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Why?

Why bring us back here of all places?

What is he planning?



















Keiran

THREE YEARS AGO

The pretentious laughter of Harbour Locke's wealthiest residents filled the dining room, but Keiran only had eyes for his wife. Cadence sat beside him, looking almost tragically beautiful in her luminous blue dress.

She looked as if she was about to shatter any moment, and it was all because of her half-drunk father, who had spent the past forty minutes doing his best to make Keiran feel humiliated.

"So there he was, fixing the cabinets in the club's old warehouse—you should've seen the dust all over him—and he has the audacity to ask about my daughter!" Marvin chuckled, swirling his expensive wine. "Can you imagine? The help thinking he had a chance with my daughter?"

Keiran didn't flinch. Let the bastard think what he wanted. But what pissed him off was how Cadence looked close to tears, her hands twisting nervously under the table, caught between loyalty to her father and her secret husband.

What kind of father was so willing to hurt his daughter just to put another man in his place?

"Dad, please," Cadence whispered.

"Oh, I'm just teasing," Marvin said with a dismissive wave. "Besides, I'm sure Keiran knows his place now, don't you, son?"

Keiran's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Absolutely, sir."

His place was beside Cadence, whether her father liked it or not. But for her sake, he'd play along with this charade a while longer. His hunt for Onesimus' abductors was coming to an end. He could feel it in his bones. And once that was done...

Marvin would be the first to have the pleasure of being acquainted with who Keiran truly was.

As they walked out of the club later that evening, Keiran noticed Grant-Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was eyeing Cadence like she was a prize he'd been denied. Marvin had made no secret of his preference for Grant as a son-in-law, and when Keiran and Cadence had told them the truth about their marriage, Marvin had demanded they keep it a secret if they wanted his blessing.

'I need time to accept this'was how Cadence's father had put it, which of course Cadence had believed to be true.

But it wasn't.

Because even to this day, Marvin was still shamelessly feeding Grant's hopes about eventually winning over Cadence's heart. And the time he asked for was time for Marvin to figure out how to tear Keiran and his daughter apart.