Page 45 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

forty-three

Declan

I want to sleep. But the devil doesn’t rest, so why should I? There’s too much that I could be doing to justify something so trivial.

That damn phone call has me on edge. It’s been over a year since my college roommate called and asked me to do him one last favor before he promised he’d never contact me again.

I’d relented, prepared to travel halfway around the world just to be free of him once and for all.

He called back and canceled before I ever made it to the airfield, and I’d thought the noose around my neck was gone.

But of course, it wasn’t. They’d simply loosened the rope, given me enough slack to think I was done with them, and now I’m being reeled back in.

There’s no refusing my employers. If they’d called months ago, before I ever knew about Soren Palmer, I’d have used the trump card I’ve been holding onto for years.

The only reason I never did it before now was because I had an interest in staying alive, which certainly wouldn’t happen if I tried to bring down the wealthiest, most powerful, and most corrupt men to walk the earth.

Even if I bring them all down like a house of cards, they’ll get their vengeance on me one way or another.

Now, it’s not just my life at risk, because Soren had to go and get herself involved in things that had nothing to do with her. She kicked a hornet’s nest, and I’m too smart to believe that one or both of us won’t have to pay for it.

I can’t do any of the things I need to unless I get Soren out of my bloodstream for a minute. My cock actually aches from denying it release, and that ache isn’t going to go away. I have to make it.

I dial the number of the last woman I fucked, knowing she’ll be a quick and effective distraction. She answers on the second ring and then switches it to a video chat. “Declan?”

Her voice is sleepy, and it reminds me of the time. I feel a flicker of guilt for waking her up, but I need to undo whatever curse Soren Palmer has levied upon me, and the only way I can even think to accomplish that is with whiskey and pussy.

I look at the girl whose contact in my phone is listed as Morgan, but behind her a neon pink sign above her bed frame says “Megan”. It may as well say ‘narcissist’.

She looks at me with bedroom eyes that aren’t solely because she’s in bed. All I have to do is tell her to come running. All I have to do is tell her I forgot her address. But the words stick in my throat.

“Sorry.” I tell her. “Didn’t mean to call.”

“No, wait—”

I don’t give her the opportunity to finish objecting, dropping my phone on the bench seat and flexing my knuckles against the steering wheel.

Morgan—or Megan—was one of the girls who would come running when I called, no questions asked.

But the thought of actually fucking her makes my stomach unexpectedly tight.

Because she’s not Soren.

Fuck.

Slamming my fists against the wheel, I try to at least let out some of the pressure building inside. I don’t do slow.

When she guided my hands to her hips, I should have been willing to pin her down and fuck her within an inch of her life, make her come until she cried for me to stop, and left her an obliterated mess.

But I’d seen something in her last night. I don’t like that she’s broken by somebody else. And I sure as hell hate that I’m bothered by it.

I can tell myself I want to put her back together so that I can delight in being the one to pull her apart this time, the way artists sometimes destroy entire sculptures after spending months smoothing the plaster and softening rough edges.

I can tell myself that I have the upper hand, that I’m in control, that I walked away from her to torture her for relenting so easily.

It just all feels hollow, like whispers of love and promises of happiness.

The truth is something that I won’t even consider; If I do, it will ruin everything I’ve built. I won’t let that happen for one woman, no matter how much I crave her.

My phone rings.

Morgan .

I should answer it and tell her to meet me at my place, but I can’t. I send her to voicemail.

Right now, I’ve got something more important to deal with.

I should have run her face through my software sooner, but I’ve been justifiably too obsessed with the physical incarnation of her to take the time and explore her digital essence.

Before I knew who she was, there had been no digital footprint that I could tie to her beyond her car’s registration.

It’s like somebody intentionally erased her past off the face of the earth.

But when I capture a still from old footage, it all opens up for me.

Soren Palmer D’Anerio.

Except, she isn’t.

There’s no marriage license on file for her, just an application.

No petition for name change. Her social security card has never been re-issued with a different name and her driver’s license still shows her as Palmer, a perfect match to her birth certificate.

I suppose that in itself wouldn’t be weird—it’s not unheard of for married women to retain their maiden name these days.

The way she bristles every time I say her last name, though, tells me there’s something more to the story.

Her since-deleted social media pages are all listed under her married name, and they paint a picture of a woman I’ve never met—a woman I’ve never seen.

If Soren Palmer is damaged, Soren D’Anerio was flawless—at least, she wanted people to think she was.

Her round face, softened with the blush of first love, is smiling in every picture of her whether it’s one she posted or one a friend tagged her in.

They’re not forced smiles; they light her eyes and transform her whole face.

Not waif-thin, but she could have certainly passed for a swimsuit model with her curves in all the right places and a flat stomach.

Pictures with friends at the lake, the beach, bathing in the sun.

Videos of her and Marissa spinning each other in circles at a rock concert, doing karaoke at some seedy-looking bar, dancing on the top of a table.

I thought what I’d seen last night was the product of a mental breakdown, but the further I scroll through her pages, the more I realize it was just a glimmer of who she used to be.

It disappeared slowly—her smile started to look like a shadow of itself some time after she announced her engagement.

By the wedding photos she posted, it was more of a lift in one corner of her mouth.

It faded away with time and was forced, but it was still there in the last posts she made.

And then it was gone entirely and her page turned to a living memorial until she disappeared completely. A few errant acquaintances would reach out on her page and wish her well, but they always went unanswered and Soren D’Anerio was thereafter wiped from the internet.

Why would a grieving widow abandon her husband’s last name and revert back to her own from birth?

I comb through everything that is available, but I can’t help get the feeling I’m missing something that’s been hidden in plain sight.

My suspicion of Soren rises again. She’d put up a good fight with me earlier and genuinely seemed to believe I had killed her husband, but what if it’s a cover?

A lie told so many times that she’s started to believe it.

When I’ve exhausted everything I can discover about my broken princess, I shoot a message to a friend asking whether her medical records have been updated yet.

And then I turn to her husband. Information on him is far more extensive.

Vincent D’Anerio. His certificate of birth and death both appear in tandem. Born September 27 th . Died April 6 th .

He was older than me—significantly older than Soren.

A thirteen-year age gap is the sort of thing most people would be surprised by. After all, with that significant of a chasm between their ages, how had they ever met and connected?

I don’t doubt that age is just a number for many people without consequence, but the resentment that creeps up my spine feels instinctually protective.

Soren is still young and impressionable even now at twenty-two.

She became widowed at the age of twenty one…

almost exactly a year ago. Despite the non-existent marriage certificate, I can guess by the photos from her recovered profiles that they got engaged when she would have barely been nineteen.

Something about all of it feels distinctly predatory. It does, after all, take one to know one.

We’re two different predators, though, cut from entirely different cloth.

I didn’t choose this life, though I doubt that makes any difference to my victims.

I wonder if Soren knew she was married to a predator… or if she knows she’s caught in the web of another.