Vicious Vendetta
Lust and loathing tore him bare
Lying and cheating, how could she dare?
No longer he knew this girl he saw,
Betraying him became her biggest flaw.
Kingston
Who was she?
Who was this person masquerading as Vienna?
The Vienna I’d known valued people and relationships. She was loyal and committed and would never betray the one she loved. How could she have hidden the fact that she was engaged? How could she have played me for her fool and cheated on her fiancé—
The same way she betrayed you in the past.
The thought pierced me as I halfheartedly went over the Dubai blueprints.
She isn’t what she seems to be. She made you believe she was somebody she wasn’t. This is her true nature.
My thoughts kept going back in time, trying to solidify their argument, reminding me how she’d run away without a word after all we’d shared. I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that she was engaged and we slept together just a few days ago. Despite her less than pristine history, I still couldn’t accept the fact that she was a cheater.
That didn’t seem like the Vienna I knew.
That didn’t seem like the nervy, beige Vienna either.
I marked the mistakes on the blueprints, diverting my pent-up anger and frustration on the piece of paper.
Nothing was what it seemed, nothing was making sense, and everything was falling apart.
And Alex was back early, and he and Vienna had been chatting like old fucking friends. Had they stayed in touch all these years? After Vienna walked out of my life, I’d made it a point never to mention her, especially to Alex. The night of our confrontation had been the last night I’d talked about Vienna. It was that very night when I’d made the biggest mistake of my life: I’d chosen Vienna over my family, over my brother and my father.
And she’d left me like I was nothing.
That night, Alex had just stormed out of my office, giving me an ultimatum to leave Vienna, not allowing me a chance to reason with him. All he’d wanted was for me to decide, but I couldn’t, it wasn’t just my decision—I needed to know where Vienna stood. I needed to know if she felt the same about me. Feeling it and declaring it were two very different things.
But Vienna had been nowhere to be found. I went looking for her all over my grandparents’ huge manor, but there was no trace of her. She’d just disappeared, leaving nothing behind, not even a clue as to why.
Desperate and concerned, I’d reached out to Alex.
He’d been chugging his second bottle of Scotch when I walked into his room, laughing at me in his intoxicated state as I asked him her whereabouts.
“Stop drinking, Alex, it’s enough.”
“Who cares? Nothing matters anymore. I lost everything today.”
I tried grabbing the bottle out of his hands, but he pulled away, barely managing to keep standing.
“No, you’re not taking this away from me as well, brother. No, not going to happen.”
I ignored his jabs. “Vienna is missing. We need to look for her. I’m going to check the video surveillance. She’s gone and so are her things.
“Go right ahead,” Alex snarled. “But you won’t find anything. She isn’t missing.” He swayed in place, his eyes out of focus. “She left.”
“I don’t believe you.” I ignored him and the voice inside my head that screamed the same thing as I walked toward the backyard. Maybe she was by the pool; she always loved to be there under the night sky and stare at the stars. She wasn’t there, so I walked to the security room to check on the video feed for the entire estate. She had to be somewhere around here. It was a huge mansion, and she liked to explore.
Alex followed me, still drinking and blabbing. “It seems you’re the one who’s drunk, brother, because you can’t see things straight,” he said, as I told Dave, our security head, to pull up the surveillance.
“Shut up, Alex, now isn’t the time. I need to talk to Vienna.’
“Ain’t going to happen. She’s gone. She ran away from you. She left you,” he spat, taking another swig of alcohol. “Look all you want, but all you’ll find is her walking away.”
“Anything, Dave?” I ignored Alex as I waited for the footage to load…
“She betrayed you. She used you, made you fall for her, and then she left you the same way she betrayed me.”
“Here she is, leaving, sir,” Dave said. “She left around ten seventeen pm, according to the timestamp.”
That was at least an hour ago.
Vienna had her bags on her as she stormed out of the mansion, not looking back.
I was shocked.
“Told ya she left.” Alex laughed. “And what an irony, huh?”
I turned around, finally accepting the possibility that what Alex was saying was probably true.
“I guess it serves you right,” he slurred and laughed.
I ignored him and dialed Vienna’s number.
Why had she left?
Where did she go?
Was she all right?
