Lethal Vows：Married to My Rival novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Six Months

I got off the floor before he could stop me, zipped my jeans, and stood over him.

"Talk."

Valentin stayed where he was, sitting against the wall with his coat across his knees.

For a moment he looked very tired.

"My uncle has been putting poison in my coffee for a year," he said.

The loudspeaker had gone silent. The pit below us was empty, a round dark hole.

"What kind?"

"A heavy metal. A little each morning, in a cup nobody checks. It builds up in the nerves first, then the heart." He lifted his left hand and let me watch it tremble. "That's why I can't hold a pen. That's why I drink only what Doyle pours."

"The doctor told you in November."

"The family doctor ran every test. He said I have six months."

Six months.

The number landed in me.

"Six months," I said. "The contract. And your uncle moved the vote to March."

"Yes."

"You didn't buy me to be your fiancée."

"I bought you to be my widow."

He said it plainly, without looking away.

"Creighton law is old," he said. "When a head of the house dies, his wife holds the seat until the families vote again. They have to swear to her. My uncle can't touch a widow without breaking the oath in front of every dock boss in the city."

"So you needed a wife."

"I needed a woman who could survive my uncle, and who'd want him dead more than I do." His jaw tightened. "I watched you put a giant on the sand with one thumb, and I thought, that one. That one will finish it."

I stared at him.

The roar in my ears was rage, mostly. I think some of it was something else.

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