The Enemy's Vow

The first thing I learned about the Van Der Bilt family was that they buried their secrets in silk. The second thing I learned was that I was about to become one of them. I stood at the back of St. Patrick's Cathedral, clutching a bouquet of white roses so tightly the thorns bit into my palm. Blood welled against my skin. I didn't flinch. Pain was an old friend. Two hundred guests turned their heads as the organ swelled. They weren't here for me. They were here for the spectacle — the girl from Brooklyn, the one with the wrong skin and the wrong accent and the wrong everything, marrying into the richest family in America. Except I wasn't marrying the man I'd agreed to marry. I was marrying his brother. "You're shaking," a voice murmured behind me. I didn't turn. I knew that voice. Low, cold, expensive. The kind of voice that made boardrooms go silent and women go stupid. Damian Van Der Bilt. "I'm not shaking," I said. "I'm calculating." A pause. "Calculating what?" How long it takes to ruin you. "Whether I can still run," I lied. He stepped beside me. I caught him in my peripheral vision — tall, black suit, a jaw sharp enough to cut glass. A thin scar ran from his ear to his collar, disappearing beneath his tie. I'd asked about it once. He'd said nothing. That was three years ago, at a charity gala, when I was still nobody. Now I was about to be his wife. "The priest is waiting," he said. "Let him wait." "Linda." My name in his mouth did something ugly to my chest. I hated that. I hated that after everything, my body still reacted to him. I turned. Up close, Damian Van Der Bilt was worse. Not handsome — beautiful, in the way a storm is beautiful. Dark eyes that gave nothing away. A mouth that had never once smiled at me. He looked at me like I was a problem he hadn't decided how to solve. "Your brother is barely cold," I said. "Three weeks." "Three weeks is barely cold." "He's dead, Linda." His voice didn't change. "Dead men don't care who marries their widows." "I'm not his widow. I never married him." "You signed the contract." "I signed it because my mother was dying." "And now she's not." He adjusted his cuff. "Because of me." There it was. The leash. My mother's surgery. The hospital in Boston. The bills that appeared, month after month, paid in full by an anonymous donor. I'd spent a year trying to find out who. I'd found out three days ago. Damian Van Der Bilt had been paying my mother's medical bills for three years. And I still wanted to destroy him. "Let's go," I said. --- The ceremony took eleven minutes. I said I do without looking at him. He said I do without looking at me. The priest pronounced us man and wife. The crowd clapped like they were watching a play. At the reception, I smiled until my face ached. I shook hands with senators and hedge-fund men and women who wore their husbands' money like perfume. Damian stayed at my side, a hand on the small of my back — possessive, performative, cold. At nine, he leaned down. "We're leaving." "I'm not finished." "You are." He guided me out through a side door, past the paparazzi, into a black car with tinted windows. The door shut. The world went quiet. I turned on him. "You don't get to command me." "I just did." "I am not your property." "You are my wife." He looked at me then, really looked. "For one year. That was the deal. One year, and your mother keeps her treatment, your debts disappear, and you walk away with ten million dollars." "I know the deal." "Then stop fighting it." The car pulled into traffic. Manhattan glittered outside — yellow lights, crowded streets, the smell of rain coming. I pressed my forehead to the cold glass and tried to breathe. I had a plan. I'd spent ten years building it. Damian Van Der Bilt destroyed my father. He'd framed him, ruined him, let him die in a prison cell while the Van Der Bilts grew fat on the wreckage. I had proof. Almost. I had a name. A file. A man who would testify. One year inside his house. One year to find the last piece. Then I'd burn him to the ground. "Linda." I didn't turn. "Look at me." "I don't want to." "Look at me anyway." I turned. Damian was holding a small velvet box. He opened it. Inside, a ring — not the one on my finger. This one was older, gold, with a dark stone set in the center. "This was my mother's," he said. "She told me to give it to the woman I couldn't live without." My throat tightened. "Then why are you giving it to me?" He looked at me for a long moment. Then he closed the box and put it back in his pocket. "Because I'm hoping," he said quietly, "that one day you'll stop hating me long enough to tell me what I did." I stared at him. "What you did?" My voice cracked. "You ruined my father. You sent him to prison. You—" "I know what you think I did." "It's not what I think—" "Linda." His voice was soft. Dangerous. "Ask me." "Ask you what?" "Ask me if I did it." The car stopped. We were home — his home, our home, a penthouse on Fifth Avenue that looked like a museum and felt like a tomb. I didn't ask. I was afraid of the answer. --- END OF CHAPTER 1