Page 101 of Seeking Vengeance

Rightly so.

“What are you doing?” I slow my approach, cautiously reaching for her hand to tilt the cell screen my way.

Lorenzo Virginia Beachis typed into the search bar with a page of irrelevant results about some specialist doctor listed below.

“I want to know what’s going on.” She pulls the phone back toward her and locks the screen, the snuffed glow making her face shadowed. “I tried googling him but there are too many results in Virginia Beach.”

I nod, teeth clenched, limbs thrumming.

Her gaze weighs heavily on me. Every blink of her lashes acts like a physical blow. “There’s a lot to explain.” But the explanation doesn’t come. The truth refuses to slither from the darkest depths of my soul.

And this room isn’t helping.

With the closed curtains and the mass of flickering candlelight, it feels like I’m in Satan’s dungeon. And I’ve already spent too much time there to want to return.

I march to the window and yank back the heavy drapes, the burst of sunlight searing my eyes. Yet it’s not enough to assuage my darkness. Not the beach or the sun or the sand.

I lunge for the closest candles and snuff them out. One after another, after another, after another. The scent of smoke wafts in the air, the threat of the fire alarm merely adding to the shitstorm inside me.

“Matthew…”

I pause with my back to her. Straighten. Succumb.

“Please tell me.”

Her plea undoes me, my knotted threads unraveling.

I turn, finding her chin raised. She already knows the impending increase of seriousness in this already fucked up situation, and she’s preparing to take it head on.

I wish I could laugh at the naivety of her conviction, but there’s nothing funny here. Things between us never should’ve gone this far. I wasn’t meant to get entangled.

Bishop knew she would be my undoing. He even explained the psychology behind why I’m drawn to her.Obsessedwith her. And yet I still can’t push past the mental trickery to let her go.

“Matthew?” Her eyes beg for me to ease her suffering. To break the torturous suspense.

She’s such a fucking maze, some paths leading to dead ends, others harboring threats and misdeeds. I applaud her strength. Her tenacity. Her viciousness. But the cyanide admission threw me for a loop.

I guess we’ve both got bigger secrets than either of us led the other to believe.

“Please, Matthew. Tell me what’s going on.”

I release the toxic air eating at my lungs and slump my ass onto the coffee table, letting her tower above me. Rule over me.

“Before I met Lorenzo, I was homeless.”

Her lips part at my admission, her stunning eyes widening.

“Through mistakes of my own, and sabotage from others, I lost everything. I had nobody. Not a penny to my name. Only the clothes on my back and a shitload of emotional baggage.”

“How old were you?”

I scoff. Too young to be without a family and too old to be a sorry son of a bitch. “A few months from my eighteenth birthday.”

Pity floods her expression. “Matthew, I—”

“Don’t say anything. Just let me speak.”Let me explain all the things you’re going to hate about me. “Lorenzo took me in. Gave me a home. A purpose. An income. He provided an outlet for my teenage anger. Introduced me to Bishop. And helped me get where I am today.”

She shuffles closer as if drawn by my pathetic story, her sandals bumping my shoes, her eyes filled with compassion.

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