Page 66 of Vow to Claim You

“How?” The word wobbles. “You’re married. You live on the other side of the world.”

“I do.” I draw back enough to hold her gaze. “I’m also married to a man whose name opens doors and ends arguments. A man my father wanted badly enough to trade me for.”

Which means, for once, that alliance might bend in our favor instead of theirs.

“They wanted power,” I tell her. “They got it. They don’t get you on top of it.”

She searches my face like she’s hunting for the bluff. “You really think you can stop them?”

“I know I can.”

I don’t feel half the steel I’m handing her. But she needs me certain, so certain is what I’ll be. I’ve faked harder things.

She exhales, shaky, and nods. “Thank you.”

“No thanks necessary.”

She hugs me again anyway.

One arranged marriage in this family was already one too many.

Two?

Over my dead body.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Aric

The meeting with Leandro drags on.

The Gods want the Monsera route locked down—shipments bound for North America, cleaner ports, officials who look the other way for the right number, and a coastline where customs inspections turn conveniently inconsistent.

I tolerate it rather than agree with it.

Narcotics have never been my currency. Guns, information, territory—those behave. They follow rules. Drugs rot everything they touch: communities, loyalties, the men who get rich off them. But orders out of Olympus aren’t suggestions, and until my father steps down or stops breathing—whichever comes first—I play by those rules.

Finally, we trail Leandro’s car, Eero driving while I scroll through the reports on my tablet.

“Still can’t get used to the wrong side,” I mutter, sneaking a quick look at the traffic coming at me from the wrong direction.

“Right? Wildly overrated.” He flicks me a glance, then sits on whatever he’s about to say a beat too long.

“Bror.”

“Hm.”

“Ayanna’s sister. What was her name?”

There it is. Should’ve seen it coming a mile back.

“Naomi.” My neck cranes toward him. “Why?”

He shrugs, but there’s that sheepish edge he only gets when something hits closer to the bone than he’ll admit.

“She’s beautiful. Isn’t she?”

My jaw sets while I exhale through my nose. Not out of anger, but rather the need to put my body between my brother and a bad idea. Ridiculous. I barely know the girl. She’s nothing to me.