Page 38 of Vow of Vengeance (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #2)

thirty

Soren

"We don't need to discuss that." Vin shakes his head. "Don't make me go back there."

Don't make me go back there.

Like it was an inconsequential argument, a spat that simply ruined our night. Not a night that ruined our lives. Not a night that ruined me , that ended in our child's fucking murder.

"Don't make you go back there?" I laugh.

I don't mean to do it, but it spills out of me, and once it does, there's no stopping it. I laugh loudly, because this is absurd. Everything about this is absurd, because he was supposed to be dead, but here we are.

When I get enough composure to pull myself together, he's frowning at me.

"I'm your wife , Vin. Get me out of this shit and talk to me like a fucking adult."

A furrow appears between his eyebrows as he appraises me, jaw clenched like he's trying to control his anger.

"Fine. You want to talk, we'll talk. But I'm not letting you go. If I do, how do I know you won't run?"

He doesn't, because I would. Although, I suppose I wouldn't do it before I get the answers I need. My entire world feels like it's been shaken, turned upside down and left to try and settle the wrong way.

"Fine. You don't want to go back to that night, but I never left that night in so many ways. So, tell me what happened, Vin. Make it make sense."

"We were relaxing in bed. I was giving you a massage..."

I frown at the thought of his hands on me. It's ridiculous given that we were married—no, I thought we were married, but that was another lie. Regardless, we were together for years. But the thought of him touching me now...

There’s truth to what he’s telling me. I remember his fingers on my shoulders, him laughing against the back of my neck, me praying that the intimacy would turn into something more.

"The doorbell rang." I say, because that's the last thing I recall on my own. It's why he stopped.

Vin nods. "I went to answer it, and a stranger came in.

He busted past me, caught me off guard. He saw you on the steps.

I guess you followed me, to see who it was, and he attacked.

You tried to get away, but by the time I got up there, it was already too late.

.." He swallows, sighs, gives me a moment for my brain to try to process his words.

My brain tries to fill in the gap between what I know and what Vin tells me.

Closing my eyes to try and focus, I remember falling on the stairs. Not down them. Up .

"I yelled at him to get off you. I didn't realize he had a gun until he shot me."

I open my eyes to look at him. "What happened?"

Vin frowns, confusion pulling at his lips. "I just said... he attacked, and I tried to fight him off of you."

"He attacked me? What does that mean?"

I remember the steps. I remember standing on them, looking down at the open front door, Vin and the man stood there together.

He had a ski mask, one of those fabric ones that covers everything but slits for the eyes and mouth.

I remember making eye contact. I could feel it, even if I couldn't see his eyes well enough.

Run .

"He didn't bust past you." I say, focusing on the image of Vin standing with him. The man was big, but Vin was strong, at least back then. Even if he'd been caught off guard, he could have held the door. But he didn't, because he opened it.

He let the stranger in.

Vin swallows. "He took me by surprise. I thought it was a robbery, so I tried to talk him down. But you had to follow me..."

There's no missing the accusation in his voice. There's no denying that to him, this is my fault. If I hadn't followed him down the steps, the stranger never would have gone after me. But that doesn't make sense. They had Vin right there, with a gun tucked somewhere on their body.

If Vin was the target, they could have shot him in the first thirty seconds the door was open, before I even got there, when I was still on the bed finishing my water.

"Drink the rest of your water."

It had seemed so sweet, how he wanted me to stay hydrated. But now as the words drift through my mind, they blur and distort like a song slowed down and pulled apart.

"Drink the rest of your wine."

"Finish your wine, baby."

"Let me get you some more wine."

"Drink up, Soren."

I was so tired that day. It wasn't anything different, since I'd been in a state of permanent exhaustion for years despite the fact I didn't really do anything.

It was easy to explain it away as a symptom of whatever mystery illness we were never able to diagnose.

But still, when I got out of the tub that night and took that glass of water, the exhaustion came on fast.

"You let him in.” I accuse. “He didn't get the drop on you."

