Page 30 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

twenty-nine

Soren

I spend my weekend expecting that my boss will show up in the dead of night and demand I handle things for him, but he never does.

In fact, I don't get so much as a text from him.

Instead, I spend my weekend alone, starting and DNF'ing a bunch of books on the tablet Vin got me a few Christmases ago.

Reading is the best distraction from the poisonous and depressing thing called reality, but it's been hard to get into anything for the last year.

Sometimes I find I've read a whole book but retained nothing.

Other times, I find myself re-reading the same paragraph, cognizant of the fact that I'm seeing the words, but unable to compute them.

My mind inevitably wanders to thoughts of Declan, Vin, and where everything went wrong.

When I get tired of not being able to escape, I grab my phone-- the new one, from Declan-- and log into all of my accounts, sifting through e-mails for anything important that I may have missed.

My inbox is a wasteland for newsletters I've abandoned, things I forgot to unsubscribe to.

Marissa took on the task of unsubscribing me from certain things when I was in the hospital last, when she was worried that everything would trigger me into another suicide attempt.

Even still, I have to sift through spam and junk just to be sure I didn't miss anything important.

I'm not sure what it is that catches my eye about the email. Maybe the fact it's just a single word in the subject line, as opposed to the rest. Maybe it's just that the sender is listed as 'Anonymous'.

Miss Palmer:

Just wanted to reach out and offer a bit of advice. I read your article in the Covington Herald this morning and thought the following information may be of use to you.

The subject of your article has gone to great lengths to hide his true identity.

This information is privileged-- few people are aware of this, so use it wisely.

Declan Evers is not who you think he is.

He's not even who he says he is. He's fleeced the world into believing he inherited his wealth, but he's self-made.

Wherever his fortune came from, it wasn't his family.

I can't tell you how I know this information, but I thought you should know.

You seem intent on shining a light on his shadowy past, but I advise you to move with caution.

You may not like what you find in the darkness.

Good luck,

Anonymous

I stare dumbly at the email and then re-read the whole thing again, letting the words sink in.

It was buried in my inbox over a week ago, right after I ran the article.

It's not exactly earth-shattering information, but it is new information, which is good to know.

My entire article called him out on the mystery surrounding his companies, his investments.

I implied that he was a glorified loan shark, so it's not a surprise to see someone else resonated with the idea.

It was never about the money, though. It was about the fact that he was the only name I ever got from anyone.

Vin’s murder was either me or a random act of violence that was well-covered up.

Those are the only answers anybody could give me for months.

I know it wasn't me, and I refuse to believe that a random act of violence would have felt so personal.

After begging for answers, praying to a God I don't believe in for somebody to just tell me what happened, finally Tony dropped Declan's name.

I went after Declan Evers because he's the only lead I've got, and the fact that he dodged me as often as he did made him a compelling candidate.

I can't tell if the warning is meant to be just that, a caution against kicking the hornet's nest, or if this is a veiled threat.

The e-mail prompts me to type his name into my browser again, and I look through photo after photo.

There's nothing of him before a few years ago.

It's like he just popped into existence fully formed.

No information anywhere offers me any insight into who he is besides the businessman.

No mentions of high school sports, no academic awards, no scholarship announcements.

There's not even so much as a back page forum dedicated to conspiracy theories about him.

Either Declan Evers is incredibly conscious of what information he allows to be shared about him on the internet, or he doesn't exist.

For half a second, my heart squeezes as I try to consider that possibility, whether maybe it's all been in my head.

But I'm clearly sleep deprived and have been attempting to read too many paranormal romances lately.

I have felt his touch on my skin, and I can say with no amount of uncertainty, that he is real.

He's just not who he says he is. I guess it's fair, since I'm not either.

My coworkers are still oblivious to my identity as the widow of the man who was brutally murdered a year before, but Declan knows.

My skin feels like it's going to spontaneously pull itself from my exoskeleton, particularly when I remember that I've been sharing an office with him all week.

My head was so certain when I ran that article that he was at fault, whether he called a hit or whether he carried it out himself, but after a week of watching him, waiting for evidence to present itself, my certainty is wavering.

I don't feel it in my bones when I'm with him.

I feel other things, but I don't feel like he is the man who took everything from me, the one who left me to bleed out in my bathtub, the one who broke in that night.

I rake my hands through my hair, digging my nails into my scalp. I wish, not for the first time, that I could remember anything about that night before I woke up in the bathtub.

Everything about the night Vin died is blank, my mind's attempt to protect me, as the doctor's said.

But I'm not sure what it could be protecting me from that's more horrendous than waking up with everything hurting, no memory, and finding Vin the way that he was.

The absence of answers hurts more than any memory possibly could.

I've lived in the memory of realizing he was dead for the last year.

I've seen his face every time I close my eyes, thought about what was lost, and I've suffered.

Whatever part of my memory that is missing, I don't think it's just my brain trying to protect me.

I think I had to have been knocked over the head or drugged somehow.

Unfortunately, I don't remember enough about the day to even decide whether of those are possibilities.

I was too worried about Vin to stay for observation that night, and I refused all tests they didn't force on me.

They took my blood, stitched me up, told me they were sorry for my loss, and sent me on my way when I refused to comply with the doctor's suggestion of observed rest. It was an oversight, according to the psychiatrist who presided over me when I ended up on a psych hold from having slit my wrists.

I really just wanted to retrace my steps, to try and recover any missing memories, but when I stood in that bathroom trying to will it all to come back to me, the idea of letting go seduced me wholly, until I could think of nothing else.

I daresay the same seduction came over me at the thought of taking down Declan Evers, of proving he was responsible for killing my husband, for ruining me long before he ever told me he wanted to destroy me.

I waited so long for someone to make the target of my ire, that when I was given one, I went for it without using any kind of logic, any kind of common sense.

And my introduction to Declan had been just as heated, driven by fear and chaos, whatever electric thread seems to exist between the two of us.

Hate and fear make for an intoxicating mix, more heady than anything I can imagine at this point.

My head is a mess, but that's not exactly new.

The balance in my bank account is new, though.

I've been waiting to look, afraid that if I looked too soon, it would bring me to my knees wondering what I really signed up for.

I wanted to give myself some time to decide whether this was worth it.

And when I log in to check it, knowing I should be expecting a large sum of money, I decide it's worth it.

I've never seen this many zeroes in a real account.

I made ten thousand dollars just by signing a contract with my boss, making myself available for his every business need.

It's an outrageous claim, especially because we aren't in the business of life and death.

Well, maybe Declan is. I'm in the business of journalism, though.

I don't know what he thinks I can offer him, and I know the other shoe will drop when he comes to collect whatever it is he needs from me.

But right now, with my bank account fatter than my ass, I don't care.

Unfortunately, I know this isn't going to last long.

Part of me wants to squirrel it away, not to spend a penny of it so that I can commemorate the occasion.

This is a massive feat for someone who grew up scraping coins together.

Even when Vin swept me up in his life and offered me the world, we never had this .

But we had a home, and I'm desperate to hold onto that. It's why I pull up the cash transfer app and send a double payment.