Chapter 7

The next few weeks were a flurry of preparations. Wedding invitations, elegant cream cards with gold script, arrived from the printer. Haven addressed them herself, her hand steady.

She met her closest friends for lunch to give them their invitations. They accepted them with undisguised relief.

"Edwin Rice?" her friend Claire said, surprised. "I thought you and Keegan were..."

"We were a business arrangement," Haven said calmly, sipping her tea. "It ran its course. It' s time I settled down. Edwin is a good man. My parents would have been happy."

"Happy is an understatement," another friend, Maya, chimed in. "We were all so worried, Haven. The way Keegan paraded that Cora girl around... everyone was talking."

"He' s still obsessed with her," Claire added, lowering her voice. "I heard he' s still going after the families of those boys who bullied her in high school. Ruining them financially. All for a slight that happened over a decade ago."

The news, which once would have twisted her gut with jealousy, meant nothing to her now. It was a story about a stranger.

"That' s his business," Haven said with a small smile, changing the subject. "Now, tell me what you think of the bridesmaid dresses."

She went home that evening to find Keegan waiting for her in the darkened living room. He looked like a storm cloud, his arms crossed, his face grim.

She ignored him and headed for the stairs.

"Haven." His voice stopped her. He grabbed her arm, preventing her from leaving.

As she struggled, her purse fell, spilling its contents. An invitation slid across the floor, landing at his feet.

He picked it up. "What' s this? Another gala?" He tried for a light tone, a bridge across the chasm that had opened between them. "Should I have my suit cleaned?"

She snatched the card from his hand. "You' re not invited."

He sighed, a long-suffering sound, as if she were a difficult child. "Haven, stop this. I know you' re still angry. I' m sorry. I' ll make it up to you. I promise."

He was about to launch into another empty promise when his phone rang. A frantic, panicked ringtone he' d programmed specifically for Cora.

"Keegan!" Cora' s voice screamed through the phone. "Help me! They found me! The men from back then... they' re trying to kill me!"

Keegan' s face went white. He dropped everything and sprinted out the door without a backward glance.

Haven heard the address Cora had shrieked-a rundown warehouse district by the docks. A cold premonition washed over her. It wasn' t about Cora. It was about Keegan. Those men wanted revenge on him.

She grabbed her own keys and followed, her taxi keeping a safe distance behind Keegan' s speeding car.

She arrived to a scene from a nightmare. The warehouse was dimly lit. A group of rough-looking men surrounded a terrified Cora. The leader, a man with a jagged scar across his face, held a knife to Cora' s throat.

"Valdez!" the man snarled when Keegan burst in. "Good of you to join us. You ruined my family. Now you get to watch me ruin the thing you love most."