I can taste metal, feel a weight on my back, but the pieces aren't connecting.

"He was faster.” Vin’s voice is hard. “I'm so sorry baby, I never meant for you to get hurt."

There's my apology.

But it feels wrong. Something about it is wrong.

"You didn't mean for me to get hurt?"

Vin clamps his mouth shut, and I see his jaw tic once before he switches course.

"I couldn't save you, and I'm sorry about that."

"Couldn't save me from what ?"

I can feel it. I've been able to feel it, in my bones, in my soul, in other parts of me, from the moment I woke up in that bathtub. But I want to hear him say it.

"From the rape." His voice cracks. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop him."

I'm freezing, shaking, but I don't know if that's the trauma or the anger or how cold I am, like everything inside of me is frozen over.

"You couldn't?"

"I'm sorry." Vin shakes his head, and I see his eyes filled with tears, but it still doesn't feel right.

My brain is blocking the memory because it's trying to protect me. I know that. I understand that. But I need to sink inside of that memory, because something isn't adding up.

Something about that night was off from the start. What was it?

I remember falling on the stairs again, the hand that gripped my ankle and yanked me back toward him. I kicked him in the face, I think. I got away, tried to lock him out of my room. But he was stronger. He really did bust the door open, but it was when I was behind it, not Vin.

"I love you, baby. I'm so sorry."

Heavy breaths against my neck as he tackled me to the ground.

I tried to get away, but he got my clothes off of me.

The gun pressed against the back of my head.

And then Vin came in.

He came in, but he didn't move toward me.

He came in, but he didn't scream for help.

He came in, but what did he say?

"What the fuck?"

His voice echoes in my skull, a sound full of surprise. As if he didn't expect to walk in and see that.

What did he expect to see?

Why did it take him so long to get to me?

"Don't you fucking dare."

What an odd thing to say. It's not the sort of thing you say to a stranger, especially not when they've busted into your house with a gun and are in the process of trying to rape your wife.

Wouldn't most men try to plead? Say they've called the police?

Grab the nearest lamp and shatter it over the attacker's head?

Something about the words he chose feels wrong, too casual, too... easy. Like he thought those words would be enough to stop whatever had been set into motion. Whatever he set into motion.

"I was never supposed to get hurt?" I clarify, searching his eyes for what I know I'll find there. And it's right on the surface. He doesn't even try to hide the guilt.

"No, baby. Not like that."

The target was always me.

The attack wasn't random or impulsive.

It wasn't a robbery.

"What was supposed to happen?"

I sound frighteningly calm for how furious I am. And I am furious.

And devastated.

And betrayed.

And sick to my fucking stomach, because now I understand what it was that was wrong that night. The fact that my husband helped orchestrate it.

Vin opens his mouth like he's going to answer, but he pauses. "What do you mean? I-"

"What was meant to happen, Vincent?"

He blinks at me in surprise, no doubt because I pulled out his entire first name. I haven't used that on him except in jest, teasing him early on when things between us had still been playful, before he started to make it known that using that name pissed him off.

"What?"

"You planned it." I say. "I know you did. What I don't know is why . You said I wasn't supposed to get hurt 'like that'."

Vin freezes, appraising me as he realizes that he's been caught.

"How was I supposed to get hurt?"

Did he only mean for me to be beaten? Just thrown around a bit to rattle my nerves? Or did he plan for me to die? Was it for money? An insurance policy? Some sick fucking kink he didn't bother consulting me about because he wanted it to feel real?

He laughs now, but it's more of a snort than anything as he gives up the act. "Fine. I planned it. But it went wrong because you were supposed to fall asleep like you always do."

Like you always do.

"Vin," I shake my head. "What was supposed to happen?"

"You were supposed to pass out. Tony was supposed to go up there once you'd already fallen asleep and throw you around a bit."

Tony.

T ony was supposed to go up there and throw you around a bit.

Tony , who I've let into my home half a dozen times when I've been alone in the months since I thought my husband died... in the months since Tony raped me.

