Page 144 of Brutal Vows

I have no idea how to say what needs to be said, so I decide to try to get through it with as few words as possible.

I draw a slow breath, blow it out, then speak.

“Her name was Shannon. She was five years older than I was. We met at a rugby match. She told me she was married, but I didn’t care. I pursued her relentlessly. Eventually, she gave in.”

My laugh is low and humorless. “I can be very persistent when I want something.”

I’m lost in dark memories for a moment, then shake my head to clear it. Reyna watches me in taut, unblinking silence.

“Her husband found out. I don’t know how. I also didn’t know he was in the Serbian Mafia.”

Reyna’s lips part. Her hands tighten around the arms of the chair.

She senses what’s coming.

I look right into her eyes when I make my confession.

“He killed her for her betrayal. Slit her throat and left her body on my front lawn. Then he went to my parents’ house, first thing that same morning. They were still in bed when he put a bullet in both their heads.”

I’m keeping it together until the next part, where my voice breaks.

“He killed my little sister, too. Slit her throat the same way he did Shannon’s. Police said later she didn’t die right away. Took her a while to choke to death on her own blood. Hannah was twelve.”

Reyna lifts her hands to cover her mouth.

I close my eyes again so I don’t have to see the look of horror in hers.

“Next he went to my grandparents’ houses. He bound themand lit the house on fire, same thing with both. All four of them were burned alive.”

Reyna says faintly, “Oh God. Quinn.”

“Don’t call for God yet. It gets worse. My older sister lived with her husband and three young children. The husband he tied up and bludgeoned to death. All three kids he shot at point-blank range. I won’t tell you what he did to my sister. She was a very pretty girl. Then he went through the rest of my family, one by one, picking them off like fish in a barrel. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins. Their kids, husbands, and wives. By the time he was through, forty-two people had been murdered. My entire family tree was wiped out. Because of me.”

I have to stop to catch my breath. I didn’t realize my voice had gone hoarse as I’d been speaking.

“I was nineteen years old, and responsible for unimaginable carnage.”

Reyna says softly, “Quinn, you were just a boy. He was the one who was responsible, not you.”

I lift my head and look at her, my warrior wife who survived fourteen years of abuse at the hands of a madman, and feel such an overwhelming wave of worthlessness, I can barely speak. When I do, it comes out in a rasp.

“No. All that blood is on my hands. It started because of my selfishness. So when a Russian assassin who was sent to kill Declan kidnapped Sloane’s sister right from under my fucking nose, this innocent girl I was responsible for protecting… I went a little crazy. I relived my own personal hell all over again. And when I woke up this morning, I suddenly realized that by marrying you, I might have signed your death warrant. That even though I took my revenge on Urosevic for what he did to Shannon and my family, maybe his curse still followed me after all these years.”

I swallow, then say gruffly, “That’s why I was upset. Not because I’m in love with someone else. Because I’m responsible foryou now. And if something happens to you, it will be the end of me.”

She stares at me across the room in silence. Her mermaid eyes drill into me, straight down into my soul.

Then she stands, crosses to me, and throws her arms around my shoulders.

THIRTY-THREE

REY

He hides his face in my neck and squeezes me so tightly, I’m left breathless.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you for telling me that. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard, but I’m so glad I know.”

His voice cracks when he says, “Why?”