I needed to look for her. It wasn’t safe to be out at this hour. Our mansion was fairly secluded from the neighbors and there wouldn’t be any transportation available.
My eyes met Alex’s as I waited for her phone to ring.
Alex smirked. “You deserve that lying conniving bitch. That fucking whore.”
My phone dropped, and my hands were on his collar in a split second, shoving him into the wall.
“Don’t you dare, Alex. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret tomorrow. Don’t make me forget that you’re drunk and totally out of your senses.” I shoved him harder into the wall and glared at him.
He glared back, pushing my hands away and shoving me away from him, barely managing to stay on his feet.
I bent and grabbed my phone, choosing my battles and letting Alex go. Now wasn’t the time to start a fight. I needed to find Vienna first; I needed to make sure she was all right. This wasn’t like her.
“It seems like you chose.” Alex shook his head.
“Now isn’t the time, Alex. I need to find Vienna. Once she’s here, we three can talk and sort this out.”
“There’s nothing to be sorted. She chose you, and you chose her. I… Well, I don’t matter.” He looked broken and pained, waiting, and deciding.
“You’re wrong, Alex,” I tried to clarify.
“Doesn’t matter anymore. I’m done. You chose, and that ends it all.”
That was the moment that changed the course of my life forever.
And history was repeating again.
Vienna coming back into my life was once again pushing me toward my destruction.
My failure to resist her, my surrender to my desires and her power over me, everything was rewriting itself, trapping me, enslaving me.
I needed to talk to Alex; I needed to stop her from destroying the last thread of connection we had left.
I called him on his cell, but he didn’t answer. Even my secretary couldn’t reach him.
I grabbed my jacket, wanting to step out to get some fresh air. As I put it on, the diamond-encrusted shooting star cufflink caught my eye.
Fate’s little hint.
My grandmother had always talked about shooting stars and how much she believed in their magic. Over the course of my life, I’d been repeatedly reminded how very wonderful and magical a shooting star was. I argued it wasn’t even a star, rather a meteoroid, but she didn’t care. In fact, she’d gifted me those cufflinks at my high school graduation, reminding me to always believe in the power of my desires, and that if it were real and from the heart, it would always come true. I didn’t think much of it then, not until the day Vienna stepped into my life with the same set of beliefs—in life, in magic, and in shooting stars. It was this very shooting star that had broken the ice between us, that had pushed us past our opinionated ideologies. It was this very shooting star under which we’d first kissed, and under the same starlit skies when we’d first become more than just two constantly fighting and arguing strangers who were oddly attracted and drawn to each other. We’d become lovers.
“What is it you needed to talk to me about?” Alex’s curt voice ripped my thoughts from the past as he walked into my office. He seemed calm and distant, his eyes cold and emotionless. His arms-crossed attitude pissed me off. Resisting the urge to confront him, I mimicked his posture, taking the moment to calm my growing anger. His lack of effort toward our relationship had never sat well with me. He’d never, in all these years, tried to mend what had been broken, and I was getting tired of doing it all by myself.
A few more breaths passed before it felt safe enough for me to speak. “Need to talk to you about the Dubai project.”
“What about it?” Alex made no move to take a seat.
I started at him and took my seat. “Have a seat, Alex, and we’ll discuss it.”
“Is it going to be long?”
“Long enough for you to sit down and not stand there ready to run. I don’t bite.”
“But you stab.” He glared at me, ready for a fight, but I avoided his bait, maintaining a professional demeanor, my anger well in my control.
“I called you to discuss work. I have no interest in bringing up personal issues.”
“You still have feelings for her after all this time. After all that’s happened, you still can’t help yourself?”
“Now isn’t the time, Alex, let it go.” I pushed the file toward him and ignored his taunt. “Have a seat, and let’s discuss this project.”
Alex walked up to the chair facing me, not bothering to sit, leaning, holding the headrest. “Tell me, are you over her?”
“Alex.” I stared up into his eyes. “Not now.”
“Answer me,” he hissed, not ready to budge.
“Let the past go.”
“Vienna around you, working for you, doesn’t affect you? Are you telling me you haven’t revisited those moments in your head over and over again ever since she came back into your life?”
