With a grunt, I finish my set and switch to pull-ups. The wind cools my skin as I push my body to the limit, my breath wheezing out in sharp bursts. The veins in my arms pop out from underneath my skin, my muscles trembling to the point they start to cramp, but I’m eager to do ten more—anything to shake the tension from my shoulders and override the stabbing pain in my heart.
Gritting my teeth, I try to push through my torture.
Four…
Five…
Six…
I break.
My fingers loosen their grip, and I slump down on the ground, stumbling forward until my knees hit the sand. Pressing my eyes shut, I slam my fists into the ground as I try to get oxygen into my lungs. Drops of sweat tickle my skin, and it’s only when I open my eyes that I realize something has landed on my right upper arm. Trying to regain my focus, I home in on two pairs of paper-thin, iridescent wings fluttering in the wind.
A dragonfly.
Slowly, so as not to startle it, I sit back on my haunches, watching the green insect with its shimmering, blue tail scuttling down my arm. My chest heaves with my pants, but I try to remain still as I carefully pull my phone from my pocket. I’m not an expert on dragonflies, but I know that they’re only active on warm days and don’t come out of hibernation before spring.
‘When I was a kid, dragonflies used to land on me and stayed there for hours. It’s supposed to be good luck,’ Devon told me once.
I tilt my head, studying the animal from a different angle. I swear Devon has the same dragonfly tattooed on her forearm—green body, electric blue tail, translucent wings.
Is this a sign? A cue that I shouldn’t give up hope to find my dragonfly girl?
A smile breaks out on my lips as I lift my phone and take a picture. The second the ‘click’ resounds, the insect snaps out its wings and soars into the air. I watch it until it disappears on the horizon.
Devon believes in the myths about dragonflies. Maybe she’ll change her mind about us if I send her the picture.
My phone chirps, and I activate the screen.
Nick: Get back to the office. Someone’s waiting for you…
Devon! slams into my mind right away, but then I figure Nick would have called me to break the news and not compose a text with cryptic ellipses. Susan, maybe? She wanted to talk about the upcoming fundraiser.
With a last look at the horizon where the dragonfly disappeared, I brush off the sand from my clothes and jog back to my car. Two hours and a long shower later, I make my way down the hallway wearing Armani and a hopeful smile, one that wavers the second my gaze snaps to Nick exiting the meeting room. He darts a guilty glance my way before he disappears into his office. I halt in front of mine, frowning at the door. Something tells me it’s not Susan waiting for me in there.
I pull down the door handle and step inside. A tall, imposing man stands in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, legs planted wide and hands hidden inside his suit pockets as he watches the city life below like an emperor peering down at his kingdom.
I stiffen, my features turning to stone. My lucky number wants to screw me again.
Six days. I was supposed to have six days to prep for his homecoming. Practicing a go-fuck-yourself speech, shutting up the gallery, moving to a hotel for the week, something like that…
Well, it seems like federal time is over sooner than expected.
Vincent Crawford is back in town.
A theatrical pause follows when I shut the door behind me with a bang, but Vincent—relaxed and too damn smug for his own good—takes his time to acknowledge my presence. Lazily rolling his shoulders, he finally turns around, ice-blue eyes twinkling in amusement as he flashes me a charming smile.
“Good to see you, son.”
His annoyingly calm tone rubs me the wrong way, and I snap my shield of indifference in place, giving him a glassy stare and a lukewarm welcome with a half-hearted, “Vincent.”
The corners of his lips twitch in a sad smile. “I guess I deserve that.”
“You deserve far worse,” I counter with a grunt and cross the room, feeling his eyes on me as I tuck myself in my chair.
“Worse than fourteen years of scrubbing shit from toilets without ever getting to see my favorite son?”
My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline at his blunt words. Vincent never made a secret of favoring me—one of the reasons why our family broke apart. I feel sorry for Nick.
“You lost your favorite son the day you broke your promise.” I fake an exaggerated gasp. “Sorry, I meant—the day you made a promise you already broke.”
He lowers his gaze, brooding for a moment as if taking my words actually to heart.
I scrutinize him from the corner of my eyes. His once jet black hair is growing gray roots, his three-day stubble turning white at the chin. The last 5,104 days he has vegetated in a cell peppered his face with age spots and creases on his forehead, and his crooked nose speaks of the many prison fights he survived.
I grimace. His nose almost looks like mine now. I remember Devon tracing the scar with her fingers. She cracked up when I told her I smacked into a stop sign, nose-first. Which reminds me that I still haven’t sent her the dragonfly picture—one more reason to get this tiresome reunion over with.
I pick up a pen from my desk and click it, ticking off a few boxes on the task list in my notebook.
“I thought you wouldn’t get out before Monday,” I mumble, purposely conveying that I wasn’t looking forward to his return.
I see him shrugging in my periphery.
“My lawyer pulled a few strings.”
“Huh,” is my noncommittal response, and I accidentally squeeze down my pen so hard, it bores through the paper.
I keep my eyes on my notebook as Vincent strides over to my desk, bending down to pick up the remains of the broken picture. A low squeak resounds as he wipes a finger over the shattered glass.
“You married Aiko?”
Nick made good on his promise to never tell him anything about my private life. My punishment to daddy dearest. Time to show him how many years of our lives he’d missed.
“It lasted six months.”
“Six months…” he repeats in an amused tone. “Not worth the Asscher cut ring.”
My lips press into a white slash. Vincent knows about my lucky number six. I bet he asked his overpaid lawyer to get him out of prison six days earlier on purpose.
“Just like all those diamonds you stole were worth taking on fourteen years of jail time, right?”
He ignores my snarky comment and throws me a compassionate look that I want to punch from his handsome Pierce Brosnan face.
“What happened?” he asks, placing the picture on a nearby shelf.
Heaving a sigh, I toss the pen onto my desk. “She betrayed me.”
‘She literally fucked me over’ would have been more accurate, but I wanted to throw the word betrayal in his face. See what it triggers in him.
“I’m truly sorry, son,” he says in a sincere tone, his chin dipping to his chest as he averts his gaze.
His apology isn’t only referring to my marriage that was in ruins before it even had time to bloom, but sadly, his words don’t have the power to bring back the last fourteen years, nor will they ever right his wrongs.
He clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable for a moment, before he nods to the minibar across the room.