A Vow to Redeem the Greek by Jackie Ashenden

Author:Jackie Ashenden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-10-30T15:54:07+00:00

* * *

Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it. Perhaps he shouldn’t have revealed something so personal. But it was too late now. He’d told her, he hadn’t been able to help it. She’d given him this pin, a symbol of his charity, a symbol of hope. Because she’d been his hope.

That night in the rubble of that town, surrounded by death and hopelessness, he’d wondered what the point of it all was. He’d been involved in the business of violence for years and he was starting to lose himself. He was starting to think that maybe there was no difference between himself and those he was protecting people from. After all, he was a killer just as they were. What made him different? What made him a good person? He’d killed his brother, been repudiated by his father... Was there anything good in him at all?

A black despair had been creeping up on him, and that was when he’d seen her, a small figure fighting back against impossible odds. Indomitable. Unbroken. Her braids had been lit by the setting sun, gleaming gold, and the blood on her face had made her look fierce. She’d been so small and yet there she was, fighting back against the dark.

He’d felt something leap inside him in that moment and he’d known immediately that he had to save her and that if he had to die to do so, then die he would. He’d lifted his weapon and fired the warning shots and her attackers had scattered, and he’d been expecting her to run from him too.

Yet she hadn’t. She’d lifted her arms to him as if she’d been waiting for him, as if she wasn’t afraid of him. As if she knew completely that he would pick her up and take care of her.

As if she could see that there was some part of him that was still good.

She’d had no idea what she’d meant to him that evening. No idea how she’d turned his life around. After he’d taken her back to Kalifos and to his father, he’d turned his private army into Eleos. Mercy. Dedicated to saving people throughout the world, no matter what they needed. All because a little girl had given him hope and he’d wanted to pass that hope on to others.

Now that same little girl was giving him a pin crafted in her likeness. Giving him the gift of hope once again.

He’d never been one for signs or portents, and he’d never believed in fate. He’d never believed in anything much at all, but this gift of hers...it meant something. Hope for the future maybe, or perhaps something else, but it was something.

She stared at him now and he could see anxiety in her eyes, as if she was she worried he wouldn’t like it. ‘What do you mean, it’s me?’ she asked.

He ignored her for the moment, holding out the box in her direction. ‘Come here. Pin it on for me.’ It came out sounding more like an order than anything else, but she came over to him and took the pin out of the box.

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