Vow to Protect (Vow To Protect 1)

I rummage through the drawer he usually keeps a spare calendar in, but it’s not there. He must have taken both his usual calendar and the spare on his trip. Which means something is going on I probably don’t want to know about.

Feeling a little down about not finding my prize, I glance around the room and give it one more half-hearted search for anything that might give me a clue about the casino or the fight.

I knew I had a direct line to Adrian himself. But Rose insisted he was dangerous, and I don’t want to disregard her opinion. If I attend the fight, I can see what kind of man he is and then retreat or approach with more information.

With nowhere left to look, I sit in one of the leather club chairs across from my father’s desk to think. So what if Adrian is more dangerous than I imagined when we first met? Isn’t he the kind of man who might be able to do some damage to a guy like Sal? The only thing I couldn’t abide was roping Adrian in to help me and then getting him hurt or worse. Thanks to my father, Sal is making powerful friends in the society. The thought of never seeing Adrian again because of Sal shoots a burn through my chest I don’t understand.

It’s also not something I can entertain. Not when I’m about to be married off to a psychopath.

The police are always another option. But after the one time my father brought the police chief to dinner, and they spent hours talking, I crossed that exit strategy off my list of options.

Rose suggested more than once I do it myself. My father wouldn’t allow me to go to prison since it would sully his name and bring him under scrutiny from many sides. I just don’t have the heart to tell her I’m not strong enough. Not my best friend who endures so much by staying here with me when all she wants to do is run.

I know she stays because she loves me. And I stay because I haven’t quite given up hope that my father will return to the loving, doting man he was before we lost my mother.

Everything changed after her death—everything—and now I lay awake at night seeing the dead eyes of the woman he shot in the street a few weeks after it happened. I watched my mother die, and then I watched this woman, who didn’t look much older than my own mother, die as well. Her blood ran into the sewer drain, and I watched it mix with the rain until my father pulled me away.

Ever since then, I’ve been afraid to look at a gun, or a knife, or anything that wanders into these walls strapped to my father’s associates. Once Sal realized my fear of guns, he likes to press them to my face to get my attention. And worse, to Rose’s.

I’m about to leave my father’s office and hide out in my room with my demons when I hear a muffled groan from the door adjacent to my father’s office. I wait, frozen, and listen for a few more seconds until it happens again. Definitely a masculine groan. Am I about to walk in on a couple of staff members sleeping together?

Well, better me than the cook, or they will both be fired. I bolster myself to break things up so they can get back to work and don’t get into trouble. Then I shove the door open and blink to try to understand what I’m seeing.

It’s not servants.

It’s Sal.

And Rose.

She’s pressed over the edge of the desk Sal uses when he works with my father. Her skirt is bunched around her hips, and Sal is pumping into her from behind.

I’m not jealous. Please, who the hell would be jealous of someone taking him away from me. But it’s not him I’m watching. It’s her. And the dead-eyed look she’s wearing like the woman in the alley. Like my mother. Except she’s breathing, moving even. Struggling. She’s struggling.

Everything snaps into focus as clear as day, and I start moving before I can think. My fist connects solidly with Sal’s cheek, and he rears back as pain surges up my arm. But it throws him off enough that he releases Rose, and she can maneuver around the desk to stand behind me. She’s a foot taller, but I don’t care. Right now, I’d rip him apart with my teeth if I have to in order to protect her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demand. “You can’t fuck me, so you rape my cousin?”

He glares tucking himself back into his pants before taking a menacing step forward. “She wanted it. And your father gave us permission, so go ahead and tell him you caught us together. He won’t give a shit.”