The Fire He Started

Tires shrieked against the asphalt.

The heavy grill of Vance's car stopped deadthe cold metal pressing directly against my kneecaps.

One hand rested casually on the steering wheel. He stared down at me through the windshield, his gaze so dead and hollow he might as well have been looking at roadkill.

"Don't touch her."

All I did was meet the girl for a five-minute chat.

I met his stare. "Got it bad for her, huh?"

Vance's jaw tightened. "She's willing to take a knife for me. Are you?"

A short, dry laugh scraped its way out of my throat. "Not a chance in hell."

Chapter 1

Vance was hiding a mistress behind my back. He kept her tucked away for half a year without me suspecting a damn thing.

Until a week ago. I was on my period when he dropped a casual observation out of nowhere. "You never seem to be in much pain during this time."

I froze.

It clicked instantlythis son of a bitch definitely had someone else he cared about who suffered from severe cramps.

So I played along, tossing it out like it was nothing. "My private doctor always writes me a prescription. A few strong painkillers and I'm totally fine."

Vance didn't miss a beat. His expression stayed flat as he gave a dismissive, "Hmm."

Three days later, I flew out of the country for work. He escorted a girl to the clinic.

The surveillance photos sent to my phone were grainy, her face a blur. But the way Vance hovered over hertreating her like she was made of spun glasswas unmistakably clear.

The cheating didn't surprise me. The fact that he actually gave a shit did. What kind of girl could pull that off?

Riding on that twisted curiosity, I flew back stateside without breathing a word to Vance. I had Marcus drive me straight to the stash house.

Perfect timing. Vance stepped out of his Cullinan, tossed his custom-tailored suit jacket onto the leather seats, and slipped into a cheap, off-the-rack windbreaker. He shoved a pair of glasses onto his face, ruffled his perfectly styled hair into a messy mop, and grabbed a battered laptop bag.

A laugh slipped past my lips. "Is he cosplaying a Silicon Valley intern? A nerd coder?"

Marcus kept his head down, gripping the steering wheel in dead silence.

I waited until Vance disappeared into the building before I shoved the car door open. "Wait here. I'm going up."

"Miss Celine"

I shot him a look. "What are you scared of? You think he's going to kill me?"

"He wouldn't go that far" Marcus mumbled.

Anyone with half a brain knew that the second I walked up those stairs and blew the lid off this, Vance and I were going to tear each other apart.

Especially with how volatile we'd been these past two years. The freezing silent treatments, the screaming matches, the sound of glass shattering against the wallsit was our normal.

The last blowup was two weeks ago. I couldn't even remember what sparked it. It ended with me grabbing a heavy glass tumbler and hurling it straight at his head.

He could have dodged it. He didn't.

He just stood there, letting the bright red blood trail down his forehead, fixing me with a gaze so cold it could freeze bone.

"Do you even resemble the woman you used to be?"

Hilarious. I had changed, but had he looked in a mirror lately? He was allowed to evolve, but my transformation was some kind of unforgivable sin.

I rapped my knuckles against the cheap apartment door.

Vance opened it. A soft, domestic smile was plastered across his face as he called out over his shoulder. "Leave it, I'll get it."

He turned his head.

Our eyes met.

The smile shattered instantly, the warmth bleeding out of his pupils until nothing remained but solid ice.

The transition was so flawless they could teach it in acting classes.

"Who is it?"

A pretty, fresh-faced girl poked her head out from behind Vance's shoulder.

I caught her gaze and froze.

Vance shifted his weight, blocking her with his body. "Go back inside."

His sudden, harsh tone made the girl blink, caught off guard.

A smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. I stepped forward, cutting through the tension, and thrust my hand out.

"Hi. I'm Vance's coworker. We have some project details to go over."

Vance shot me a dark, warning glance, but he didn't blow my cover. "Stay inside. We're going out to talk."

I tilted my head. "Is it a bad time? Did I interrupt Mrs. Vance?"

The girl's face burned crimson. She waved her hands frantically. "No, no, I'm not his wife. We aren't"

"Not married yet? Guess that's just a matter of time. Save me a slice of wedding cake."

Her cheeks darkened even more, and she quickly looked away, stealing a glance at Vance.

The smirk on my face widened. "By the way, I'm Celine. And you are?"

