She turns in my arms, water sloshing over the sides of the tub as she faces me with an expression I cannot read. “We are not actually married. A contract is not the same as?—”
“You are my wife. And that contract is all that is needed in our world.” I cup her face in my hands, holding her gaze with an intensity that leaves no room for doubt. “What you signed makes everything binding in all the ways that count. To my brothers, to my enemies, to everyone who matters. You are my wife now, Persia. My queen. And I will destroy anyone who tries to take you from me. We can take care of the mundane legality of it in the outside world later.”
Fresh tears spill down her cheeks, but she is smiling, a trembling curve of her lips that looks like the sun breaking through storm clouds. “What about a church wedding? I always imagined…”
"Like I said, that can come later.” I brush the tears away with my thumbs, gentle despite the violence that lives in my hands. “We can have any kind of ceremony you want. A cathedral full of flowers. A beach at sunset. A fucking mountaintop if that is what makes you happy. But this—” I tap the ring on her finger. “Thisis what makes it real and that piece of paper you signed. This is what tells Magnus and your father that you belong to me.”
She kisses me then, soft and sweet and tasting of tears and the future I never thought I would have. When she pulls back, there is something new in her eyes, something that looks dangerously close to the emotion I have been fighting since the moment she walked into my club.
“Speaking of…what about Magnus?” The question shatters the peace of the moment, dragging us back to the brutal reality of the world waiting outside this bathroom. “He still has a contract with my father. A contract I was forced to sign but it’s still my signature.”
I knew this conversation was coming. I have been preparing for it since the moment I read her wish and understood exactly what I was taking on.
“Magnus Sterling's contract is not worth the paper it was printed on.” I trace patterns in the water on her hip, keeping my voice calm despite the rage that simmers in my blood at the mention of that man's name. “Your signature was obtained under duress. Once I have a meeting with a few friends of mine, they will refuse to validate that contract."
Club Genesis is the one place everyone who had their fingers in dirty pots trusts to enforce our unspoken rules. If you enter the revolving glass doors of Club Genesis, you need to know what you are getting into. You need someone dead, want to do an arms deal with some South American baddies or need someone scouted out with a find-and-retrieve contract…done. You have an arranged marriage contract between two willing parties…they make sure it’s honored. You want backroom deals witnessed, protected and enforced…also done. Club Genesis is the place tomake sure everyone stays honest. Which is pretty fucking hard to do when tipping the scales in your own favor is just the nature of a villain’s way of doing business.
The three men who operate it, Harlon, Cassius and Santi, are friends of mine. Well, that might be a stretch. I pay their yearly fee and I do business in what I like to think of as our city.
It works and I have support when I need it. Like right now. Magnus will probably already have the contract he forced Persia to sign at Genesis and registered.
Now that I have one of my own, there will be some hellraising coming our way.
"Magnus does not care about anyone and some set of rules."
“Nope and I’m counting on that.” I meet her eyes with the cold certainty of a man who has waged war against worse enemies and won. "I will be meeting with him and your father at Club Genesis to make it very clear that you are no longer available for negotiation."
Fear flickers across her face, followed swiftly by something fiercer. "He will not accept that."
I lift a shoulder. “He does not have a choice.” I pull her closer, settling her against my chest where she can feel the steady beat of my heart. “I am not asking for his blessing, little dove. I am informing him of reality. You belong to me now. Any claim he thinks he has is void. And if he tries to challenge that claim, I will end him, Genesis rules be damned.”
She is quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing the lines of ink across my arm. “You would kill for me.”
It is not a question, but I answer anyway. “I would burn the whole fucking city to the ground if that is what it took to keep you safe. I would destroy everyone who ever hurt you and build you a throne from their bones. I would?—”
Her mouth on mine cuts off the declaration, and I let her swallow the words I was not ready to say anyway. The ones that have been building in my chest since she hugged my brothers like they were friends. Since she asked about my mother like she genuinely wanted to know. Since she curled into my arms every night and made me feel something other than empty for the first time in twenty years.
We stay in the bath until the water cools and our fingers prune, talking about everything and nothing, learning the shape of each other in ways that go beyond the physical. She tells me about the girl she wanted to be before her father broke her spirit. I tell her about the boy who used to walk twelve blocks for chocolate croissants because it was the only sweetness left in his life.
Her fingers trace idle patterns through the water on my forearm, following the lines of ink that disappear beneath the surface. The silence between us has grown comfortable, soft around the edges in a way I am not accustomed to, when she goes still against my chest.
"I know you’ve seen my scars." Her voice is barely a whisper, fragile as spun glass.
“Yes.”
My arms tighten around her waist instinctively, and I press my lips to the crown of her head. “You do not have to tell me anything you are not ready to share.”
“I want to.” She draws a shaky breath that I feel move through her entire body. “You kissed them earlier like they were something precious instead of something shameful, and I need you to understand what you were touching.”
I stay silent, giving her the space to find her words while the cooling bathwater laps gently against the sides of the tub.
"My father wasn't always cruel. But the higher on the political ladder he climbed, the more of an animal he became."
The words come out flat, rehearsed, stripped of emotion in the way that tells me she has spent years learning how to speak them without breaking. “He has a favorite belt made of italian leather with a silver buckle engraved with our family crest. He keeps it hanging in his closet like a trophy.”
Rage ignites in my chest, white-hot and immediate, but I force my body to remain relaxed beneath her. She needs softness right now, not the violence that is screaming through my veins.
“He used it whenever I disobeyed. Whenever I embarrassed him at a fundraiser or spoke out of turn at dinner or looked at a boy he had not personally vetted.” A hollow laugh escapes her throat. “I learned early to keep my opinions to myself and my eyes on the floor.”
