Page 89 of Sweet Revenge
“So that’s it then?” he demanded. “You’re just going to run away again instead of staying and talking this out like adults? Instead of fighting for us?”
“All I ever did was fight for us! I fought for us every time every well-meaning syndicate wife told me I needed to remember my place or I shouldn’t talk out of turn or I needed to defer to you. I fought for us every time my father told me our plans to reshape the syndicate were a pipe dream. I fought for us every time my mother told me I needed to concentrate on having babies and being a good wife.”
She stabbed the air between them with her finger. “I fought for us against everyone who ever told me I wasn’t good enough to be your wife because I was too much, too loud, too outspoken. And the one time you had to fight for us, you failed.”
She took a step back toward the door. “You failed me, Declan. I left then because I deserved more than you were capable of giving me, and I deserve more now. I’m done loving somebody who only wants to handle me.”
She sneered the word, and this time when she tried to leave, he didn’t stop her. He listened to her suitcase drag down the stairs, clenched his jaw when the front door slammed, and sank down onto the edge of the bed when her car peeled out of the driveway.
He hadn’t known. No one would have dared to say the things to his face that they had said to Evie, and she’d never told him. More to the point, he’d never thought to ask.
He had no intention of handling her. He wasn’t sure it was even possible. They’d always meant to rule together, side by side. Not with her in the background like all the Callahan queens before her. Not like his mother.
His father hadn’t liked the idea then; his uncle didn’t like it now. So he said the one thing he thought would shut them both up. Except now he saw that for the mistake it was. He should have stood up for her, then and now, like she had stood up for herself. She deserved more from the man who claimed to love her. And now he’d lost her all over again.
No. He wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. Not this time. Shoving off the bed, he crossed to the door. He could beat her back to her apartment if he left now and took the chopper. He dug out his phone to call the airfield and nearly ran headlong into Brogan, who’d come barreling down from the third floor.
“I have something you’re going to want to hear.”
“Not now, Brogan.”
“Declan,” Brogan said, and the tone in his voice had Declan stopping in his jog down the stairs and turning to face him.
“What?” Declan snapped.
“Where’s Evie? I should probably tell you both together.”
“She isn’t here.”
Brogan’s eyebrows shot up. “You might want to get her back.”
“Well, I can’t go after her standing here. So what is it?”
“There’s no way Peter killed Evie’s parents.”
“That’s not possible.”
Brogan crossed his arms over his chest. “It is possible. His bank records show he was in Nebraska. Probably planning to come here because he was buying supplies. But he didn’t even buy a plane ticket to fly to New York until a week after they were dead.”
Fuck. The woman he’d just let slip away was still in danger, and he had no idea how to keep her safe.
ChapterThirty-Nine
Evie didn’t make it far before the tears overtook her. Easing her car onto the shoulder, she laid her forehead against the steering wheel and wept. Her heart ached at the thought of losing him again, but she had only herself to blame for letting hope take root there in the first place.
She was stupid for believing things were different this time, that they’d both changed enough to make it work. He was exactly who he had to be to live this life, and she’d become so much more.
Maybe she had always been so much more. She certainly deserved more than he was willing to give her, more than pretty promises to her face and ugly truths behind her back.
She’d go back to New York and figure out what was next, but she wouldn’t lose touch with Philadelphia entirely. Cait and Maura were here, and if she’d learned nothing these past few months, it was that life was short and friendships were sacred. She’d move on with her life and let Declan move on with his.
He’d find somebody else and finally give the family a couple of heirs. The thought twisted like a knife in her stomach, and she shoved it aside. She’d have to work harder to wall that part of herself off again. She’d come back with too many cracks, vulnerable. Never again.
She took a deep breath to steady herself when her phone signaled. She ignored it. He didn’t get to talk and plead his way out of this one. When it beeped again, she snatched it off the seat, ready to give him hell, but stilled when she saw the message flash across the screen. Not Declan, but an unknown number.
Can you get here in time to save her?
Fear raced up her spine. She thought of Cait, Maura, Nessa, their faces swimming into view. The next message had that fear pooling in her belly like a lead weight. Maura, bound to a chair, face wet with tears, a line of blood from a cut on her hairline trickling down her forehead.
