I sigh, lying in our bed after eating in a deadly silence together tonight. I could tell she was studying me, as if she was trying to find the weaknesses in my skin.
She didn't eat much, either. I mean, more than the last time I saw her eat, which was on our wedding day. According to what Maria reported to me, Mia always leaves her plate full with everything cut into small bites, as if she was trying to fool someone into thinking she had eaten.
I'd drop it if it was anyone else, but I kinda wanna know why she’s got this thing with food. Mia’s fit as hell, so I wonderwhy she's obsessing over this. I don't like unanswered questions. Perhaps I should test her out tomorrow night at dinner, ask my cook Larry to make only one meal for all of us, and see how she’d react.
Or perhaps I shouldn't, but she did call me a jerk.
Might as well hold on to it.
Always been known in business for my ways of twisting people's minds and breaking them open the way I need them to. That's all I've ever been taught.
Kill or be killed.
Chase or be hunted.
Just because I accepted this deal out of…curiosityand to secure my line doesn’t mean that she’ll get special treatment. Being married to Mia is no different to me. I’ll treat her the same way I do with anyone I need to crack open. I’d been too soft on my last relationship. People have different faces when you push them in their corners. Mia’s must have a hidden facette too. A part of her that’s looking to manipulate me, fool me into thinking she’s keen on me.
I won’t make the mistake a second time.
I’ll crack her open soon and get my answers before involving myself too much.
I’ll follow my dad’s advice and this time, it will work. My old man did his best on his own before he left this earth for his rightful place in hell. Because there's no way folks like us get a warm seat in heaven after all the shit we've seen and done. He raised my sister and I on his own after our mom dozed off one night when I was seven and Vanessa was nine. Wouldn't say he was the best father but he did try, and for this, I'd say I got luckier than most men I know of. He was the prez of the Raven Sons, and just like him, I became the heir of the Chapter right after he taught me everything he knew about our way of life. He had three rules, and breaking the first was the only warning Iknew I was ever gonna get, so I knew better than to break the others.
Business before women.
Loyalty to the brotherhood.
Fight to your last breath.
Broke the first one four years ago, held onto the second one like a damn religion, and chased the last one like a drug when each fight night was around the corner, the bell of the ring never too far, holding me accountable as the president of my club.
Consistent, organized, and always planning. Always thinking ahead. ‘Cause that's how we grew so fucking fast since I got the reigns. I always had a step ahead like a chess master, killing anyone on my way to expand, submit, and grow our brotherhood.
I had this hunger in me. This need to live so fucking much and to feel so fucking deep because I knew death was always there, glancing at me with a friendly grin, holding me company each second of my existence.
There’s no point romanticizing our way of life. It’s dark, bloody and violent.
Which brings me to why I got Mia in here today. It didn't take fucking long after the package she sent me months ago with her provocative notes and red panties to understand that she wasn't like the rest of the chicks I'd been with.
Mia’s got this fire in her I never found in any other women I’ve crossed paths with. I saw it right away when I drove to Chicago and watched her outside her bedroom window, trying on dresses one night.
I had planned to watch her, then come back to Knoxville and trade a city against O’brian’s life. He didn’t have a choice then. I could have taken his life’s work, and yet, I chose her.Because watching her from the garden, hidden in the shadows of the night, had made my heart twitch in a way I thought it would never do again.
She was in nothing more but her black lace underwear, red silky hair falling on her soft shoulders, trying on dresses, dropping them on the floor, then trying some more with fucking dubious green boas and red hats. I saw a woman playing, spinning in front of the mirror, smiling, pouting, and making the most freaking adorable poses like she was in a magazine. I thought at that moment she was too young for me. Twenty-five tops, with her round face and plump lips, but then, after an hour of digging through her closet for the most extravagant shit I ever saw, she sat on her bed. Facing the window, not knowing that I was there, a few feet away, my jaw clenched at the sight that still haunts me every night since.
She sat in her black underwear, which would make any man lose their mind, her fit body so fucking toned, with creamy skin, making me want to dig my teeth in it just to see it blush from my bites. She sighed and looked at the emptiness, her gaze drifting into a place I knew wasn’t there in front of her. She just drifted away aimlessly until her brows narrowed and her gorgeous hazelnut eyes filled with tears.
If you looked too quickly, you wouldn’t have seen the sadness painted on her face, but I did. I saw one single tear fall down her cheek until it remained on her delicate jawline. One I wished I could have erased with the back of my inked hand. I stayed there, watching her, my chest tightening and my feet fidgeting like my body was trying so goddamn hard to tell me to break in and hold her against me. Against a stranger who she didn’t know would soon become her husband.
Perhaps she was already my wife then.
Perhaps watching her break was enough for me to claim her as my own.
After a few minutes, she shook her head, her fiery curls bouncing on her shoulders like a damn goddess. She wiped the tears away, exhaled, and placated a fake smile on her face as if nothing had happened.
Then she took all of the dresses and the stuff she had gotten out, shoved them into her closet without taking the time to fold them like I always did with mine, and put on a short orange neon nightgown, leaving so little for my dark imagination, and snuck under her covers before shutting down the lights.
I thought about many things that night. I thought about leaving the shadows and breaking into her room to touch her delicate face just to see the contrast of my roughness against her sweet soft skin.