"Daisy. Nice to meet you!"

Chapter 2

Daisy. Nineteen years old. An Ivy League undergrad on a full-ride scholarship. The textbook definition of a perfect, obedient good girl.

That was all the background info I could dig up. Vance had scrubbed the rest from existence.

In the end, I never stepped foot inside their little apartment. Under the suffocating pressure of Vance's sub-zero glare, I played nice and followed him downstairs.

"How did you get here?"

"Why didn't you tell me you were back stateside?"

"How long have you known?"

Vance took a drag of his cigarette, pulling the smoke deep into his lungs. "What's your play here?"

A sharp, mocking laugh escaped my lips. Finally, we were getting to the point.

"What exactly do you think my play should be?"

Vance tilted his head, watching me.

"It's not what your twisted mind thinks it is. She's sick. I look after her. That's it."

I let out a slow, deliberate "Oh."

"And what if I call bullshit?"

His face darkened instantly, a storm gathering in his eyes. The fake, breezy smile Id been wearing vanished. I stepped out of the car. Slammed the door shut behind me.

"Celine."

I turned back.

The engine roared. A deafening, mechanical growl.

Vance had one hand on the steering wheel. The heavy SUV surged forward, accelerating straight at me.

He didn't blink. His eyes locked onto mine as he drove.

He watched my pupils dilate. Watched my muscles lock up.

Screech.

Burning rubber.

The massive grill violently kissed my kneecaps.

Stopped dead.

My mind flatlined. A sharp ringing exploded in my ears, deafening the world around me.

The car reversed. The tires spun, realigning before rolling smoothly to my side. Vance looked up at me from the driver's seat.

"Don't touch her."

It wasn't a plea. It was a threat.

"Miss Celine, are you okay?!" Marcus stumbled over, his face the color of wet ash, his chest heaving heavily.

My knees gave out.

As I hit the pavement, the realization slammed into my chestit wasn't a warning stunt.

He had genuinely wanted to kill me.

Vance had never been a saint. He was a dropout raised on the brutal streets of the slums. To claw his way up to where he was now, he was ruthless to others, and even more merciless to himself.

When I was six, my deadbeat dad used taking me to the park as a cover to hook up with his old high school flame.

They were busy thrashing around in the master suite. Vance sat with me in the living room, keeping me occupied with Tom and Jerry. I couldn't understand the muffled moans and thumping sounds bleeding through the walls. I tugged his sleeve.

"Vance, what are Dad and that lady doing?"

He cranked the TV volume to the max and clamped his hands over my ears. "It's filthy. Don't listen."

He was only a year older than me, but he managed everything with rigid precision. It wasn't because he gave a damn about me. It was because his mother told him that if he kept me distracted, she'd give him twenty bucks. That was his food budget for the entire week.

When I was fourteen, my dad eloped with his mother.

In response, my mom poured gasoline over the floors and struck a match, burning our house to the ground.

Vance dragged me out of that inferno. The gnarly burn scars still crawled up half of his arm to this day.

He didn't have the cash for tuition, so he dropped out to work the streets. I took a metal baseball bat, shattered every window in his crummy apartment, and threw twenty grand in cash at his feet to pay for the damages.

He still didn't go back to school. Instead, he headed down to the South American border, running high-risk contraband.

He used his very first cut of the dirty money to buy me a high-end designer dress. That year, I was fifteen. He was sixteen.

My mother went hysterical. "Your father ran off with that whore, and you're still hanging around her bastard son! You really are your father's spawn. I should have strangled you in the crib."

Logically, I should have stood by my mother's side. But in a twisted stroke of fate, Vance was the one who raised me. During those years when my father was busy cheating and my mother was busy hunting down his mistresses, I existed like a ghost. It was Vance who kept me company, even when there was no money in it for him anymore.

He could be covered in grime, but he made sure I was spotless. He could come home with busted lips and bruised ribs, but he made sure no one ever laid a finger on me.

Chapter 3

He never let me tell anyone about us. Said he was afraid he wouldn't be able to protect me if people knew.

He hated it when I cried. He used to clumsily wipe my tears away, glaring at me and ordering me to swallow them back down.

But later, when the tears actually stopped coming, he didn't exactly look thrilled.

