Page 18 of His Savage Vow
And neither do I.
He just stares at me as he sips at his coffee, then a second later digs his cell phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants. When he turns, I can’t help but notice the massive scar on his chest that runs horizontally underneath his arm and almost to his right nipple.
“Jesus, Maximo, what happened to you?” I blurt out the question, then cover my mouth at my lack of tact. “I’m sorry, that sounded awful. It’s just…that’s one hell of a scar.” I lift my cup to my lips before I make another idiotic comment.
Maximo glances down at his chest, then raises his arm, using the finger of his free hand to trace the scar and point out several other small, puckered indentions lower on his ribs. “After my father died, one of his colleagues, a man named Javier Castilla, attempted to absorb some of my family’s holdings. Itwas…an aggressive attempt at a takeover. I was shot and had to have surgery to remove the bullet, along with the upper lobe of my lung. These other small scars are where I was hit and from the chest tubes I had to have placed.”
“It sounds like you came close to dying. Itlookslike you came close to dying. That scar is huge.”
He lowers his arm and shrugs at me, then picks up his coffee mug and drains it before standing up to go pour another cup. “I was in the hospital for several weeks. I’m not going to lie; it was a difficult time being down and out like that.”
“What happened to the guy who shot you, Javier or whatever his name was?” I’m surprised at the eagerness in my own voice. I’m so hungry for revenge I’ll even feed on the scraps left by someone else.
“Officially? Javier disappeared from the city. Some presume he drew too much heat from the turf war and fled back to Europe. Just between us, though, I have it on good authority that he was cremated over in Jersey, a week after I got out of the hospital.”
“Cremated?” I raise an eyebrow in surprise. “How did he die?”
“I just told you,” he replies. “I put him in the oven, kicking and screaming, closed the door, and cremated him.”
Maximo gives me a smirk as he sits down and sips at his fresh cup of coffee.
My breath catches. He’s serious. Dead serious.
And he’s disturbingly calm about it. Proud even of his absolutely savage retribution.
And in this moment, one thought fills me with certainty.
I’m exactly where I need to be.
Maximo is the kind of man who will teach me how to completely destroy someone. And God help me, I’m grateful to him for that if nothing else. More grateful than I should ever be.
The worst part is, gratitude feels dangerously close to desire.
Later that morning, Maximo calls me back down to the basement. This time, the weapons are all put away. In their place is a long table covered in photographs, maps, and notes.
“What’s all this?” I ask him curiously.
“Everyone who had access to your father’s restaurant and routines,” he says. “His employees. Our patrols. Even the guys who monitored the security cameras.”
There are twelve files in total. Twelve faces. Some I recognize vaguely from the restaurant. Others I’ve never seen before.
“You want me to just pick one that looks suspicious?” I ask.
“I want you to tell me what you remember, if anything, about each of these people. I want you to help me find the weak link. Even if it’s just someone your gut told you wasn’t totally trustworthy.”
Okay, he wants me to help him find the bad guy when I don’t even recognize most of these men.
Determined to be of some damn use, I move around the table slowly, opening each file and studying them. All of their demographic information is listed, personal backgrounds, and known affiliations, along with a few more photos.
Including the photos of one guy I always thought was just plain creepy. He never made eye contact, and yet I always felt like he was watching me. My father dismissed my concerns about him, though.
So, what if I’m wrong now? Maybe it’s nothing. I could put a target on an innocent man.
“What is it?” Maximo asks like he knows I’m holding back, that I’m hesitating. “Tell me, Constance.”
“I remember not being a fan of this one,” I finally admit while pointing to a man in his mid-thirties with close-cropped hair. “He spent a lot of time at the restaurant. He always looked away when I came in, as if I made him nervous or caught him red-handed doing something he shouldn’t be doing.”
Maximo doesn’t brush off my admission. He nods. “That’s Nico Pellegrini. He was scheduled to work the night of the fire and disappeared the next morning.”