“We need to get Bryant to make sure all our permits are set up for next month before this project starts.” Avoiding Alex’s accusations, I looked through the documents, hoping he’d let go, but Alex didn’t budge.
“Oh, stop acting like this doesn’t affect you, Kingston, because I know it’s nothing but a façade.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“You still have feelings for her. Accept it.”
I stood, my patience hanging by a thread, as I met his anger with mine. “You want to hear a yes, Alex?”
“I want to hear the truth.”
“The truth is I loved her, so I’ll always have feelings for her, but that means nothing at all because I’ve moved on. She no longer matters.”
“You lie.” His anger flared with every word he spat at me.
I didn’t care. I’d had enough. “I won’t justify myself. I’ve done all I can to make you see reason, but you haven’t let go. You don’t want to move ahead and leave the past in the past.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“No, it’s not, but I made the choice to move on. I made the choice to make peace with all that happened. I tried to make things right.”
“After you ruined everything,” Alex pushed. “You’re the reason I lost the one girl I loved. You’re the reason I don’t have a brother I can trust, and you’re the reason Dad isn’t here with us.”
“Don’t you dare talk about Dad.” My anger flared at Alex’s cruel words, but he didn’t care, he just stood there and continued to rip my heart out word by word.
“Kingston, you chose her that night. You chose her over your family.”
“Alex, you’re crossing lines.” I looked at Alex, momentarily seeing the same pain in his eyes as I felt. I could never forget that night—the worst thirty-four hours of my life. In those moments, choosing to run behind Vienna, trying to find her, I’d missed calls from my mother as she struggled to get hold of her sons, trying to inform us about our father’s second stroke, neither of us aware or available at the moment. Alex had been passed out in his room, while I’d run around, too engrossed in finding Vienna, worried sick for her safety, as my father had fought for his life. As the doctors in Germany tried to do all they could to save him. It had taken me twelve hours and a text from Vienna saying It’s over before I came back to my senses. It was in that state of shock from Vienna’s betrayal that I’d answered the call from my mother, stating that my father was fighting for his life. I’d rushed to the manor and woken Alex, flying us out only to be too late, only to find our father had passed away. It was the biggest regret of my life.
“After all that’s happened, you still can’t let her go?”
I snapped at his last taunt, the ghost of my past and Alex’s words setting my anger free. “Seems like neither can you,” I shot back. “Even when you’re the one getting married in two months.”
Alex’s jaw tightened at my statement. He hadn’t expected me to snap back. But he had it coming; he’d pushed me far enough, and now it was my turn.
“She’s my friend.” Alex defended his stand, his anger faltering, knowing very well what me losing my temper meant: total annihilation.
No longer concerned about Alex, I pounced. “I thought she was more,” I pushed.
“That’s none of your business.”
“But what I feel for her is yours? Since when did you become a hypocrite, Alex? I knew you to be an honest guy.”
Alex snarled. He was at a loss for words, not expecting me to come back at him like this. But I couldn’t protect him forever. For the longest time, I’d allowed him to bring me down, to make me feel guilty for my choices. But now it was time he dealt with the reality and accepted it. It was time for me to free him and myself of this past we shared.
“Send me the file. I’ll look into it later. I need to go. I’m done here.” Alex turned and walked toward the door, knowing very well what the outcome would be if he stayed.
“Vienna was never meant to be yours. Her being back now doesn’t mean she’s back in your life for another chance. What you feel for her isn’t love, Alex, it’s an obsession. You’ve always been stubborn, and if you can’t get what you want, it’s hard for you to let it go. You get obsessed with it until you get it. But this time around, it’s a person, and you can’t force someone to feel a certain way about you. That’s not how relationships work. So, if possible, let it go and move on. Move on with Chloe and make a future together.”
Alex stopped, hesitating before he turned, anger resurfacing. “What I do, Kingston, is no longer your concern. But just so we’re clear, if Vienna’s not for me, she’s definitely not for you.”
“For your peace of mind, I’ve moved on, and its time you do, too.” I pressed hard on the fact, indirectly trying to convince myself.
Alex wasn’t having it. “I don’t think so, but it doesn’t matter.” He smiled. “Because you might not have moved on, but she surely has.”