The Syndicate’s Bride

27

Ryan

At the sound of my voice, she stopped, turned off the machine and looked at me.

“I thought I told you not to follow me, Ryan. I thought you’d at least respect that.” She said dryly as she dropped the machine on the table and headed to the back, returning with a tool bag.

“You’re not going to bring out your wrench are you?” I joked, trying to lighten up the tense atmosphere, but it earned me a glare in response.

“Maybe I just might,” she snapped, then sighed, irritated. “What do you want, Ryan? Clearing I don’t want you here and I’m busy. I don’t have it in me to argue with you like I did with Owen right now,” her lips trembled slightly at the guard’s name. “I really just want to be alone. How did you even find me?”

I looked away, already knowing she wouldn’t like my reply. “I have a tracker on you.”

Her eyes widened.

“I only put it on you after your father’s assassination attempt,” I quickly added at her growing look of irritation.

“Of course you f*****g did,” she snapped, throwing the little hammer in her hand on her work surface. “Now you’re tailing me too? God, it’s like I’m living with my father again.” She said and started to walk away.

Taking her hand to stop her flight, I pulled her to me, my eyes blazing. I was really becoming tired of that comparison. “I don’t know the type of life you’ve lived with that man, but from the little Owen has told me about him, I can tell he’s a bastard,” I said with dead calmness. “Do not compare him to me again, Vanessa.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared me on. “Then don’t f*****g act like him,” she sneered.

Annoyance erupted within me. I ran my eyes over her face, taking in her features and stopping at her red rimmed eyes. At the sight, my annoyance gradually diminished. As much as the situation was beginning to annoy me, I had to remember she was the victim here not me, and it was only normal her first instinct was to hurt me as I had hurt her.

With a hum, I slipped an arm around her waist and lifted her effortlessly off the ground. She yelped, wrapping her hands behind my neck for balance.

“What are you doing? Put me down right now, Ryan.” She rushed out.

Ignoring her protests, I adjusted my hold until her legs instinctively wrapped around my waist. Moving further into the garage, I carried her to the same table where she had treated my bullet wound before, her voice still rising in protest. I gently placed her on the table and she glared up at me with narrow eyes.

“What the f**k–”

“Do you want us to die at the hands of your father?” I interrupted.

She froze, her previous glare melting into confusion.

“He’s after every single one of us, Vanessa, and he plans to use us against each other. Currently, you’re at the biggest risk of getting killed by him. He has already tried once, and he’d do it again.”

Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean by he already tried once? Are you talking about the bet?”

I sighed, shaking my head.“That assassination attempt a few days back? He was behind it.” Her eyes widened in disbelief. I deliberately left out Owen’s involvement as that was a conversation I thought the both of them should have.

“What?” She whispered.

“He wanted to kill you and frame me with your death. He’s trying to expose me for what I am, and destroy us in one move. He’s not wasting a single time.”

She listened with wide eyes, her previous anger slowly melting into dawning understanding.

“That was why Owen and I aligned,” I explained. “We’ve made plans.” I pulled out my phone and held it open for her, showing her the online tracking channels. “We’re tracking your father’s men. When they move, so will we,” I gave her some time to access the trackers before putting the phone away to get her attention. “We’ve set up decoys in six different places, some of which are close to my pack’s territory.”

“Pack’s territory,” she tested the word, “like your werewolf home?” She asked innocently.

Despite the situation, I chuckled at her choice of words. “You can call it that.” My tone hardened again. “Some are in other strategic places. When you walked in on Owen and I this morning, we were talking about one of the decoys that had been destroyed. It means your father’s men are on the move now. We have to move smarter now.”

She slowly nodded, trying to make sense of every word.

I continued. “He knows I’m a werewolf now, which makes things a bit complicated. I can’t easily be killed, but there is one thing that can kill me,” she searched my eyes for the answer. “Silver”

Almost immediately, her eyes widened. “The mechanical arm.”

I nodded. “Exactly. Once your father gets his hand on that piece of information, he’ll come after me with every silver bullet he can find.”

“You won’t die, Ryan,” she said firmly. “I won’t allow it.”

I smiled softly at her. “I know, amor, but this isn’t an issue of what either of us want anymore. But the least Owen and I could do is keep you safe. That’s why he came to me in the first place.”

“He approached you first?” She asked, surprised.

I nodded. “It wasn’t a friendly meeting, that’s for sure, but we got through our differences when we realised we shared the same goal. He wanted to make sure you were safe with me, which was wise of him considering what I am.”

“But I feel safe with you, Ryan,” she said softly, warming my heart.

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’ll always be like that.” I said, finally admitting the truth I’d been avoiding. I would never bring harm to Vanessa as long as I was alive, but who was to say my wolf won’t? “I have beastly transformations sometimes where I loose all reasoning. It can be very dangerous. But somehow, you... calm me. You’ve done it before.”

“Me?” She frowned.

I nodded. “Do you remember the first time we met? The day of the crash in the racetrack that I saved that man from the burning car?”

Her eyes widened at the memory.

“I had been so close to losing control that day, but you,” I took her hand and gently held it to my cheek, a sigh leaving my lips at the warmth, “When you touched me, I could feel all beastly tendencies dissolve. You help me, Vanessa.”

She placed her other hand to my other cheek, caressing my skin with her thumb. “I understand a lot of things now,” she softly said, “and I’m sorry for how I reacted earlier.”

