A Twisted Arrangement (Twisted Vows #2)
1. Matthias
Chapter 1
Matthias
You might say my obsession has become a compulsion in the way I need to know everything about Scarlet Laurent. That even though I’ve stepped into the background, I could never look away from my Little Sparrow. I watch as she maneuvers through the restaurant, her honey-brown hair catching the afternoon light streaming through the windows. She looks elegant in her ice-blue shift dress that highlights her eyes. It glides over her body, giving the barest hint of her curves. There’s no doubt it’s perfectly tailored just for her.
An older gentleman and his much younger wife approach her from the side, fake smiles plastered on their faces. A line forms between Scarlet’s brows, and her fingers tighten around her champagne flute.
My teeth creak with the force as I clench them together. I want to go over there and squash whatever bullshit they’re saying. Before my feet can move, Scarlet’s demeanor goes cold, a warning and a threat.
She may have been away for the last seven years, but she’s still from one of the ruling twenty-six families of the Order of Saints. For the first fifteen years of her life, she’d been raised to live up to the highest form of society etiquette. Which, for the Order, includes knowing how to put someone in their place without breaking her outwardly perfect demeanor.
I smirk when the man bows his head and pulls his wife with him as he practically flees. Scarlet doesn’t need me to intervene, never has. That won’t stop me from tracking him down and fucking with his business profits for upsetting her. As a Lord in the Order of Saints, I’m more than capable of ruining him.
“If you stare any harder, she’s going to burst into flames,” Damon says, keeping his voice low enough for only me to hear.
“You’re one to talk.” I follow his gaze to where it’s trained on his own wife, Misty. Her pale lavender hair brushes back behind her shoulders as she laughs at something our younger brother says, causing Damon to stiffen.
I’m about to tell my older brother to fuck right off when Liam Dupont approaches Scarlet, wrapping his hand around her waist as if she belongs to him. The only thing stopping me from going over there and crushing his fingers is the way she pulls away, breaking contact. This asshole showed up while I was out of town on business and managed to fit in three dates before I could get to him.
Unlucky for him, I’m here now, and there won’t be a fourth date. Not if he wants to live.
“What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re about to kill someone.” Damon hands me a crystal tumbler filled with amber liquid, and I toss it back, savoring how the alcohol burns my throat as I finish it.
He’s not far off from what I’d been thinking.
I don’t reply, too occupied with tracking Liam’s movements. There’s something off about him today, like a poorly hidden excitement in his actions. During the week I was out of state, I used my experience as the Order’s technology expert to pull up every spec of information I could find on him. He’s an only son, from a family with ties to the Order of Saints, but they aren’t members. Bottom grifters greedy for power who try to get close to anyone who can provide them influence.
On paper, he’s smart. A Harvard alumnus, but he made a crucial mistake coming after what’s mine.
Scarlet’s the last remaining Laurent, leaving her seat open in the Order, and it’s clear this asshole thinks he has a shot at it. He’s sorely fucking mistaken.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Damon asks, his eyes hot on my face as he examines me.
“No.” I haven’t told him any of it, and this isn’t the place to explain now.
Ten years ago, when I was sixteen, Scarlet’s family attempted a coup, killing my father and abducting me and my two younger brothers, Bash and Xander. They’d locked us up in their estate in an attempt to draw out Damon and finish off the Everette line entirely.
My family has maintained the position of Lords in the Order of Saints for over a century, and that was the first time anyone came close to taking it.
I’d never told Damon the way Scarlet took care of my wounds, kept me fed, or how she held me together, fierce arms wrapped around me when the sound of my brothers’ screams pierced my ears. She repeated over and over again that they were fake, that her family was trying to get me to break. She checked on Bash and Xander, and they were safe. She’s the only reason I didn’t shatter that night.
Her father sold her off to the patriarch of the Vasiliev family, at least forty years her senior.