"Honestly, if you just threw a fit and cried a little, I'd give you whatever you want." "Why do you always have to do things the hard way with me?"

I lay out flat in the hospital bed for a day and a half. Beckett told me to keep playing dead.

"Fine by me. Toss me a pack of cigarettes."

"It's a hospital. No smoking."

"Then discharge me."

"Can't you just use this as an excuse to quit?"

"Use getting run over as an excuse to quit? I might as well just use it as an excuse to die."

Beckett rolled his eyes, done with my attitude. "What the hell is going on with you and Vance?"

"Usually, if you so much as scrape a knee, he's tearing the place apart. This time, he didn't even show his face."

A cold smirk curled my lips. "Finally asked, didn't you?"

"Must have been killing you to hold that in."

I was just about to walk out the sliding glass doors when Blaze practically bulldozed into the lobby. We almost collided.

His face was pale, his eyes frantic. "Celine, are you okay?"

"Why are you here?"

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

"Who told you to come back?"

"Where the fuck is Vance?"

"Did you finish the operations down south?"

"I'm going to kill him!"

Not a single answer I actually wanted to hear.

I kicked him square in the shin. He didn't even flinch. He just took it, slouching his broad shoulders to bring his head down to my level.

"I'm sorry, Celine."

I slapped the back of his head lightly. "Did Marcus tip you off?"

"No. Looked into it myself."

The kid was getting sharper by the day. As he grew older, his reach was getting dangerously long. Bold enough to run checks on me now.

"How are things down south?"

"The team can handle it," he muttered, still radiating stubborn, defensive energy. "There was no way I wasn't flying back."

A sharp breath of laughter escaped me. "Right. You've got it all figured out."

Blaze trailed behind me like an overgrown puppy, grumbling and trying to smooth things over.

Then we walked right into Vance.

His face was an unreadable mask. His hand was wrapped securely around Daisy's.

So now that Ive busted them, hes not even bothering to hide it?

Blaze froze for two seconds.

His jaw locked, his muscles coiled, and he lunged forward.

I kicked him back before he could take a full step.

Beckett stood off to the side, all the color draining from his face. Talk about a goddamn trainwreck of a reunion.

"Celine, are you feeling sick too?" Daisy's innocent, bright voice sliced through the suffocating tension.

I flashed her a perfectly practiced smile. "Just a minor issue. What brings you here?"

She looked down, biting her lower lip. "I have a scar I wanted to see if they could remove it."

"Oh, of course," I said smoothly. "Medical tech is amazing these days. It'll be a breeze. A pretty girl like you shouldn't have any flaws."

Daisy's cheeks flushed crimson. "You're really pretty too, Celine."

Vances grip tightened on her fingers, pulling her slightly closer. "We need to go. The specialist is waiting."

"Bye, Celine!"

As they brushed past us, Vance gave me a polite, curt nod.

Perfect. The textbook definition of passing acquaintances.

On the drive back, Blaze's face was as black as thunder.

I couldn't help but poke at him. "What, if I hadn't stopped you, were you actually going to throw down with Vance?"

"Shouldn't I have?"

"Not scared of him anymore?"

His lips pressed into a thin, tight line. "Celine just cut him loose."

Heh. Dumb kid.

I picked Blaze up out of a dirty apartment stairwell when I was twenty. He was eleven back then, locked out by his deadbeat dad and evil stepmother.

It was the dead of winter, and he was wearing a thin spring jacket, shivering so violently his teeth chattered. His skin was mottled with purple and black bruises.

He grabbed the hem of my jeans and mumbled that he was starving.

Chapter 4

So I took him home, microwaved him some mac and cheese, and threw in a couple of hot dogs.

Vance and I were in a freezing stalemate back then. He forbade me from getting involved in his mess, ordering me to stay a good little student. But he kept coming home bloodied and bruised. I couldn't take it.

Money. Those crumpled bills were practically costing us our lives.

I caved to my mother. I told her I was cutting Vance loose, that I was ready to take over the family trust fund and claim my seat on the board of directors.

My mother scoffed. But she also knew the truththe shares my grandparents left behind were under my control. She hated me. But she needed me.

She couldn't do a damn thing to me, so she recorded my words and played them for Vance.

