Page 3 of His Savage Vow
“If you disrespect my mother again,” the man at the top of the grand staircase says, “you’ll fucking regret it.”
Maximo Luciani grips the handrail like he’s deciding whether to rip it off. He’s just as intimidating as I remember, tall, at least a few inches over six feet, and the shoulders of his suit jacket are taut with the muscles underneath, his black hair too neatly parted.
He doesn’t look surprised to see me. He does look annoyed. Violently so.
“Constance Monroe,” he says by way of greeting. “I’ll forgive your insolence this time since I know you’re still grieving. Your father was a good man?—”
“And now he’s dead, thanks to you!” I interrupt him before walking up the stairs, each heel-click echoing like a countdown as I stalk towards him.
His jaw flexes once, subtly. “You blame me?”
“Of course I blame you!” I reply. “I know my dad died…he died during what was supposed to be one of your deliveries.” He frowns at me, as if shocked by my words or my audacity of showing up in his house to call him out to his face. I climb up the last few steps separating us. I don’t like having to look up at him, as if he’s somehow superior to me.
“You may not have set the fire,” I say, then stab my index finger into his chest while staring him right in his deep-set, dark eyes. “But you let my father die.”
Metal clicks echo from below and above us, the sound of what I’m certain are guns being cocked.
“Stand down,” Maximo grits out. It takes me a second to realize that he’s not talking to me.
From the corner of my eye, his army of men in dark suits lower their weapons, some of which are the biggest guns I’ve ever seen.
“Leave us,” he orders, and they instantly obey, returning to wherever they were hiding before.
“What do you want from me, Ms. Monroe? An apology won’t bring your father back.”
“I want some fucking answers!”
“And you think I don’t?” he mutters.
“What?” I ask in confusion.
“Let’s sit down and talk. And maybe find you a goddamn towel so you’re not dripping rainwater all over me.”
He glances down, and I do the same, seeing the water droplets on his leather loafers. My father is dead, and he’s worried about his expensive shoes?
It may be childish, but screw him. Pulling all my hair around one side of my shoulder, I wring it out in my fists, letting it pour onto his shoes while holding his gaze.
Before the last drop falls, he moves.
One second, I’m standing smugly in front of him, and the next, my hair is wrapped in his fist, and my back is arched over the staircase railing. The world tilts upside down. I grab the handrail in a white-knuckle grip while staring at the marble floor far below.
Dropped from this height onto my head may or may not kill me. I don’t really want to find out.
“This is your final warning, Ms. Monroe,” he says, voice disturbingly calm.
“Oh,fuck you! They’re just shoes! You can buy a dozen more pairs. My father is dead!”
There’s a dangerous beat of silence, then, “Your father never missed a payment or caused any problems with my shipments. He was respectful, profitable. I liked him.”
“Too bad that respect and profit wasn’t fireproof.”
“Do you want to join him on the other side now?” he asks in a cold whisper, gripping the waistband of my pants as if to finally toss me over the rail.
“What I want,” I blurt out, blood pounding in my ears, “are the heads of all the men who set the fire or gave the order! Can you give me that or not?”
The world snaps upright so fast I get whiplash. My knees buckle, and I have to catch myself on the railing.
“Maybe,” Maximo says.