Scarlet’s dad had no issue with the depraved marriage, knowing the combined power of the Laurent and the Vasiliev family would only come second to my own.
So when she tried to escape, they trapped her in that castle like us. A little sparrow caught in her cage.
Yet, she still took care of me. Made sure Bash and Xander were safe and risked her life to tell Damon where we were being held.
I could have loved her just for that, but it was those quiet moments when she snuck through a hidden door to visit me that had me falling for her. It was the way she’d give me shit for splitting open the cuts she’d glued together and sit with me for hours, chatting away a mile a minute, keeping my mind from tumbling into my darkness, that was my undoing. She’d captured my heart, and there’s no getting it back.
At fifteen, she’d orchestrated our escape and aided the downfall of her family. She’d done it knowing she’d likely be executed along with them.
Damon protected her as the Lord of the Order of Saints. Kept the Laurent seat in the Order for whoever she marries. He’d thrown the Everette name behind her, making it known anyone who dared to approach her would have to go through us.
I’d have taken her away the second we’d escaped that hellhole, hidden her like a fucking dragon in my cave, if it wasn’t for the wish she’d made. The one that’s governed every breath I’ve taken for the last ten years.
I’ll never forgive myself for the things I said to her to push her away. The way her blue eyes had shined with unshed tears will torment me forever. I’ve asked myself countless times if it was the right decision, each time coming to the conclusion that I would give my Scarlet anything she needed, even if that meant letting her go.
“What the fuck is he doing?” The low warning in Damon’s tone pulls me back to the present. The muscle in his cheeks ticks as he looks across the restaurant.
I follow his gaze to where Liam lowers himself to kneel, holding out a ring. The color drains from Scarlet’s face when she looks from him to all the eyes on her. She’s trapped again, society trying to force her into its box.
What the hell is this asshole thinking? He must be desperate to propose after only three dates. I should have killed him the second I got back, then I wouldn’t have to do it so publicly. Ringing fills my ears as my vision goes red around the sides. It’s okay, Scarlet. I’ll wreck him for you.
“Fuck that,” I hiss, moving toward them, and Damon grabs my arm, holding me in place.
“I want to kill him too, but she’s got this. Scarlet’s able to take care of herself,” he says, fingers tightening their grip.
“Don’t you think I know that? That doesn’t mean she should have to,” I growl. I hate everything about leaving her to deal with this asshole alone.
Damon’s right though. She can handle it. She’s wearing her polite smile like a mask, but I can see the rage behind her eyes.
Damon claps me on the back. “Relax, brother. That was the biggest mistake that asshole ever made.”
His wife, Misty, waves at us from across the room, and Damon immediately stands taller.
He gives me a quick glance. “You good?”
“I’m fine. Go see your wife.”
He gestures from me to where Scarlet’s standing alone, Liam nowhere in sight. “Don’t think I’m letting you off on explaining what the hell was with you today. You’ve been acting weird ever since Scarlet came back from college, and I’m done waiting for your explanation.”
I raise one brow at the threat. Damon’s the head of the Order of Saints, but he’s never held it over my brothers and me. So I know this command is coming as my brother and not his position.
“Fine. Later.”
“Later.” He nods.
I know he’ll hold me to it. I just need to make sure I’m ready when he does because he needs to understand.
I let her slip through my grasp once. This time, I’m never letting her go.
Liam doesn’t notice me until I’m less than a foot behind him. He turns toward me, eyes going wide, and I close the distance even more, keeping my voice as low as possible as I warn. “You are fucked now, Liam.”
“What?” He stumbles back, and I grip his arm, holding him in place.
“Take this as a warning. Never show your face again, or I’ll make your life so miserable you’ll regret each breath you take. After all, some things are worse than dying, and they happen to be my specialty. So run along before you learn exactly what I mean.”
I let him break free of my hold, his mouth dropping open, then closed several times before he can speak. “You’re insane.”
A dangerous smirk curls the corner of my lips. “I’m glad you’re finally catching on.”