“That’s all?” I scoff, irritation bubbling up. “You’re going to stand there and tell me you don’t care about her at all?”
Caden doesn’t flinch. “Yep.”
I stop in my tracks, fix him with a daring look. “So, how comes you haven’t slept in your own bed since she got here? How comes you’ve given up your entire bedroom for someone you don’t care about at all?”
Cade licks his teeth. “It was just easier to let her stay in my room. She was already there and I – I don’t know. That’s not even what we’re talking about right now, don’t deflect.” Heglares at me, flourishes an arm to the diner behind us. “You think I was going to allow some nobody to touch on my fiancé like that?”
“Whatever, lover boy. You keep saying fiancé, but the guy was right. There’s no ring.” I start towards the car again.
He doesn’t follow. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I flatten out my now-crinkled shirt. “Why bring her to her own engagement party without putting a ring on it? What did you expect?”
Caden’s tongue pokes into his cheek.
“Well?”
He huffs. “I don’t fucking know. I didn’t expect people to be so dramatic about it. It’s just a ring.”
“It’s a statement. One that proves to everyone how serious you are about her. You can chop off all the hands you like, but that doesn’t make as much of a statement as actually putting a ring on it. Claiming her properly. Dismembering someone means nothing. Just means you’re a psycho.”
He licks his teeth. “Well, I am, and people best not forget it. As for the ring, it’s no one’s business. I haven’t even given her her own clothes, Alf, how am I supposed to give her a fucking ring?”
I just turn and start walking to the car again. “If that’s not a rhetorical question, because of how fucking stupid it is, then fine, here’s my answer. Buy her some fucking clothes.”
I get into the back with Elodie this time, Cade can sit in the front.
She gasps upon spotting my red blotted shirt. “What happened?!”
“Just business, baby,” I say, suddenly pummelled with a wave of exhaustion. I reach over and rest my hand on her thigh. “Best get used to it, I guess. Somehow, I don’t see this being a one-time thing.”
She opens her mouth to respond, possibly ask me what the hell I’m talking about when Caden gets in the driver’s seat, turns the music up to an ear-piercing level, drowning out any possibility for more conversation, and speeds off.
Elodie doesn’t ask again.
CHAPTER 23
CADEN
I’ve avoided Elodie like the plague since the engagement party two days ago. It’s been easy enough, she’s had transactions to do, and I’ve had the orders to fulfil.
I’m still trying to process that night. Trying to determine if her dad will be a bigger issue than I thought, and how slow I’d make his death if he is. My brain also tries to analyse what happened at the end of the evening, but I keep shoving those thoughts away. It was nothing other than me making a point. You do not touch my girl. No matter who you are. She’s mine. Hands off her, or the hands come off. Simple.
It’s not that I care about her, because I don’t, it was a statement. You shall not touch what’s mine. You shall not disrespect my wife. Or soon-to-be wife.
Urgh.
I grab my scalpel and start cutting into the body in front of me, shoving the images away. How will I ever get her to comply? Once I catch her during The Hunt, how much grief will she give me? How much time will I have to spend bending her into an acceptable shape?
Although, the physical shape of her the other night is something that’s stained my memory. Seared itself in my consciousness and I cannot scrape it out. She looked… so different. For a split second, when she had walked into the room in that dress, it was like I’d seen into an impossible future. Throughout the night there was an effortless elegance to her. The way she wore that dress, like she’d lived in them all her life. The way she moved, fluid and weightless like a gazelle. She played the part flawlessly. Her manners and decorum were on point whenever she was expected to speak, the way she interacted with my father was shockingly appropriate. Elodie Valor may come from disgrace, and fuck knows what she’s experienced coming from a drug lord but… It’s like she was born for this sort of role.
I hadn’t stopped sweating the entire night. Especially when she darted off like she’d just laid eyes on the devil. Fiz told me nothing went down in the ladies’ restroom. He’d walked in and she was washing her hands, told me she was feeling overwhelmed with everything. I don’t believe it. Something had spooked her, and it’s doing my head in that I don’t know. How am I supposed to protect her if there’s something going on she won’t tell me about?
Sighing, I remove a kidney from the man’s corpse. I just wish she’d stop resisting so much. Sure, her defiance has eased since we made the deal, but she still glares at me like she’d love to shove the nearest object through my Adam’s apple.
And the whole ring palaver. How the hell am I supposed to give her a ring when I won’t gift her any of her own clothes? What does Alfie expect me to do, just drop everything, get her a wardrobe and a brand-new engagement ring, climb on the roof and yell out to the world that Elodie Valor is going to be my wife?
Not likely.
