Page 91 of Venomous Vows

“Why go through all this trouble, then?” I hedge, unable to bring my voice to its full capacity of being pissed and angry. Of laying into him for putting me through all this when he never was going to do it in the first place.

“I thought it might work,” he claims evenly. “But look where that got me.”

I sluggishly shake my head, unable to fully wrap my head around the reality of what’s happening right now. No matter how many times I’ve warned myself, it still doesn’t settle right with me. “You act as though this is my fault.”

“It is your fault,” he argues. “If you had never waltzed into my life with your problems, I wouldn’t be here. If you had figuredit out on your own and not dragged anyone else into this mess, nothing would’ve changed. I would have gone on with my life like I had and you, yours. But you ruined things, Elena. You made them worse.”

“I’m sorry,” I whimper through the tightness of my chest. “I…I didn’t know where else to turn.”

Adrian steps forward, dressed in his OG, all-black suit, and towers over me. His thumb brushes along my cheekbone and I automatically lean into his touch. “You always knew, didn’t you? That it was more than just bullying or simply not wanting you around. You had to have known, just by the looks on those men, that they were dangerous.”

I did, as a child, but I had some naïve way of thinking that Zane would never allow any one of them to hurt me.

“Now all this is for nothing,” Adrian continues. “I fell in love with you and for what?”

“It’s not like that,” I retort through a sob. “There was always something there.”

“You sure about that?” He drops his hand and just stands in front of me. “Because I would’ve thought you had murdered that shit by now.”

I step away from him, unable to digest what he’s doing right now. “Why are you acting this way? You said you wanted me to be your wife. You talked all this game?—”

“I did want you to be my wife,” Adrian agrees softly. “But now I’m dead and you’re off in the world?—”

I jolt upward, my heart racing in my chest as my focus lands on Zane, who is sitting on the La-Z-Boy chair that he frequents often.

His green eyes immediately find mine through the soft noise of the TV, and I try to slow my breathing. I attempt to grasp the reality of what’s real and not real.

“You have a bad dream?” Zane asks me and I dare not mention a thing about what I think I just saw or the things Adrian said.

“Yeah,” I admit because I can’t deny thrusting upward like a bat out of hell on the couch. “Bakery stuff.”

He nods, then steers his focus back to the flatscreen TV above the large fireplace in Adrian’s and his house.

“Have you…heard anything?”

He shakes his head and then stands to his feet. It’s been over twenty-four hours since the last time I looked at the clock. “You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You didn’t eat yesterday and you haven’t eaten all day. Adrian will kill me?—”

“Zane, I’m not?—”

He spins on his heel, anger displayed all over his face when he says, “I need something to fucking do, Elena. So let me feed you and shut up.”

I clutch onto the blanket that’s covering me and continue to stare at him. I can only slightly imagine what’s going on in his head. When Marcella was taken, I was beside myself, but I knew she was alive because The Disciples wanted money.

Zane isn’t that lucky to know if Adrian is still alive or not.

And that, along with my nightmare, has anxiety coursing through me again. I feel guilty for everything I’ve said and that I made it so difficult for him. That he was vulnerable with me at times and I would push back. I would challenge what he said because it made no sense.

Not at the time.

Still not now.

Why he’d want to settle with me, who wants nothing more than to fight back, is beyond my comprehension. But things shifted between us and I can’t bring myself to just pick up andleave. I have to see this thing through and my biggest regret is that we never got to try before something happened to him.

“I’m sorry, Elena,” Zane mutters, reaching up to rub one of his temples. “I’m starting to lose my shit.”

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