Page 34 of Vow of Vengeance (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #2)

"Did he have you here the whole time?" I ask, placing a hand on her arm to try and get her to look at me, instead of the dead body of her captor and supposed best friend on the floor. To my surprise, her eyes snap to mine as she jumps back, pressing herself into Wes' arms.

He looks at me, confused. But I think we're all pretty fucking confused right now.

"Marissa." I say softly. "It's Declan. Remember me?"

"You murdered her!" Marissa sobs, clutching the blanket around her. "You fucking monster."

I blink, confused that she'd call me a monster. Sure, I killed Khan, but judging by the fact I found her tied up bloody and stark fucking naked in his basement, I'd say the bigger monster has been dealt with appropriately.

"Calm down." I tell her coolly. "I don't know what's going on here, but you're alright. Khan is dead, okay? He won't hurt you anymore."

Marissa sobs, shaking her head. "What the fuck did you do to him?"

I blink, wondering for a brief, bizarre second, if I read the situation wrong, if maybe this was all some sort of kink for her.

But then I remember that we've been looking for her for weeks, that Khan watched Soren cry and search for the girl standing before me now, and even if he was a sadistic bastard, there's no way she would have done that to Soren in the name of fun and kink.

"Marissa." I say, trying desperately to summon some patience and half an idea about how to deal with this.

A small part of me knows the right thing to do would be to call Soren, because Marissa probably needs her right now. But I can't let her see Marissa like this, can't let Soren see the mess, the body.

Fuccccck.

"You're okay. He can't hurt you anymore. But I need to know what the hell happened here. He kidnapped you?"

She stares at me like she doesn't know if she can trust me, and then her eyes cut to Wes. After a minute, she nods. Her throat bobs as she swallows back tears.

"I'm so stupid. I fell for it. He told me you killed Ren, and he had proof. I was already in the car with him, and I told him to take me to see her, so I could check on her myself. But he wouldn't go to her house, and he just drove me here. He said there was proof down here."

She sobs, staring at the ground.

I won't ask her for anything more. It's pretty clear why he did it.

Upstairs, when I'd asked him why. He thought I was asking about Marissa .

It's her that he thinks he loved. Her that he was obsessed with.

He thought I'd found him out, that I was here to collect on the girl he'd locked in his basement.

But there's no way I could have seen him rape her , which is why he realized the truth right before we covered his mouth in tape.

This is so much worse than I thought it was.

And now there's a witness to the first murder I ever committed.

My eyes find Wes', seeking silent instruction on how to proceed.

She's seen our faces. She knows we murdered him. If she goes to the police, it’s over for both of us.

The harsh reality is that we can't let her live if we want to get away with what we did.

I scrub my hands over my face and drag them through my hair, trying to chase away the exhaustion that clings to me like a second skin, to try and silence everything in my head so that I can think clearly, decide how to deal with this.

Killing one person is bad enough, but Khan deserved it.

Marissa, on the other hand? She's a victim, just like Soren.

And if I kill my wife's other best friend, I don't know if I'll ever be able to sleep again without the guilt eating me alive.

"Fuck!" I growl, slamming my fist into the table.

Marissa jumps and Wes wraps her tighter against him, as if he's the safe one to be around here. I'll let her hold onto that delusion; it's the least of my problems.

A small sound from the ground draws my attention, and I glance down to see Khan’s hand twitching.

I move quickly, drawing the gun out of my waistband and training it on the back of his head. But then a moment of clarity hits me.

I stash the gun quickly and heft Khan up so that his back rests against me, keeping him propped up so that I can rip the tape off his face.

Khan screams into his gag as I unravel it, clearly not dead.

I take some of his eyebrow off as I yank the tape, and blood pours fast from his wounds as I rip it away.

I wind it quickly around his upper arms, pinning them together behind his back and since it's wet and no longer sticking in parts, I bind him with the belt on the floor for good measure.

.. a belt I'm pretty sure he beat Marissa with, given the welts on her body.

"It's okay." I assure her. I don't know how many times I've said it, but maybe if I say it enough, one of us will start to believe it. It sure as fuck isn't about to be me.

Marissa's sobs turn quiet as I step in front of her, leaving Khan on the ground, useless to escape.

He's alive, but not all there. Maybe it was one of the hits to the head on his way down the steps, or maybe it's just that he's such a sniveling little bitch he's trying to escape the reality of his own death.

I wave the gun in front of her, and she doesn't flinch, though she does still tremble.

"The fuck, Evers?" Wes snaps.

"This is the trigger," I tell Marissa, just like I told Soren earlier. I take advantage of how numb she is and force the gun into her hand, wrapping her knuckles around it. I guide the barrel of the gun til it points at the piece of shit on the floor. "Pull it."

