Page 79 of Seeking Vengeance

“W-what do you mean? You’re my sister. I’m always here if you need me.”

I shake my head, pained by the lies. “I haven’t been your sister since the night Benji died and you know it.”

She gasps. “Is that how you really feel?”

“It’s two years later and you can barely look at me after what I did.”

“No,” she pleads. “I’m sorry if you think I haven’t forgiven you—”

“You haven’t. None of you have.”

“That’s not the case, Layla. It’s just different now. Things changed.Everythingchanged. There was my relationship with Sebastian, then the news of what our father had been doing. Then what happened to Richard. It was an avalanche of adjustment even before Dad died. Then Tobias entered our lives and everything became chaos. And Benji…” She sighs. “I guess in the aftermath, I inched away from everyone and hid in the comfortable world I’d built with Sebastian because it was easier.”

She might like to believe that story, but it’s a lie.

She pulled away from me. From what I did. Just like Cole, Sarah, Hunter, Decker, and even Luca, too. They made me a pariah. And although it was initially deserved, I didn’t earn a lifetime of this suffering.

“I haven’t held it against you,” she whispers. “I want you to be happy.”

“You want me to be happy—you just have such a low opinion of me that you think I’m weak enough to be with a man who would hit me.”

“Jesus Christ. You can’t blame us for making assumptions when you’re deliberately being secretive. You keep escaping out of town without letting anyone know and not using your credit cards to make yourself untraceable. Even now, you took off after withdrawing a whole heap of cash. What are we supposed to think?”

I glance out the window, heartbroken and needing to diffuse the conversation, while being angry and itching to blow it up at the same time. “Forgive me for not wanting to be stalked like a fugitive. Two years ago, my husband was taken from me. Now my daughter has been shipped away. I had to find something to distract myself from a house that has become hauntingly quiet. It’s goddamn lonely, Keira.”

“But why hide where you’re going?” she asks softly. “You had to know your actions would spark Cole’s paranoia.”

“Maybe I want to be free from our family for a little while… Maybe I want to pretend I’m someone else.” Someone who doesn’t have skeletons to hide and mistakes to resolve.

“I can understand that. I’ve thought the same thing many times. It’s the—”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I interrupt as Matthew returns to the table, his raised brow questioning whether I’m okay. “I only called to check in and now I’ve gotta go. Tell our brother to stop contacting me. I want to be left alone.”

“Layla—”

I disconnect, not waiting for her response, and place the cell face down on the table.

Matthew takes his seat, his jaw tight. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing. Just family drama.” I grab my cloth napkin and place it over my lap, unable to maintain eye contact.

“Want to talk about it?”

I can’t share those parts of my life with him, no matter how much I want to. “Honestly, it’s nothing.”

“Honestly,amore mio, I can tell that’s not true.” He reaches over the table, sliding his hand out for me to take.

I stare at the offering. The lifeline.

I want nothing more than to take it. To latch on. Cling tight.

“That was my sister on the phone.” I raise my gaze and paste on a fake smile. “My family don’t appreciate me disappearing to places unknown. Apparently, they can’t stop me from making careless mistakes if they don’t know where I am.”

“Are you prone to making mistakes?”

“Yes,” I admit. “I’ve made a few. I’ve trusted people I shouldn’t and paid the price.”

He appraises me for a moment, his weighty consideration stripping me bare. “Trust is a favorable quality to most. Would we be here together without it?”

---