Page 16 of A Forbidden Arrangement

Once she’s safe and back with me, I’ll help her be the one to do it. Teach her just how sweet revenge can taste.

There was an ache deep in my chest at the trail of paperwork of my girl bouncing from foster home to foster home, nonelasting more than a few months. It’s the type of life that leaves a bone-deep scar.

It wasn’t until an older lady took her in that she finally found a place to settle. They lived in a small apartment above a flower studio. It barely cut a profit, but it was enough to maintain their lives. Dahlia’s grades went up. Her attendance finally settled.

My throat constricts, thinking about the way it was ripped away from her. There’s a record of an ambulance bill. Her guardian going to the hospital and never making it out. A lien on the shop to cover the cost of her treatment.

Leaving Dahlia with no choice but to sell it.

My knuckles whiten as my fists clench.

I should have been the one who was there for her. To hold her together as she fell apart. I could have saved the remnants of the only secure place she’d known.

Instead, it was Bradley who was there. He’d taken advantage of that wound, used the fear of being rejected to manipulate her into doing whatever he wanted.

He had taken what was left of the money after she sold the shop and used it to fund their move and support his career.

I’m going to fucking kill the bastard, but not before making him feel just as helpless as she felt. Not before he kneels at her feet, begging for her forgiveness.

A ping cuts through the silence. New email. Subject line:Possible Matches.

My pulse jumps. I click it open before a second notification finishes chiming.

The screen fills with attachments. Dozens of photos, thumbnails blurry with bad lighting. Hotel lobbies, alleys, bars, parking garages. Grainy images of women stepping out of cars, caught mid-step on security cameras, faces tilted toward the lens.

I go through them one at a time.

The first woman turns her head. For a second, hope lodges in my chest. Not her.

The next. My stomach knots. The cheekbones are wrong.

Another. Wrong hair.

Another. Wrong eyes.

I keep clicking. Hope spikes, crashes. Spikes, crashes. Over and over until my vision blurs.

By the time the last photo opens, I already know. Not her. It’s never her. The confirmation still lands like a blade sliding between my ribs.

A growl rattles out of me, low and sharp. My hand snaps out, closing around the nearest object. A glass paperweight. It smashes against the wall, shattering on impact. The crack echoes through the office like a gunshot.

The door swings open without a knock. Bash strolls in, smirk already in place. His eyes sweep to the broken shards, then over to the jagged dent in the wall.

“You redecorating?”

He’s only eleven months younger, but we’ve always moved as one. Together with our older brothers, we rule the Order of Saints. We’re men who tug strings governments pretend aren’t there. Bash loves every second of it. He grins at power like it’s a game.

Which is why he thinks he can stand there now, smirking at me like he’s untouchable.

I don’t answer, pulling up the same dead-end files again. The photos, the reports, the useless trail of nothing. My jaw aches from the grind of my teeth.

Bash steps closer, casual as ever, and drops a folder onto my desk. “Your team was arguing over who had to bring this in. You’re scaring the shit out of them.”

I don’t look up. “Good. Maybe they’ll work faster.”

“They’re not supposed to be working on this in the first place,” Bash says, voice light. “You’ve got them running down one girl? What happened to the control freak who micromanages every decimal? You forget you’re the cold, meticulous mogul now? Money doesn’t stack itself.”

I snap my gaze up, and his smirk only deepens.