Page 20 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

twenty

Soren

I don’t stop shaking the whole way home.

I tremble as I pull the salad container from the fridge, as I shove a few bites in my mouth and chase it with a glass of wine.

I’m still trembling thirty minutes later when I step under the stream of water and let it pour over my face, the hot water burning my flesh.

I’m too distraught to be bothered by that. The heat feels good, so I rotate myself under the water, letting it spray my back and run between my shoulder blades, warming me from the outside in.

I’m not sure I can ever warm up on the inside after today. I’m too anxious, and it feels like my insides have been hollowed out only to be replaced with dry ice. Insubstantial, weightless, but brutal.

My choice wasn’t easy, but the simple acceptance was. Getting the offer felt like it should require me to sign my name in my own blood or sacrifice a baby on an altar. It doesn’t seem possible that a choice with so many ramifications would be as simple to come by as saying “ I’ll take it”.

Once he was finished making me feel like the whore he thinks I am, he told me there would be a contract on my desk in the morning.

Maybe that’s what I’ll have to sign in blood.

In theory I have time to back out. Until I sign a contract, I technically haven’t sold my soul to the devil or gotten myself into boiling hot water that I’ll likely drown in. Until I put pen to paper, I technically haven’t given him anything other than my surrender. I can take it back.

But I won’t.

I can’t. It would be too pathetic.

Not to mention, I can’t walk away from the offer he made me. I can’t walk away from an opportunity to have my life changed.

Not changed.

Wrecked .

Nothing good will come from Declan Evers.

If he is serious about his offer and I take him up on it, I am sure that he will make every moment of my life miserable until I can’t take it anymore.

I thought I could exact revenge against a psychopath by tarnishing his good name, and it’s bitten me in the ass hard.

Nobody has looked twice at him, the police still don’t believe me, and now he’s infiltrated my life.

Fuck.

I really messed this up.

The frustration surges in me, swelling until I feel my chest will collapse with it. There’s so much pressure inside of my ribcage that I’m pretty sure every beat of my heart will be the one that propels it across the bathroom floor.

I suck in a breath to try and steady myself, but it does the opposite of help; it hurts.

It hurts too much.

I suck in another breath and press my hands against my ears, trying to block out the rest of the world.

And then I scream.

I scream until the water runs cold.

I scream until all the frustration seeps out of me, leaving me tired and finally too exhausted to tremble.

I scream until the world darkens at the corners of my vision.

It rips from my throat like it’s being parted under force, leaving it raw and sore.

I scream until I can breathe again.

By the time I wrap myself in a soft white towel, I’m tired enough to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, the minute I flop on the bed, deciding to deal with the consequences of going to bed with my hair wet, my exhaustion slips away from me.

I successfully drove thoughts of Declan out of my head in the shower, but they come back so suddenly that it feels like a Mac truck slamming into me.

He must have followed me home yesterday. I’m not sure what he would have come here for—just to do what he did? To scare me? Or had he planned something more sinister?

The thought that my new boss has stalked me is terrifying enough that I have to entertain the idea again of just not showing up to work tomorrow.

It’s tempting. I haven’t worked there all that long, so starting over wouldn’t be too difficult.

Except for the obvious fact that Declan offered me ten times my previous salary.

Just one year of working for him would earn me enough to pay off my mortgage and all the debt that I’ve accrued since Vin died. One year would change my life, and once I pay off my bills, I can leave to find another job where I won’t have to work for a murderer.

Bold of you to assume you’d even make it a year, says a voice inside my head.

Would Declan kill me? He had an opportunity to do it before and yet he hadn’t.

I woke up in a bathtub full of my own blood, but I don’t think that it was by mistake that I woke.

If someone wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Particularly if Declan wanted me dead, I’m sure my heart would have stopped beating long ago.

He’s made it clear that he’s the type of man who’s used to getting exactly what he wants, exactly when he wants it.

Of course, he’d had the opportunity before I’d written the hit piece on him. Maybe I’d just given him the motivation to finish what he started. Maybe he had come to my house last night with the intention of doing exactly that.

I lay flat on my back and pull the pillow over my face, wondering if I have it in me to hold it tightly enough for long enough to put an end to everything.

I don’t.

When I pull the pillow away from my face again, I gulp in as much air as my lungs can take.

Once I’m reasonably calmed, I gather my composure enough to sit up and look around the room.

As much as I hate this house, I love it.

It’s the place that Vin and I spent so much of our time together. It’s the place where we were going to grow old together. It’s the place where we planned to bring a baby home.

My heart aches at the thought of leaving it, as if I’d be leaving a part of Vin and that piece of my life behind. But I could do it if I have to.

Except I can’t.

I’m underwater on my mortgage, one check away from having it ripped away from me. That thought is absolutely more terrifying than the thought of leaving the house of my own accord. And it’s somehow inexplicably more terrifying than Declan Evers or anything he can throw at me.

I owe it to Vin to stay here and fight for what we had. It’s what he would have wanted from me.

I won’t give up. I decided that on the psych hold, when everyone had been treating me like I already had. It seemed at the time minimally better than being treated like a criminal.

But that’s the thing. The criminals around here aren’t being punished. Nobody is holding them accountable.

Which means I have two jobs to do.