Page 50 of The Vow

My head tipped, but I found my feet angling toward that empty chair.

“I thought you didn’t want any help on your puzzle.”

“No,” he grunted, his big hand causing an earthquake in the box of puzzle pieces. “I don’t want Damon’s help. He always fits the wrong pieces together.”

“Sounds about right,” I muttered and sank into the soft leather, my elbows resting on my knees. I reached for the pile of sherbet-colored pieces I’d set aside a few nights ago, all belonging to the sunset in the corner.

We worked in peaceful silence for several minutes, nothing but the soft click of puzzle pieces snapping together. And then Pat went and ruined it.

“When I met Damon, we were both being held in a Japanese prison.”

I frowned, instantly wondering what the two of them had done, but I knew better than to ask.

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” I murmured and fitted another piece into my section.

“You’d think it was for the kind of…habits Damon picked upin the place,” Pat muttered wryly under his breath and then cleared his throat as though he’d just realized he’d said a little too much. “I’d saved the wrong woman from the Yakuza, and Damon had bested the wrong mob boss in poker,” he told me anyway.

“Bested or swindled?” I countered, taking the box and scouring for more sunset pieces.

“Sometimes, to bring down monsters, Robbie, you have to become one. But with what you do, I think you understand that.”

I gritted my teeth. Coloring outside the lines of the law for vigilante justice was one thing. Becoming a full-blown criminal to take down other criminals was another.At least in my mind.

But he was goading me, and I wouldn’t take the bait. Maybe this was part of Damon’s plan, too: to have his cook and his bodyguard talk him up and try to wear me down.Not possible.

“Pat—”

“Damon saved me in prison,” he interrupted me. “Didn’t have to. He didn’t even know me, but he saved me from a beating with his big mouth. The Yakuza controlled the guards, who looked the other way as they’d beaten me for several days. If Damon hadn’t stepped in, I think they would’ve killed me that time.”

“And so now you’re indebted to him for the rest of your life?” I popped another puzzle piece into place, feeling the smallest measure of satisfaction, especially as I added sardonically, “Sounds exactly like something Damon would do.”

“You misunderstand him, Robbie,” Pat warned with a rough growl. Unlike my husband, as soon as the burly Irishman began to open up, he didn’t try to mask his frustration.

“I don’t misunderstand the man who uses everyone else to his advantage.”Including me.

Pat muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and my irritation grew.

The reason I’d been cooped up in my room the last two nights was because I was haunted by what Damon had said—how he’d dared me to ask about our past. Threatened me with the truth if I called him unfaithful again.

And I almost did.

I almost gave him reason to unleash his secrets so I could hate him more, but a thread of doubt held me back. The only thing worse than hating my husband would be a reason to not hate him at all.

It wasn’t possible. I swore it didn’t exist. But…

“You wanted to be there, didn’t you? At the holiday party?” Pat eyed me, but I didn’t look up.

“Of course.” I angrily clicked a piece of red sky into its spot. “That was part of the deal.”

“But you’re angry about it.”

“Because he introduced me as his wife,” I snapped and picked up another piece.

“And are you not?”

“That’s not the point.” I curled my fist around a piece, the tines digging into my palm. “I could’ve just been his associate. Our…marriage didn’t need to be advertised to the world, as if that will stop me from ending it when this is over.”

Pat shook his head, a hard exhale tumbling from his chest. “In this line of work, Robbie, associates are collateral damage to making deals. They’re the pawns that get picked off until those deals are made.”

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