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A featherlight touch lifts my chin until I’m staring through the depthless eyes of the man who made me feel strong when other men told me I was weak.
“You, my love, are right. You aren’t like the other prisoners.”
My mouth dries at his dangerous tone.
“You’re different.” He grins for half a second before he drops it, letting the real Van Gogh shine through his façade. “You’ll be my wife—my brutal sunflower.”
The light touch to my chin turns rough as his fingers hold me still while his mouth descends to mine, hovering, delivering the final blow in our war. “For great suffering comes from the crypts of my prison,” he warns, “and death from the tomb of my vengeful heart.”
At that moment, I realized that everything Van promised was a lie. He wouldn’t burn my apartment or my clothes. Those things don’t matter to me; freedom does.
The old Van Gogh would have required six years of marriage, but the man before me isn’t Van Gogh. In his fancy suit, this man isn’t the orphaned boy I fed night after night when he returned from painting our town in ash and flames.
This man is a powerful attorney who gets vengeance with loopholes and case law. I won’t be his wife for just six years.
“No,” I warn. “I’ll turn myself in.”
His wickedness knows no mercy. “If that’s what you prefer… But just know, if you confess to your little hacking hobby, it will force me to share the financial reports of where you funneled the money.”
The confidence in his tone makes my stomach clench. He knows. “Please, no. Don’t do this.”
Van grins. “I don’t need your idiot boyfriend,” he whispers, “because I have your sister.”
A sob bursts out of me, and I don’t even care who he pretends to murder because of it. “Please, Van. Please—”
“Please, what, darling? Please don’t drag your sister back to South Carolina so the police can discover what really happened to her boyfriend?”
He clucks his tongue. “The DA will have no problem charging her with murder after he parades you—the only witness—in front of the jury. Tell me, love, will you tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or will you let the darkness take you and perjure yourself to save your sister?”
“You bastard.” My chin quivers as tears stream down my cheeks.
“I might be, but then again, so are you.”
With every single bone in my body, I hate him. “Fuck you.”
“Flower,” he chides, ignoring my tears, “I am growing tired of indulging you. You have two options: Own up to your crimes and serve your time with me.” He shrugs. “Or confess to Detective Lee and risk sharing a cell beside your sister. I honestly don’t care, as long as you suffer.”
I don’t even realize I’ve tried to slap him until he stops my hand with his, merely inches from his face. “My wife will only strike me when I command it.”
I’m nothing if not stubborn. I won’t go down without a fight. “I’m not your wife—yet.”
Yet.
That word, that three-letter word, released the vigilante he kept trapped in an expensive suit.
“Well,” he coos almost sweetly, “let’s fix that.”
I don’t even have the chance to run or pull away before he has me by the wrist and pulls me into an office where an older man in a black robe sits behind the desk.
“Do it, Enoch,” Van barks. “Do it now, and yes, I’m fucking sure.”
I’m pretty sure Van Gogh is about to be dragged off to the nearest jail cell, especially when the gentleman pulls his gaze from the document in his hand to Van’s.
“Alistair,” he greets dryly, sparing him only a moment’s look before his gaze drifts toward me. “And you are?”
I swear Van—or Alistair, what the fuck ever—growls. “You know who she is.”
The man’s face hardens. “And you know who I am,” he snaps. “Or do you need a reminder?” The words are ominous, and neither Van nor I miss them.
