Page 18 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

eighteen

Soren

I press my shaking hands under my thighs, trapping them between my legs and the chair in a futile attempt to make them stop shaking. But it does nothing to ease the anxiety pulsing through me, nor does it assuage the flight or fight response I’m suppressing.

The adrenaline is nauseating, but I can’t calm down. Not when I’m considering doing something as stupid and dangerous as taking a job offer from a murderer—a murderer who seems bent upon revenge after the hit piece I published on him a few days before.

Declan Evers is a murderer, but he’s also rich. Like, fabulously rich. He comes from old money, the kind that passed through the hands of the Vanderbilt’s and Kennedy’s, the kind that the Federal reserve was built to house.

It’s terrible to admit that I may be swayed by whatever he can offer me—I’d never sacrifice my dignity for any sum of money. At least, at one time I’d thought as much.

But that was before Vin died, before I was faced with the idea of having to sell the house that he’d been so proud to bring me home to. That was before I was a twenty-five year old widow with no degree, no talent, and no hope for the future.

I’d love to walk out and leave him waiting, almost as much as I’d love to sit here patiently waiting for him to present me with an offer that I’d barely grace with a glance before I walk away without looking back.

Unfortunately, he’s fishing with dynamite, and I’m the last fish in the pond.

The door of the conference room opening causes me to jump, my heart relocating to my chest, but Declan doesn’t walk out. He lets the door shut behind him, waits a beat, and then opens it wide, inserting his body there and extending an arm as if he means to show Quinton out of their private meeting.

There’s an awkward moment where Quinton crosses his arms and stamps his foot like a child, and then he blows by Declan with all the finesse of a pissed-off elephant.

He checks Declan’s shoulder on the way out, and I suck in a gasp, certain that Declan will snatch him up by the collar of his obnoxious, hot-pink polo and choke the life out of him.

But Declan doesn’t react as Quinton stalks toward the door, avoiding my eyes, his face as red as a beet.

“Quinton.” I find my voice when his hand is on the doorknob, entreating him to explain what’s got him so upset.

But when he turns to face me, all empathy I could have shared with him is gone.

“Fuck off, cunt.”