After the ceremony, Eliascalled for a car, and it took us straight to the airport, where a private jet was waiting. I asked him why we were moving to Chicago, and he only replied with two clipped sentences.
“Not your concern. Do as you’re told.”
Anger burned through my veins. But what should I expect from the man who kidnapped me?
The plane ride was thick with silence. I refused to talk to him—my new husband—and he, likewise, didn’t engage with me. My heart was heavy, my mind cluttered with fragments of the life I’d just left behind.
I wasn’t ready.
Moisture gathered in my eyes as I thought about my family—my brothers, all four of them, even though they drove me crazy with their overbearing ways. Their wives, the best girlfriends I’d ever had. My half sisters. The nieces and nephews I adored and would give up my life for in an instant.
There’s grief and heartache when you’re forced to say goodbye before you’re ready.
But that’s life. If I could turn back time, if I knew this was coming, I would still make the same choice.
I would protect my family at all costs.
A town car was waiting when we landed. Men in dark suits, hands hovering near their guns, stood guard next to it. They loaded our luggage into the trunk. I could’ve sworn I heard an animal mewling.
I must be going out of my mind.
Now, I sit in the back of the dark vehicle beside my silent husband, barely registering their clipped conversations. He’s reading a book, his finger tracing the words slowly. If this were a normal occasion with a stranger, I’d ask what he was reading.
But it isn’t. He ignores me, and I do the same.
But I feel him. Elias.
I feel his heat, the strength radiating from his body, even though he hasn’t said a word to me.
His attention presses against my skin like a physical touch. His gaze bores into the back of my head as I stare out the window. And I smell him too—vetiver and dry smoke, a scent uniquely his. I know how soft his lips can be, how fire burns inside a seemingly cold man.
I wish I could say I hated it—this strange awareness of the man who’s my enemy. But in this city, far from home and the people I love, Elias’s presence brought me comfort.
It’s twisted. Sick. Fucked up. But at least I’m not alone.
The skyscrapers blur past the window. It’s been years since I’ve been to the city.
My hands are clammy. I have a goal in mind, but now that I’m actually here, I don’t know how to go about accomplishing it.
One step at a time, Lana.
The car slows. We turn into a neighborhood that has seen better days. Barren trees lined the streets; Gothic facades sagged with age. Storefronts are half-boarded up, dirty puddles pooling on the ground. A heavy fog cloaks the distance. I can barely see five feet out the window.
Saints Hollow.
The neighborhood used to be rich, or so they say. But the Spanish Flu in the early nineteen hundreds took most of its residents. Over the years, new migrants would come, but no one stayed, leaving only a husk of what could’ve been a beautiful area on the outskirts of the city.
I’ve been here before, almost twenty years ago. Kian lived here.
The air still smells of rust and rain with a tinge of engine grease, the same scent that clung to his jacket when he first kissed me.
I remember convincing my family to let me do a year of boarding school in Chicago after the spring break when I met him. The school had the best debutante program. Never too early to network, right?
I had spent every free moment with him.
When we walked these streets, Kian would grip my hand, tugging me against him, making sure I was safe. He’d make me walk on the side of the buildings, away from the traffic, because he was thoughtful that way.
He used to tell me, “This neighborhood isn’t for a girl like you. You belong in places like Ashbourne Heights.”Because I could get the best of the best there—imported cars, houses with butlers, everything gleaming and new.
