Sweet Wicked Vows (Wicked Dade #1)

Chapter One

“Did you hear me?” Frederic tapped his knuckles on the desk between us. “The old batard is finally dying.”

“Are you sure?” I stifled a yawn.

“I have it on good authority.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “That’s what you said the last time. Turned out he was down with the flu. Nothing a couple nights rest and a bottle of cough syrup couldn’t fix.”

I wanted more than anything for it to be true, for the man who ruined our family to finally meet his end, but I gave up hoping for karma to catch up on Lexington Reynolds long ago.

He was as sly at evading death and misfortune as he was rich.

“Stefan confirmed it last night.” Frederic passed a photo from inside Lexington’s home. Whoever managed to snap the shot got all the way into the bedroom, and sure enough, the man was as close to death as a corpse six feet under.

He lay in his four-poster bed, surrounded by machines and wires going in one direction and out another.

Well fuck.

I let out a low whistle. “I’ll be damned.”

Frederic grinned. “It’s about time he did everyone a favor and spent the rest of his life down in the pits of hell.”

Attached to the grim photo was a copy from the Reynolds family’s private doctor, confirming Lexington’s latest results and bleak terminal diagnosis.

If he was lucky, he had six months left.

I handed Frederic the information back. “It’s a shame.”

My brother frowned. “How so? The man ruined our family. He’s the reason our maman is no longer with us. He’s the reason Father is so desperate but too fucking weak to join her.” A vein in his throat bounced to the surface. “He’s the reason you and I had to give up so much. You should feel no remorse for such a man.”

Sometimes, it was easy to forget about our past whenever we were surrounded by wealth and success as men.

My brother was right. We’d given up so much and worked so hard to fix the wrongs Lexington Reynolds had done to our family.

He destroyed our father’s business, took everything from him, and left him without a single penny to his name. I never understood why our maman went from being the sunshine in our lives to a meek shadow of herself until I was old enough to understand that she did not want to live in a world where her one true love did nothing but try and drink himself to death.

“I don’t feel any remorse for him.”

“Then why is it a shame?”

I smirked. “It’s a shame I won’t be there to watch him die. I’d give good money to be the one to unplug his life support. To be the last face he sees before he dies.”

After our maman died, I saw the truth with my own eyes. Our father was a weak man. He let his own business partner and so-called friend leave him and his family with nothing.

The real kick in the teeth? Our father simply accepted his fate.

Pathetic excuse for a man.

We swore we’d get revenge, not for the man who was busy poisoning his liver and wallowing in self-pity, but for the woman who gave us life.

“Funny you should say that.” Frederic smiled without feeling. He twisted the black ring on his right hand—a tell he did when he was leading up to revealing something. “What if I could give you exactly what you wanted?”

My jaw clicked into place.

Whatever my brother had planned, whatever scheme he had mapped out—he usually kept me in the loop. Watching him toy with the black platinum band on his finger, the corner of his left eye twitching, I knew whatever was going on, he’d kept me out of it for a reason.

And I knew I wasn’t going to like it one bit.

“And what exactly is it that I want, Freddie?”

I smirked as he pretended the childhood nickname didn’t bother him, but we both knew he died a little more inside every time I called him it.

“To finally pay Reynolds back for all that he did, not just to our family, but all the other families and lives he has crushed along his way to the top,” Frederic said. “What if I could give you a chance to be there? To be the last face he saw as you destroyed his company and left his family in ruins just as he took his final breath?”

My body went still in the chair, my hands painfully gripping the leather arms. “I’m listening.”

Ice laced my brother’s feral grin. “How does D.R Group sound to you?”

I remained silent, my back teeth throbbing as they clashed together. Frederic was always one for theatrics. He loved the sound of his own voice. I learned long ago that it was easier to remain silent and let him grow bored with a non-participating audience.

“Dade and Reynolds. A working relationship between us: Dade Diamonds and Reynolds Regality Jewels.” He clasped his hands together. “Then we would no longer be competitors, granting us access to territories such as North America and the majority of Europe, where we rightfully belong.”

“Why the hell would we do that?”

“Because, frère cadet, that way we… you will have complete access to Lexington’s company. You will be a man on the inside, a mole per se. You will be able to destroy him and his empire from within the belly of the beast.”

“And how do you suggest we would create such a match made in heaven?” I scoffed. “Last time I checked, Reynolds does not do business with anyone. We are but a fly to be swatted to him in terms of competitors.”

Even though we banked the same as him three years running, he still refused to admit we were an impending threat. He saw himself as having the monopoly, which, granted for a long time, he did.

My brother and I spent years getting Dade Diamonds to the level it was today.

A lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

“The daughter,” Frederic said. “She is the ticket to getting everything we want.” He rummaged through his desk and pulled out a file. “Rumor has it, she will be the next interim CEO until her idiotic younger brother is ready to step in. Reynolds is planning on announcing the news at the end of August.”

I opened the file. A copy of Reynolds’ will confirmed his daughter’s position as acting CEO for one year to allow her brother to finish his degree at NYU.

“How is she the answer?” I asked.

“You’re going to marry her.”

The hell I was.

“How can she help? She is the furthest thing from an answer. The woman knows nothing about her father’s business. She’s a journalist, for crying out loud.”

“Exactly, she is going to need help. She will need someone to take her by the hand and show her how to do the job, and that person is going to be you.”

“Sorry to be the one to break it to you, Freddie, but she is already engaged.”

My brother tapped the side of his nose. “Not anymore. The whole thing isn’t common knowledge, but the Larkin lad called it off last month.”

I laughed because he had to be out of his goddamn mind.

Frederic sat in silence until I stopped. “I’m not joking here, Jaxon. You marry the Reynolds girl, and for the year she is in charge, you will own fifty percent of Reynolds Regality Jewels. Being married and having that access to the company will allow you to finally get justice and revenge for maman. It will let us put rights to all of Lexington’s wrongs.”

Revenge.

It was everything we ever wanted.

Adrenaline spiked through my veins. The familiar crawling sensation settled along my skin as my mind reminded me that this moment was all I—we worked for.

How poetic would it be to watch the man who left us in ruins be able to do nothing to save his family from the same fate?

“We make them—her—believe that this marriage is a mutually beneficial business transaction. You will guide her to be a somewhat passable CEO for the year in exchange for access to their markets,” he continued. “But by the time the year draws to an end, Reynolds’ entire empire will be in ashes. All his business will come running to us, straight into our open and welcoming arms… their saviors from the sinking ship that’ll be Reynolds Regality Jewels.”

Inside the file, a photo peeked out from the behind copy of the will. A pair of wild jade eyes stared back and dared me to get lost within them.

I frowned, slamming the file shut. “She’ll never go for it.”

“Leave that to me,” he said. “She will think it’s a good idea. Trust me.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Don’t worry, frère cadet. You just do what you’re told, and I’ll handle the rest.”