"Why?" I refuse to cry one more fucking tear for my husband, and that includes crying to him about this.

Because I won't let him see how much he shattered me, how stupid I was to love him so goddamn much that I ignored every fucking warning sign and red flag.

I refuse to let him know that he was my entire fucking world, even though he already knows, and that I was foolish enough to think he cared about me back.

But you don't drug your wife so another man can come 'rough her up'. What was the point?

" Why ?" He scoffs. "I know you're naive, Ren, but you're not fucking stupid. You know I didn't want a baby!"

My chest hurts. It feels impossibly heavy, like Tony's sitting on it all over again.

I can't breathe.

"Our baby?"

"Our baby?" He mocks me with a roll of his eyes. "I don't know whose bastard that was, Soren. I guarantee you it wasn't mine. I had a vasectomy when you stayed the weekend with Marissa, when her cousin got married."

I feel like I'm going to pass out. The air seems too thin.

You were supposed to fall asleep like you always do.

"V-vasectomy?"

"Surprise." He smirks. "You knew I didn't want kids. Why would I? They'd just interfere."

Interfere?

"Vin..."

I don't know whose bastard that was.

Saying his name feels like a betrayal. It feels like giving him something that he doesn't deserve.

Drink up, Soren.

"Whose baby was it?"

Finish your wine, baby.

Vin shrugs. "Too many options to speculate, really. Could have been Kahn's. Jimmy's. A stranger's. The coroner that helped me slip away and forged my death certificate.”

I can’t breathe. “What?”

“Blackmail is more effective than all the money in the world. Could you imagine if it got out that an elected official with all that access to dead bodies is into pseudo necrophilia?” Vin laughs.

“It doesn't matter. None of them would have wanted a child with you, and I sure as hell didn't want my wife walking around carrying another man's baby.

But you wouldn't have ever considered getting rid of it, so I had to take matters into my own hands.

.. or, rather, Tony's hands. We worked out an agreement because I couldn't bear to hurt you myself, and he was just supposed to make you miscarry.

He wasn't supposed to rape you and he sure as fucking hell wasn't supposed to shoot me. "

Everything inside of me hurts.

It hurts so fucking much, because I put myself through hell for years and told myself it was just love. It was just life.

It was just my depression, my exhaustion, my fault.

And all that time, I never looked past it, because I didn't think there was a way out. I didn't know there was anything better.

I know love now, and what I had with Vin was never it.

And now I'm going to lose it, because there's no way after confessing all of that, that Vin is going to let me live.

"I had to hide the fact I survived. If Tony knew, he'd try to come back and finish me off.

I was saving money to try and get someone to take him out for me.

I kept to the attic, where I knew you'd never go, and slip out while you were sleeping to get something to eat.

Once you started working, I started stealing more from your account, and you never even noticed it was gone.

" He laughs. "You were so focused on getting revenge for me.

It's touching, really, how far you were willing to go for me. Loyalty is worth more than gold."

I'd laugh if I had any control over anything right now, but I can't move, can't breathe.

"That's why I came back for you. You love me, Soren, and I love you. We can move past this."

We can move past this.

I want to ask him how many men, how many times, why he didn't just divorce me if I repulsed him so much and he didn't want to be a father?

But there's one question, more than any of the others, that I need an answer to.

"You said Khan could have-"

It's too disgusting to say the rest.

"The father? Could be." Vin shrugs. "Along with a dozen others, based on the timing. I don't know, Soren. Does it matter? It's gone."

It's gone.

"He... you let him…?"

"Pay to fuck you?" Vin surmises. "Yeah. He was a repeat customer. Honestly, I had to start upping how much I charged because he was getting obsessive.”

The nausea is too much to push down this time. I barely have a chance to turn my head before I vomit, spewing chunks of Violet's lasagna onto the bed next to my face.

Throwing up while you're laying on your back is hard to do. It covers me, even before my head drops, exhausted.

Vin makes a small sound of disgust.

"You could afford to lose a few pounds anyway."