Page 10 of Vow of Vengeance (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #2)

eight

Soren

I'm staring at him across the table he ravaged me on, hating myself for feeling betrayed.

The real problem isn't that I feel like he betrayed me, but that I feel like I betrayed myself.

Everything was so good, so easy, until last night.

I should have known better, given how cruel he was before yesterday.

But knowing that I'm a fool for believing he wouldn't hurt me doesn't make me feel any better.

It's not the lingering discomfort that has me feeling down, but the fact that he took the last shred of dignity I thought I had.

Is this what life with him will be like?

A good day sprinkled between the layers of pain and humiliation?

I thought we were making progress, understanding one another on a deeper than superficial level.

I thought that we were laying the foundation for something.

But maybe I am really just his toy, a thing for him to play with, to break, to pass along when he's done with.

"You're not going to eat?" He glowers, disappointment heavy in his gaze as it runs over me.

"I'm not hungry." I lie, crossing my arms at the eggs in front of me.

"Bullshit." He laughs, taking a sip of his orange juice as if this is a completely normal breakfast for a completely normal couple. "You worked up an appetite last night, I guarantee it. Surely your body wants something more than my cock?"

His grin is arrogant, and part of me entertains the thought of reaching across the table to swat it off his face.

"Coffee." I say, my eyes darting to the pot on the counter behind him. I won't ask him for it, and I sure as hell won't risk rising out of this wooden chair that makes my ass throb and let him see that parts of me are still sore.

"Help yourself." He gestures behind him lazily, but the smirk on his lips tells me he knows exactly what he's doing to me. I want to scream.

All of the progress we made on this vacation has just evaporated. I feel like an entirely different person is sitting across from me, someone who doesn't care about me, as he says he does. This is someone who enjoys being cruel, doing exactly what he promised from the start— destroying me.

Maybe that was all part of the game. Make me fall, make me care about him so that when he pulls the rug out from under my feet, I can't find my footing.

I set my jaw, stubbornly refusing to stand.

I don't know what pisses me off more— the way he smirks at me like he knows he lingers inside of me or the way I feel betrayed by a monster.

"When do we go home?" I ask, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off some of the chill that seems to be sneaking into my bones.

"I don't know." Declan shrugs. "I've enjoyed our little vacation. Haven't you?"

I don't grace him with an answer, setting my jaw instead as I look out at the gray day.

Yesterday, the same weather was cozy. Today, it's gloomy.

"I want to go home."

Declan rolls his eyes, huffing a sigh. He rises from the table, and I expect that he'll leave me here to wallow in my own self-pity. Instead, he goes to the coffee maker and begins to prepare a pot. "That's not what you said you wanted the other day."

I stare at the back of his shoulders, wondering what I said I wanted then. I don't ask, and he doesn't answer until he sets the mug of coffee in front of me, his gaze even with mine when he settles in his seat again.

"You said you wanted justice. Is that still true?"

I don't answer him immediately, waiting for him to elaborate of his own accord.

"What I mean to say is, would you still want justice if it meant that the person you were delivering it to wasn't who you think it is?"

I blink at him, too tired to try and untangle the mess of that sentence.

"What? I don't know who it is. I told you that already."

"Yeah," he agrees. "But what I mean is, would you seek justice even if it was going to destroy you? The truth can be a terrible thing, little bird." He leans back in his chair, appraising me. "Sometimes it hurts more than not knowing."

Whatever he's saying, or more accurately, whatever he's not saying, is suspicious.

"Do you know something I don't?"

"I know many things you don't." He sighs, dragging a hand over his face. "Just answer the question, Ren. It's important."

"Yes." I snap, my irritation growing with each vague question. "I would want to know, even if it hurts."

"Mm." He nods, contemplating something slowly. When his eyes glance up to meet mine, they're less stormy. "You're strong enough to handle it."

I glare at him, wondering whether that was supposed to be a question. Apparently not, because he nods like he's decided something and gets up from his chair, walking around to take my hand. I snatch it away from him, annoyed at his audacity to touch me, but he isn't deterred.

"There's something you have to see."

"No." I set my jaw. "I'm not going anywhere with you. After what you did— "

"What did I do?" He grins, taunting me. "Make you crave pain with your pleasure? Make you come so hard I won your body's loyalty?"

It's not the pain that bothers me, and the fact he can't wrap his mind around that pisses me off.

"You said we were going to share control!” I snap. “But you didn't give me a chance to last night, you just twisted me all up and took what you wanted."

He shrugs, conceding to my point. "Fair. But I only did it because I thought we were past him."

"Vin?" I laugh at the way he cringes in disgust. "You mean my husband ? The man I was married to for years?"

"You were never married." Declan says, matter of fact.

For a minute, I think it's an attempt to gaslight me into thinking that my sanity is in question, but he shakes his head. "Not legally, anyway. There's no record of your marriage to Vincent D'Anerio."

I stare at him in silence for a minute, trying to understand exactly what he is getting at.

"You're lying."

"Nope." He pops the P obnoxiously. "I don't know what he had to gain by making you think you were married, but whatever you guys did, it wasn't a legal arrangement."

My chest hurts, suddenly feeling heavy with the ridiculous claim he's making.

Vin didn't stand to gain anything by lying to me about marriage.

We had a whole ceremony, with a catholic priest and everything.

I signed a marriage certificate... Marissa signed my marriage certificate as a witness, for fuck's sake.

"You must be wrong." I argue. "Or mistaken. We were married for years."

"Oh," Declan chuckles. "I found your deleted socials.

I know you had a ceremony and wore a white dress that made you look like the sacrifice in a movie about Satanic cults.

It was an extravagant wedding, especially given that it was all a ruse.

You made a beautiful bride, but I'm telling you, it wasn't real. "

Declan could be speaking a foreign language for all the sense that his words are making. Part of me thinks he must be messing with me again, trying to destroy any connection I have to Vin. He didn't stand to gain anything by faking our marriage.... other than shutting me up.

I wanted the ring, the marriage, the house and the baby.

I wanted all the things he didn't, the things I never had growing up.

I wanted stability, his vow of faithfulness.

I brought it up so many times only to be brushed aside, to be told that they were things I shouldn't be worrying about at my age.

The last time we fought about it, I told him if he couldn't give me what I wanted, I'd go find it elsewhere.

A week later, he popped the question, and we agreed it didn't make sense to wait long.

Would he really have pretended to marry me just to get me to stay?