Page 22 of Vengeful Vows

When I nod, Rafael licks his lips, his scrutiny too hot to ignore. “I didn’t see anything about a kid in her dossier.”

“The dossier I asked you to get rid of?” My fury can’t be hidden in my tone or expression.

“An hour ago.” When my hands ball, he speaks faster. “Or three. Who’s counting?” He continues talking before I remind him that time management is task one of his job description. “Hiding shit takes time, Ark, and I figured since you asked me to get rid of it, you’d want me to hide it deep.” Nothing but honesty rings in his tone. “I also thought you’d want to see this before I bury it.”

I hiss when he flips open a manila folder and hands it to me.

The images are grainy, but they turn my blood to stone.

“What happened?”

As I flick through still surveillance images of Mara being assaulted at a bus stop not far from the Chrysler building, Rafael gives me a basic rundown. “She stayed back to help clean up a party her last employer held. She was jumped by a low-ranked thug on her way home. He took her purse, a fake tennis bracelet, and this…” He dumps a photograph of a pendant, which I’m confident doubles as an heirloom. It’s a family crest I swear I’ve seen before.

“Was her assault reported to the authorities?” I ask through a tight, stern jaw.

My thigh muscles spasm when Rafael shakes his head. “But the perp was caught and appropriately sentenced.”

I’m confused until he encourages me to flip toward the end of the dossier. The final few images show a blonde-haired woman assisting Mara from the ground and onto a bus.

“That’s—”

“Zoya Dokovic.”

Rafael whistles as if impressed. I don’t know why. I thought Zoya’s husband would be my biggest rival while running for office, so I’ve kept tabs on everyone in his realm. I had no clue Kazimir would step back from the role he was born to do when his grandfather died.

I can only hope his father will follow suit. He’s currently beating me in the polls, even with him not having a wife at his side during early campaigning.

The widow title will forever triumph over the playboy title when it comes to the minority vote.

“Kazimir took out the trash within hours of the assault being reported to him.” Rafael looks confused. I understand why when he says, “Mara is in favor with both the Dokovics and the Ivanovs, so why the fuck is she living in a dump on the wrong side of town?”

I almost shrug until I recall how headstrong my baby sister is. She could be offered the world, and she’d turn her nose down at it. She doesn’t want to be handed the keys to the castle. She wants to build it from the ground up.

I can see Mara being just as determined.

The thought makes me hard and pisses me off.

She shouldn’t have to fight. It should be her God-given right to live without fear. But I know better than any man that that isn’t always possible. Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire.

The reminder sees me shifting my focus to Darius. “Run a background search on the supervisor of Mara’s building.”

He doesn’t seek clarification as to who Mara is, announcing she’s been discussed with him sometime over the past three days. The knowledge firms my jaw enough to be heard in my following sentence but not enough to stop it entirely. “Extend your search past the usual perimeters. Just because you don’t have a criminal record doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one.”

The bottle of shampoo I stole out of Mara’s bathroom because I thought it would be the only way I could intermingle our scents announces this without fault.

8

MARA

My temples ache while taking in the number of rooms I am rostered to clean this morning. The Chrysler building only has a handful of permanent tenants. Most are fly-in and fly-out residents, so it was surprising to learn we were almost full occupancy when I arrived for my shift this morning.

The number of apartments I need to service is overwhelming because it took Tillie three full days to recover from the stomach bug an on-call doctor assured me wasn’t from eating out-of-date birthday cake.

I would have started fresh next week if I were entitled to sick leave.

Since I’m not, I must suck it up.

I can’t afford more time off.

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