Vance didn't buy it. He trusted me. And because he trusted me, it ate him alive. He blamed himself for not protecting me. And the more the guilt festered, the more we fought. From screaming about logistics to screaming about feelings. Then making up. An endless, toxic loop.

Blaze was an accident. I sporadically fed the kid for about six months. Vance didn't care. But because Vance constantly walked around with that icy, deadpan expression, Blaze was terrified of him.

Later on, Blaze's father found out about my connection to his son. Those cloudy, bloodshot eyes raked up and down my body, the filthy lust undisguised.

Blaze must have overheard something. He used his last few crumpled dollars to buy a pocket knife. He backed into the corner, his knuckles white around the grip.

I made him a bowl of pasta, took the blade from his shaking hands, and told him to stay out of it.

I left the door unlocked and let the man walk into my house. I let him rip my shirt. Let him pin me against the mattress. My eyes stayed fixed on the doorway as his wife tailed him inside. They brawled. And in the chaos, the man plunged a knife straight into his wife's gut.

He bolted, taking tens of thousands of dollars in cash from my safe. Hidden infrared security cameras recorded the entire bloodbath. My private legal team sent him straight to a maximum-security state penitentiary, locked away for good.

To the twenty-year-old me, it was a flawless, calculated trap.

But Vance didn't say a single word. He just sat there in dead silence, dabbing antiseptic on my bruises.

After an eternity, he finally spoke. "You shouldn't have used yourself as bait."

"If something happened to you what am I supposed to do?"

That was the part I took to heart back then. But there was another sentence, one I wouldn't fully understand until years later.

He had muttered, "You're filthy. Go take a shower."

Vance walked through the door. I was sitting in the living room, flipping through a magazine.

"Why aren't you asleep?"

"Waiting for you."

A stupid question. He knew damn well I was waiting for him. Just like I knew he'd come back tonight. The reason was simple: I had pulled Daisy's medical records.

Vance's hand froze over the key bowl. He yanked his tie loose and sank onto the sofa opposite me.

"What do you want to talk about?"

His composure was suffocating.

I stared at him quietly. "What do you think would happen if I told Daisy everything"

Vance's head snapped up, his eyes flashing with lethal cold. "I told you. Do not touch her."

"And if I do? What exactly are you going to do about it? Forget to hit the brakes and run me down?"

"Celine, I won't touch you. But I can touch a lot of other people."

The temperature in my blood plummeted.

I stood up. The magazine hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud. I wrapped my fingers around the grip of the metal baseball bat resting by the couch.

"I'll leave her alone." I stared down at him. "An arm or a leg. Pick one."

Vance stood up. After a long, deadlocked stare, he extended his left arm.

I didn't hesitate.

I swung the bat down with everything I had.

The sickening crack of bone echoed in the room.

All the color drained from Vance's face as a muffled groan tore from his throat.

His jaw locked, teeth grinding together as he stared straight at me.

He bit out every single syllable. "Are you satisfied?"

I pointed at the door. "Get out."

He cradled his shattered arm against his chest and turned toward the exit.

I couldn't stop the words from spilling out. "Got it bad for her, huh?"

Chapter 5

Vance stopped dead in his tracks. The words ripped out of him.

"She was willing to take a knife for me. Are you?"

All the air instantly vanished from the room.

I stared at his rigid back. The tension in his shoulders was wound so tight they looked ready to snap.

He whirled around. His face was even paler than before. His lips parted, trembling slightly. "I"

A laugh bubbled up in my throat. I leaned back lazily against the sofa.

"Not a chance in hell."

Daisy had a vicious scar running down her back, a blade wound slashing from her shoulder all the way to her lower waist. She took that knife for Vance.

It happened early last year.

Out of nowhere, Vance went rabid, viciously hijacking my business deals. A kamikaze offensivewilling to burn a million of his own dollars just to cost me eight hundred thousand.

He refused to see me. Ignored my calls. Offered zero explanations.

Three months into the bloodbath, a contact tipped me off: Vance had been ambushed, and he was convinced I had ordered the hit.

The absurdity of it actually made me laugh out loud.

I spent exactly one week hunting down the real mastermind, dragged him in, and threw him at Vance's feet.

Vance stared at the guy in dead silence for a long time, then ran a heavy hand over his face.

