Page 37 of The Vow

“You’ve already mentioned your…awareness of my activities,” I said stiffly.

“I know you’ve recruited women to work for you—women who also want to see bad men punished. Women you’ve saved from abuse and sex trafficking.”

“Because Mara told you.”

Mara was one of those girls who I’d asked to help me expose a sex trafficking ring run by a local faction of the Chinese Triad. She’d been found out and imprisoned to be given as a gift to Uzair Shazad, the son of Pakistan’s most infamous warlord.

That was when Damon had rescued her. Mara was the reason Damon had shown up to the garage a week ago—to bring her back to us.

And to use her as an olive branch to lure me to him.

This was what I’d tried to explain to Nonna earlier. Damon might’ve saved her and her daughter just like he’d saved Mara, but that didn’t mean his actions hadn’t been self-serving in the end.

“Mara didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know,” he rumbled in a way that left me no choice but to believe him. “I also know your brothers joined your vigilante quest.”

“Yes,” I snapped, my annoyance bubbling over. “So, you know that we hunt down criminals who fly under…or over the radar…just like you. It’s what I do, not who I am.”

“It’s what you do because of who you are,” he countered. “Because you lost your parents—your family—to one of those very kinds of criminals, and you can’t stand the thought of letting them or any others go unpunished.”

I rarely talked about my parents’ deaths beyond the basic facts. Sure, my adopted family saw the effects of the trauma; they weathered them and comforted me as best they could, but it was only to this man that I’d revealed the depth and breadth of my grief.

At the time, I told myself it was because I needed him to understand my fury—to understand the root of my vengeance. I told myself I needed my cause to become his. Only once Damon was gone did I realize I’d told him simply because I trusted him. Because the way I felt about him was unlike anything I’d felt for anyone before.Because I wanted to let him in.

I hadn’t sold my soul to the devil, I’d given it to him gift-wrapped with my trauma, my broken pieces, my body, and my heart. And now, I paid the price.

“You’re right. I can’t stand the idea of any criminal going unpunished. Including you.”

His heavy exhale filtered through the air. “Trust me, Robber, I haven’t gone unpunished,” he said, his tone low and smooth like a swallow of whiskey. And then his leg brushed mine. I wanted to pull away, but I couldn’t. I was frozen by what he said next.

“Every day I’ve spent without you has been worse than any prison, more damning than any sentence, and more painful than any torture.”

My jaw dropped, his agonizing tenderness gripping my heart so firmly it stopped beating for a single, precious moment. A moment to feel like the man I’d fallen in love with still existed—had always existed and had always loved me. But then it returned to the blow of reality.

It didn’t matter how high his declarations promised to sweep me, they would only get so far before the burn of his betrayal melted their wings.

It hasn’t been enough,I wanted to say back, but I didn’t want to tread any farther down this path. Parts of me wanted him too much still—parts I didn’t trust with whatever vindications he devised. With whatever silver-tongued reason he had for betraying me and breaking my heart.

I didn’t trust myself to not fall under his spell again and risk turning the already-broken pieces of my heart into dust.

Gritting my teeth, I was determined to remain silent until we got to the party, but of course, Damon had other ideas.

“You still go to the scene of your parents’ accident every year on the anniversary of their death,” he went on, his voice dragging a rung lower. “White roses on the guardrail of the highway and another set at their grave.”

No.My nails dug into the silk dress, threatening to puncture holes to reach my skin.

“Thunderstorms still keep you up at night. Not because you’re afraid, but because it was storming the night they were run off the road.”

The tightness in my throat ballooned with his unwanted observations. “Stop,” I croaked.

“You don’t keep any photographs in your apartment”—which he knew because I’d taken him there—“or any of the other houses and condos where you live, even the residence you keep on your brothers’ garage compound”—how did he—“because since their death you’ve never felt safe enough to let anywhere feel like home.”

I blinked quickly, trying to erase the burn in my eyes.

He was wrong.I had, once, felt at home. And he was the one who quickly disabused me of that fairy tale.

“Enough,” I warned, my voice struggling for sound, my hand gripping the door, about ready to claw my way out of the car.

“And the reason you never told anyone about me is?—”

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