"What?" Marissa's voice shakes so much I barely hear her. "I-"

"You have to kill him. We're not letting him walk out of here."

"Call the police." She says, looking around like she might find a phone somewhere. "Call 911."

"No." I shake my head. "We're not doing that. The justice system is fucked."

Letting Khan leave this house alive leaves too much to chance, for all of us. Re-victimization, for her or Soren. Penalty of murder charges for Wes and I.

Nope.

"But we can show them the evidence. I-" She hesitates. "I'll testify. I can go to the hospital and do a rape kit, and we can put him behind bars."

"No." I shake my head. "This isn't the first time he's done this." I tell her.

It's a bit of an accident, a betrayal of my own tongue. I didn't mean for her to know that, because I sure as hell don't want Soren to know about it. If I can, I'll keep all of this from her. Maybe we can convince her Marissa was away on holiday, cruising around the world.

"What do you-? How do you know?"

"I know." I assure her. "That's not what matters. What matters is that he hurt someone before you.”

There's no doubt he hurt Marissa worse, but that's not the issue.

The issue is that in between whenever he paid Vin to fuck my girl and whenever he lured Marissa to his basement, he escalated wildly.

I don't know who or how many people may have been affected in between, but even if there were no others, this, what he did to Marissa, is heinous enough that it's clear he wouldn't have stopped.

How long would he have left her there if he hadn't been caught?

How long would he have ignored Soren's concerns?

Would he have gotten bored enough to kill her? Would he have gone for somebody else?

"Ren?" Her voice is so small, so broken saying that name, that I don't even bother denying it.

"Yes."

Marissa sobs, cupping her hands together in front of her mouth like she's going to be sick. "Why wouldn't she tell me that? She didn't tell me that."

"She doesn't know." I swallow. "And she's not going to, okay? Her husband used to drug her and let people pay to rape her. I stumbled upon recordings and Khan was on one of them. It's why I came here to kill him. I didn't know that he was this vile, that he would do this to you..."

She shakes her head. "I trusted him."

"And that's why we can't let him live. You get that, right? You and Soren trusted him because he was your friend for years. How many times did he drive you home from her house when you drank too much? How many times were you alone together where he could have forced himself on you?"

What I'm doing feels shitty, but I don't know how else to do this. I don't know how to guarantee that she keeps her mouth shut without doing it like this.

Somebody has to die, so it's him or her. I'm really hoping her sense of self-preservation outweighs the tattered remains of Khan's mindfuck.

"All that time, he played you both. He victimized you both. And he wouldn't have stopped. He won't stop."

She sobs, but nods her understanding. My words are getting through to her.

" You have to make him stop. You have to put an end to it."

"Can't you?"

I shake my head. "If you do it, it's self-defense. If we do it, it's murder."

"I can't. I can't. I can't breathe..."

"Calm." Wes tells her, his breath close to her neck as he still holds her, keeping the blanket in place, trying to stop her shaking. "You can do this. You've got this. You're doing so good already."

Marissa whimpers in denial, but Wes isn't deterred as his hands trace her arms, closing overtop of hers.

"You just keep breathing, okay? You can do that. You've done it all your life, haven't you? Without even thinking of it, too."

Marissa nods just a little, and I watch her take a tiny breath in, her lips twisted into a small O.

"So good." Wes praises her. "You're a natural, aren't you?"

A Natural breather ?

I want to snap at him to shut the fuck up, but whatever he's doing, it fucking works. I can see her calming as she takes another breath.

"This gun is light." Wes says softly. "No recoil. The silencer takes care of any noise other than a little puff ." He imitates the sound, rather than explains it, and Marissa nods.

"You feel how light it is, sweetheart? Power doesn't have to feel heavy."

Marissa nods, and I get the sense she'd agree to anything he says at this point. His voice is calming her, probably more than the words. But I'll take it.

"I'm gonna put your finger on the trigger." He says calmly. "But we're not gonna pull it until you're ready. That okay with you?"

She nods again and I take the smallest step back, shocked that this is actually fucking working.

I watch Wes guide her hand with a soft caress that looks a bit too sensual given the tension of the situation.

Her finger sits on the trigger without any pressure, his touch ghosting on top of hers.

I see her finger twitch, an impulse, as she looks down at the man who caused her so much hell.

I can't even begin to imagine the extent of it.

"You ready to taste vengeance, pretty girl?"

Marissa takes another breath, slow and steady. She nods, just a little. But it's decisive. She's made up her mind.

"Then take it.” Wes whispers. His breath is on her neck, and I don’t know if her eyes are fluttering from the proximity or because she’s just that out of it. “It's yours, but I'm right here with you."

Her lip trembles, just once. One last betrayal of her loyalty to the man who was supposed to be a friend to her.

And then she pulls the trigger.