Page 18 of Forgotten Vows

Adriana is shaking next to me, holding the boy against her, who is trembling as well. Neither of them says a word—not to me, anyway. Adriana looks down at him and nowhere else, murmuring soft words in Italian as the car speeds toward our getaway. I want to reach for them both, but I stop myself.

Not yet. Soon.

The tires squeal as Cormac slams on the brakes next to the plane, and I usher Adriana and the boy out. She spins to face me, her complexion still pale.

"Where are we going?"

"Chicago." I press my hand to the small of her back, and I feel her flinch, another knife to my chest. "Come on. We have to gonow."

"I don't know if—" She starts to protest, and I scoop her into my arms again, ignoring the way she gasps and shoves at me as I carry her up the stairs. Behind me, Cormac ushers the boy up as well, and the door closes behind us as we all finish boarding.

Within minutes we're taxiing toward the runway, leaving New York and the Santoro estate and everything behind. When I turn back to look at Adriana, standing exactly where I set her down still, I expect to see relief. Gratitude. Maybe even tears of joy, now that she realizes we're getting away safely.

Instead, Adriana turns to me with wild eyes, her whole body rigid with tension and fear… and something that looks a lot like betrayal.

"What the fuck is going on?"

5

ADRIANA

The plane is moving beneath me, engines roaring as we taxi toward the runway. I can feel the vibration in my bones, in every nerve ending in my body that's screaming at me that this is wrong, that this is all wrong. I need to get off this plane right now before it's too late.

But it's already too late.

The door is closed, and we're moving, picking up speed. In seconds we'll be in the air, and there will be no going back, no way to undo whatever the fuck just happened. No way to explain to Gio why I'm not in my room when he comes looking for me in the morning.

Oh God. Gio.

My stomach lurches, bile rising in my throat, and I have to swallow hard to keep from vomiting right here on the pristine cream carpet of this private jet that belongs to—who? Who does this belong to? Who is this man sitting across from me? The boy I loved ten years ago didn't have tattoos crawling up his neck or scars cutting through his eyebrow or that hard look on his face as he watches the runway taxiing by and then turns to look at me.

"Adriana." His voice is calm, like he's talking to a spooked animal.Like he thinks if he just keeps his tone level and soothing, I'll stop panicking. "I need you to breathe."

"Don't tell me to breathe." My voice comes out shrill, and I can hear the edge of hysteria in it, but I can't stop it. "Don't tell me to do anything. You—you just—what did youdo?"

"I got you out." He steps toward me, and for a second all I can think is that his eyes are so blue. For a moment, I'm eighteen again, and he's twenty, and we're in the garden, and he's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters. "I got you and Matteo out of that house. You're safe now."

"Safe?" I feel like I'm struggling to draw air into my lungs. This person in front of me is Lachlan… and it's not. It's the boy I loved behind a mask of an entirely different man, and I can't calm down. I don't understand what's happening, and if Gio comes after us…. "You think I'msafe? You think kidnapping me and my son in the middle of the night makes us safe?"

"I didn't kidnap you?—"

"Then what the fuck do you call it?" I have to grab the back of the seat to keep from falling. "You broke into my home, you took me and my son without asking, without explaining, without giving me any choice in the matter?—"

"You didn't have a choice in that house either." His voice is harder now, an edge creeping in that makes something cold slide down my spine. "You were a prisoner there, Adriana. You and Matteo both."

"That's not—" I can't finish the sentence, because itistrue. I was a prisoner. I have been for ten years, ever since the night I watched Lachlan disappear into the darkness and told myself it was the right choice, the only choice that would keep him alive.

And now he's here. He'shere, and he's not the boy I remember. He's not the sweet teenager with the crooked smile and gentle hands who used to kiss me like I was something worth protecting. This man is dangerous. Violent. I saw the way he moved through the house, an echo of every other man I've ever known all my life.

Who are you?

The question burns in my throat, but I can't ask it because I'm notsure I want to know the answer. I don't know if I can handle knowing what the last ten years have done to him—what he's become in the time we've been apart.

"You need to take us back." My hands are shaking so badly I have to clench them into fists to hide it. "Right now. Turn the plane around and take us back before?—"

"Before what?" He takes another step closer, almost as if he can't help himself, and suddenly the space between us feels too small. I can smell him—leather and gunpowder and that scent of his skin that suddenly drags me back into the host of memories that I try to keep buried. I don't recognize this man, but God, he stillsmellslike Lachlan. It makes my chest ache with a longing so intense it's almost painful.

"Before Gio realizes you're gone? Before he comes after you?"