MARKED FOR REVENGE

Evelyn POV

The champagne was freezing in my hand, but my palm was hot with sweat. I was standing in the periphery of the ballroom, and could see the water-like movements of the people with their jewels and their fancy clothes glittering in the sunlight. No one knew who I really was. Nobody across the street knew that 5 years ago I was another person. Someone broke.

I just sipped the champagne although I was not fond of it. The bubbles put their noses against my nose, though I was not smiling. I kept watching that man, who had sturdy hair and a lean face, who had turned out to be opposite me. Kieran. Something queered my heart, and I felt it leap and fall.

He was conversing with a blonde, tall woman and she was laughing. His arm was touched by her hand and something hot and angry turned in my chest. I pushed the feeling away. That wasn't me anymore. The dainty timorous Evelyn now had passed.

You came, my father said and came beside me carrying two glasses of water. He was a big and stately male with salt and pepper hair that feigned someone significant. Because he was. He had rescued me in cases of nothing. "Are you okay?"

I accepted the water that he offered me and nodded. "I'm fine, Dad." My voice was even, cold like. Good. That's how it needed to be.

My father stared at Kieran and then at me. He made no reply, but I could read the concern in his eyes. This evening I had been told not to come. He had said that it was too soon, I was not ready. But I had argued. I had planned this for months. No longer was it running away that was going to be done to-night. Tonight was about control.

Adrian had been at home with his nanny, and was a long way out of this. My five year old son did not have any idea of who Kieran was. He was unaware that the silver-eyed man had one day turned his back on us just as we were garbage. Unless he would help me to know it, Adrian would never know it. He would become a tough guy, someone who is cherished and secure. That was my promise to him.

Kieran laughed at a joke the blonde woman made, and the volume was so loud that it pierced the ballroom noises directly to my ears. I recalled that five year old laugh and everything was different. When he had craned his neck at me with these silver eyes and made my world seem little and great at the same time. When I thought I loved him. When I supposed he could love me, too.

Then everything had broken.

My cell phone made a buzzing sound in my little black purse. I opened it very slowly, without betraying my face. One of my secretaries, a message: I have discovered that you have to see something. See me tomorrow morning in the office.

My fingers grabbed onto the phone. The evidence. She had lastly discovered the evidence I wanted. Five years of searching gave us this: after having hired people to ransack the past we had found something that would set the truth.

Serena had lied.

I had not killed Alpha Marcus. I had not poisoned him. Kieran had been duped by Serena who had framed me. He had been considered a better model than his wife. The man had taken my baby and put me into anguish.

Let me bring you something to eat, said my father and the voice brought me back to the present. "You look pale."

"I'm not hungry," I said.

"Evelyn--"

"I'm fine, Dad. Really." I walked up to him and managed to smile modestly. "I'm just tired."

He inspected my features a question a while, and I knew he could not believe me. But he nodded anyway. I will enjoy the company of other business people in the corner where I will see you when you need me.

Once he had gone I was left alone to observe Kieran. The blonde girl--his name I knew was Serena Hale, a notorious model--had been touching him, and continued to laugh at his jokes. She looked like she owned him. As he had made her win something of hers.

Kieran turned his head the tiniest of margins, and his eyes were roving the room. One second I was trying whether he would look at me. My heart held its breath. But, just in time to be conceived, Serena drew his thoughts to himself, and the instant was as dead as it was unborn.

That was fine. I didn't want him to see me. Not yet. Not until I happened to be prepared to guide him to the truth.

All of a sudden a tall man with a scarred face came into view around one of the large black doors which partly surrounded the ball room. He made people retreat somehow. He was clad in all black and had dark cold eyes of a wolf hunting. He was threatening in a different manner as Kieran. Kieran was a threat due to the fact that he was a strong boy. The man was risky since he did not have anything to lose.

The eyes of the scarred man spotted Serena and he grinned. It wasn't a nice smile.

Serena's face went white. Something to Kieran, and hurried on, pushing her way through the crowd at the scarred man. They were standing close to the doors, and although I could not overhear them, I could see her lips patting at a great speed, her hands pressing against his chest. He caught her arm, drew her to him and said some words in her ear.

My eyes narrowed. Who was this man? What made Serena so frightened of him?

The scarred man turned his head up out of Serena and looked around the room. His gaze swept upon me and he stopped. He actually stared at me, as though he was puzzled as to who I was.

I stared back at him. I didn't look away. I didn't feel scared.

Then he smiled his cold smile once again, and he said something to Serena that made her fasten her hand on his and drag him up a side street that led somewhere out of the ball-room.

Oh, I said to myself, interesting.

Something was happening. Something that went deeper than Kieran and Serena's fake romance. There was a secret, and that scarred man knew what it was. Maybe he was connected to what had happened five years ago. Maybe he was part of the reason my life had fallen apart.

My fingers clenched on my phone. Tomorrow, I will find out the truth from my secretary. And now, I would find out who this man was and what he wanted.

Kieran had rejected me and taken my son. He had believed Serena's lies. But neither of them knew what I had become in these five years. They didn't know that I was smart, powerful, and patient.

They didn't know that I was going to take everything back.

I finished my water in one long drink and moved through the crowd toward the hallway where Serena and the scarred man had disappeared. My heels made soft clicking sounds on the marble floor. My heart was calm now, steady like a hunter's.

Just before I turned the corner, I heard a voice that made me freeze.

"Evelyn?"

It was Kieran. He was saying my name like he wasn't sure it was real. Like he didn't believe his own eyes.

I turned slowly, my face a mask of perfect calm. His silver eyes were wide with shock and something else I couldn't name. Something that looked almost like pain.