“You had every right to. You don’t need to apologise. You were hurt and we understood that.” I assured her.

She let out a trembling sigh, locking her lips nervously. “I really wished you both had told me, Ryan. Keeping this a secret from me only reminded me of things I would rather not remember.”

“With your father?” I asked.

She nodded, exhaling heavily. “He’s not the man everyone thinks he is.”

She breathed out heavily again, slowly removing her hands from my face and placing them on her lap.

I leaned in closer, resting my hands beside her thighs as I watched her take uneasy breaths. Clearly this wasn’t something she wanted to talk about.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” I whispered softly.

She shook her head. “it’s okay. I want to.”

A few breaths later, she cleared her throat and began.

“My parents had a loveless marriage, an arranged marriage like ours which was one of the reasons I was so against our arrangement,” she started. “While father is brutal and merciless, mother was sweet and loving,” a ghost of a smile played on her lips at the mention of her mother. “She was my best friend, Ryan. We were always together, even when she went to work. I couldn’t go to school because I always wanted to be around her so she fought father on it and home schooled me. All classes took place in her company. That way, we were always in close proximity.”

“Mother’s company was large and very successful. She dealt in computer wares and a broad part of data security. She was really smart too,” she boasted but at her next sentence, her smile completely vanished. “Father wanted her company. If they merged, there was going to be a huge actualisation of profits, but mom didn’t want anything to do with him. So, he had her murdered.”

I tensed. “Murdered?”

She nodded, chuckling bitterly. “The day he had her killed, we were together in one of her getaway cabins. We were supposed to spend girls' night together watching movies and eating. We were on the second movie when the fire started.” Her eyes flickered close as if recalling the image. “It was too late. The fire was quick. It spread so fast that by the time a guard came, I was the only one that could be rescued.” Her lips trembled.

“When I got older, the guard that rescued me said father had the other guards around our vicinity killed before the fire to make sure her survival was impossible. He was the only one that survived, so he managed to rescue me but couldn’t save my mom in time. He said he believed the assassination was supposed to kill us both so he had to make sure I survived.”

Her tears began to fall freely as she opened her eyes. “And once he safely got me out of the cabin, the whole building exploded. There wasn’t even a body to recover. I was six, Ryan, six.”

I wiped the tears from her eyes, my own anger at her father growing. There was no excuse whatsoever for his behaviour. He was born just like my father; wicked and heartless. I really didn’t expect these similarities.

“So,” she sniffed, “father began raising me, and God, he was so brutal. As a child, he despised being called a nouveau riche, I think it irked him more than my existence. It forced him to raise me to be this perfect elegant family representative with no flaws or mistakes,” she spat with irritation. “He fed my perfection to the public while commanding my obedience through any means in private. And I mean any means. He did the worst things to me.”

My jaw ticked. I could only imagine.

“As I grew older, it only became worse. My freedom was even more restricted and I was constantly trapped in the estate, a golden cage defined by wealth. But he didn’t make any active effort to kill me again until now. It seems he no longer has any use of me,” she chuckled bitterly. “Still he wouldn’t give me my freedom.”

She sighed, her tears slowly disappearing. “The only thing I have ever been able to do on my own accord is my job in the underground racetrack,” she smiled fondly. “I’ve always loved motorcycles but I wasn’t allowed to even go near one because in fathers words ‘it is beneath my reputation as the heiress’,” she rolled her eyes. “I was finally able to work in secret after long years of waiting, even becoming the ‘masked little technician’ of the maintenance team,” she smiled, then stopped. “But he somehow found out and threatened to take it away if I didn’t marry you.”

I sighed. Her whole life was really threatened for this arrangement, wasn’t it?

At my depressed sigh, she nudged my arm playfully. “I hated it and hated the idea of being engaged to you, I’ll be honest but, you’re not so bad any more.” She teased trying to lighten the mood.

I smirked, wiping the remaining tears from her cheeks. “Not so bad?”

She laughed. “Yeah, I could barely stand you, you know. But here we are right now. If anyone told me I’d be here with you telling you about my trauma, I’d have shot them in the leg.”

That earned a chuckle from me. To be honest, I hadn’t liked her either. I thought her to be shallow and spoiled, always hiding behind her father’s protection. But my view on her had completely changed, and I didn’t think I could live without her.

Bringing my lips to her forehead, I pressed a kiss to the skin and she immediately relaxed, holding on to my hands. “You’ve been through a lot, amor, Do you remember what I said to you the other day when you stitched my injury?”

She hummed softly. “When exactly?”

“After we apologised to each other for the aftermath of the race incident.”

She was quiet for a few seconds until she pulled away to look at me, a smile playing on her lips. “You said you didn’t want me thinking about my problems because you’d handle them.”

“Good,” I smiled, “and I mean it, Vanessa. You’ve had to leave with scars placed by your father all your life because there was no one to protect you.” I leaned in closer. “I’m here now, and I won’t let that bastard lock you up again. I want you to be free.”

She gave me a watery smile, her hands going to my face to hold my cheeks again as she replied. “Thank you, Ryan.”

Just then, my phone made a screeching noise in alert. Alarmed, I reached for the device, holding on to a frightened Vanessa who almost fell backwards in shock at the sound.

My eyes immediately narrowed at the screen. The red dot identifying Mr. Logan’s men’s location beeped frantically as it kept getting closer to our destination. Immediately, I turned to Vanessa.

“We need to leave. Now!”