and I have some things to…get off my chest.” He traced the shape of her breast with the gun, and she swallowed against the nausea that threatened to choke her.
“Evelyn? Do you remember your last trip to Italy?”
“You mean meeting you for that farce of a Morocco job?”
“No, the one before that,” he replied, grinning against her cheek.
She hissed when he gripped her hair tighter. “That was a long time ago.”
“Nineteen months and twenty-six days, to be exact. That’s how long it’s been since you stole the kindest, most giving person the world has ever known.”
“Debatable,” Evie gritted out, “considering she was paying me to steal something.”
“Such a mouth on you,” Peter said, pressing the gun into her cheek.
“She was perfectly fine when she left with her statue and I left with my money.”
“Except she didn’t make it home perfectly fine, did she?” Peter demanded, yanking her hair. Evie stumbled back a step. “She never made it home at all. And if not for you and your fucking statue, she would’ve never been on that road, never been in the path of that driver who fell asleep at the wheel, never been ejected from the car and pinned underneath it.”
Evie tilted her head away when he pressed the gun painfully into her cheek, but he moved his hand to her throat, holding her in place. That’s what this whole thing was about? A vendetta over his wife’s accidental death? How was she supposed to convince a madman who’d spent years hunting her that she hadn’t killed his dead wife?
* * *
Declan swept each room of the first floor while Brogan took the basement. Everything from the kitchen to the solarium was in pristine condition. Not a throw pillow or photo out of place. Confused and pissed off about being jerked out of sleep for nothing, he met a shirtless and alert Brogan on the stairs.
“Anything?” Declan asked.
“Yeah, someone threw a rock through the patio door.”
Brogan passed the rock to Declan, who turned it over in his hands. When he saw the words scrawled across it in red, he froze.She’s mine.
“Fuck.” Fear squeezed Declan’s heart like a vice when the realization hit him. “Brogan, call Aidan and go get Finn. Now!”
Without waiting for his brother to respond, Declan sprinted for the stairs. If that bastard laid a hand on Evie, he would pay a thousand times over.
* * *
They both heard Declan’s footsteps at the same time, and Peter grinned. “Looks like lover boy is about to join us.”
When Declan stepped into the doorway, Evie saw the murder flash through his eyes, the fear, but she didn’t see the gun. When he saw her gaze dip down to his hands and back up to his face, he nodded ever so slightly.
“You should let go of her,” Declan warned.
