Corrupted Vows by Kiana Hettinger

Chapter Four

Gabe

The girl’s whole body trembled.

She was shaking so bad, it wouldn’t have surprised me if she shot one of Nacio’s men by accident.

If there was ever a girl who could get away with murder, though, it was this girl.

I hadn’t even gotten a look at her face yet, but from behind, she was dynamite.

She looked like a 1950s pinup girl in capri pants that hugged her perfect heart-shaped ass and a halter top that sat so low on her back, there was no way she was wearing a bra. To top it all off, she had legs that went on for miles and long, dark hair that I wanted to wrap tight around my hand while I fucked her senseless.

Not happening though. The girl was a brunette. End of story. Which made it all the more curious why I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Maybe it was the tattoos.

I’d never really cared about them one way or the other, but the flames that covered her back and left arm, and even peeked out around her left ankle were… well, they were sexy and one hell of a work of art.

I’d taken a step toward her.

Who didn’t want to get closer to a loose cannon with a loaded gun in her hands?

The next step might have been a questionable life choice. And the one after that was plain stupid.

And then she turned, just a little. Enough that I caught a glimpse of her in profile. High cheekbones, strong, slim jawline, a smallish nose with a slight upward tilt at the tip.

My ears started to ring, and my mouth went dry.

I couldn’t see her eyes well from where I stood, but I could easily imagine the determined glint in them. Because I dreamed about it. I had nightmares about it. I’d seen it in the flesh.

She’s alive.

My hands shook.

My heart pounded against my rib cage.

Except it wasn’t possible.

She was dead.

She’d gone missing five years ago.

I’d seen her body four years ago.

Four goddamned years ago.

Get a grip, asshole.

Of course, it couldn’t be her.

This girl was covered in fire, all the way up the side of her jaw, reaching to her temple where the flames disappeared behind long bangs. Her lips were cherry red, and the eye I could see was accentuated with jet-black liner, enhancing the pinup girl image, but not at all like my girl. She’d never bothered with makeup; too busy living life to waste time on that shit.

And her left shoulder, it was covered in flames too; no way my girl would have covered up the cluster of freckles there. Before she was taken, I’d counted them so many times, traced my fingers over them so often I could still see them when I closed my eyes.

I’d traced them the day I found her body too, and I’d never forget her cold flesh beneath my fingers. It had been imprinted into my skin so that no matter where I went or what I did, no matter how many women I’d touched since, that cold was all I could feel. Cold that made it easy to hate this woman. For looking like her. For making my stupid-ass heart pound. For reigniting that cruel bitch, hope, who loved to toy with me.

Nacio leaned in close to her, his hand hovering above her shoulder but never touching her, like he worried the flames that covered her skin would burn him if he did. He whispered something, and the girl nodded, slowly lowering the gun.

“Can’t do it?” the beaten guy rasped. He was baiting her, goading her into pulling the trigger, and I couldn’t blame him. We’d worked him over so much, the guy was better off dead, and he knew it. “You were always spineless, hermosa.”

The girl’s jaw hardened.

I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could imagine the fire on her skin snapping in them.

She raised the gun, her hands steady this time, and she fired without hesitating, putting a bullet in his forehead.

The guy made no sound as he slumped in his shackles, but she did. A broken sound that pulled on something inside me like nothing else ever had.

She stumbled back, keeping just enough wherewithal to flip on the safety before she dropped the gun. The moment her back hit the wall behind her, she slid to the ground, knees up, head down.

Nacio stood there watching.

I’d followed her without thinking.

I stood right in front of her, reaching out to her; I couldn’t help it.

“Don’t, Gabriel,” Nacio barked.

“Don’t? What’s wrong with you?” If I hated the girl and couldn’t leave her like this, how cold was he?

“Leave her be,” Nacio said in a voice that probably would have intimidated a lesser man.

And then the girl with fire all over her body looked up.

She looked up at me with Cait’s blue-green eyes. And her high cheekbones. And her tilted button nose.

“You can’t be her,” I said, but the words even felt like a lie.

Her gaze was locked on mine as long seconds passed. She didn’t seem any more able to look away than me. She stood up, her back against the wall, keeping as much distance between us as possible.

“I’m not her,” she said, shaking her head.

That voice—I knew that voice. It was her voice. And it made that bitch, hope, scream in my head like a banshee.

The tattoos made no sense. The hair, the makeup, even the clothes weren’t right. She’d just killed a man. But underneath it all, the truth was shining at me like a beacon: Cait’s alive.

Alive, and leaving.

Cait took two steps to the side, and her gaze swiveled to the door, eyeing it longingly. Then another step.

I acted without thinking.

I grabbed her arm, but the moment my fingers wrapped around her, she let out a strangled cry and yanked her arm away like I’d hurt her.

She turned away, not quite running, but speeding toward the door.

“Cait!” I called out.

The sound of her name scraped against something raw inside my chest. I hadn’t spoken it aloud in four years, not since the day I’d found her body in some shithole in Mexico. Four years.

She stopped walking but didn’t turn around.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I said, running my fingers through my hair, because why else would she be walking away like we were strangers? “Christ, just tell me I’m fucking seeing things.”

Her shoulders sagged as she turned around, but she shook her head. “You’re not seeing things, but you’re wrong.” Her voice cracked, filled with something that sounded so much like pain it cut right through me. “My name is Phoenix,” she said.

I could see the lie in her eyes—I’d always been able to see it in her eyes.

“I’m not Cait; I haven’t been in a long time, and I…” She straightened her shoulders. “I don’t want you here.”

Her words stabbed into my chest like a knife.

She turned away again, and this time, I was silent as she headed across the room and disappeared out the door.

Four years of thinking she was dead, and the girl I’d loved just walked away.