"My fault," he had muttered. "I lost my fucking mind."

"So you think your foundation of trust started collapsing back then?"

I ignored the man's question. I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, my voice flat. "When Vance suddenly transferred to my elementary school was that your arrangement?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Just stringing you along. His mom wanted to use him as a golden ticket to crash high society, so of course she had to kiss the ring of the real heiress," the man sneered. "His mother always said the kid was a born hustler. He could read a room and play any role you wanted. If he felt like it, he could wrap anyone around his little finger."

Just like he did with me.

He tied my shoelaces. He beat the crap out of the kid who bullied me. He carried me home on his back through the snowstorms. If we dropped food on the pavement, he'd eat the dirt-covered piece and save the only clean chocolate for me.

The man clamped a cigar between his teeth, squinting into the blinding sun. "I remember you used to stuff your backpack with snacks and imported fruit every single day. All for him, right?"

"See? Once he latched onto you, he didn't have to hustle the old ladies around the apartment complex for scraps anymore."

I'd heard enough. I stood up, smoothing out my coat.

"Hey." The man called out. "I'm out of cash. Wire me another stack."

"Wait until next month."

His face darkened instantly. "I'm your father."

"Which is exactly why you're receiving monthly support checks."

"That pocket change barely covers my meals. The assets your grandparents left behind rightfully belong to me. I'm not dead yet, so why do you get to sit on the throne? If you don't send the money, I'm flying back to the States."

A cold smirk curled the corners of my mouth. "Be my guest. The second your foot touches the tarmac, I'll have you thrown straight into a federal cell."

His jaw locked. He glared at me with pure venom.

Suddenly, a malicious, twisted grin flashed across his face.

"You want to know why his mother didn't leave him a single dime when she eloped with me?"

"Because he told her he was in love with you. He said he refused to scheme against you anymore."

"If he actually got with you, his mom's chances of marrying into real money would be ruined. So, naturally, she punished him."

"Tsk. How did she phrase it again? Right. 'You think you're so tough? Here's ten bucks. Let's see if you can survive on that.'"

"Kid had backbone, I'll give him that. Didn't beg once."

The temperature in my blood plummeted. I stared down at him, my expression freezing over.

"Congratulations. You just lost half of next month's allowance."

On the private jet flying back, I didn't say a single word.

Blaze watched me, anxiety pooling in his eyes. "Celine every time you visit him, your mood crashes. Why do you keep coming out here?"

Why?

Blaze didn't understand.

Chapter 6

I didn't understand it myself at first. Not until the man laid it out bare.

"What exactly are you desperate to hear?"

"You want me to say that everything he did for you back then was fake?"

"You want to prove that the reason he doesn't love you now is because he never gave a shit about you in the first place?"

"Celine, you're a fucking simp, you know that!"

Because his mouth was so filthy, I sliced that month's allowance right in half.

This guy was the deadbeat dad who eloped with Vance's mother.

My own mother was the ultimate hopeless romantic. Even after my dad ran off with another woman, she kept wiring massive sums to his offshore accounts every single month. Then she worked herself to the bone running the corporation, guarding the family empire with everything she had.

And in the end, she pulled the ultimate stunt. She got diagnosed with terminal cancer, refused all treatment, and just let herself waste away. Her final words were: "I'm setting you free, and I'm setting myself free."

My dad's official review of her tragic sacrifice? "She was a psycho."

What kind of love did they even have? It was a strictly arranged corporate marriage. If he didn't put a ring on her finger, his family would cut off his trust fund. Even I was conceived through IVF.

In my dad's eyes, my mom was an NPC. He genuinely believed he was entitled to every single dollar she handed him.

I couldn't stand seeing him live so comfortably. The very month my mother died, I froze his bank accounts.

He screamed. He cursed. He swore I'd rot in hell. Said I was making the dead roll in their graves.

I just laughed. Let them roll.

The second month after I cut off his cash flow, Vance's mother dumped my dad for another mark.

Back in the day, because his family cut off his allowance, my dad dumped his first loveVance's momand married my mom. Now, decades later, because of a few missing dollar signs, Vance's mom dumped my dad.

I watched this whole circus unfold and practically clapped my hands.

Let them tear each other apart. Just one rule: they could never step foot back in the States