“She’smywife,” I snap. “I will carry her.”
Without another word, I ascend the stairs of the run-down apartment building, jaw winding tighter and tighter with each creak of wood and curse from behind closed doors of the various apartments we pass.
One night. That is all I will allow. One night for her to get settled and pack her things, and then, tomorrow, I will be removing her from this pigsty indefinitely.
We reach the top floor several minutes later, and Alonzocarefully pries the girl’s purse from her grip without waking her to withdraw her keys. The light jingle of metal against metal rouses her only slightly, and she merely presses her face into my chest with an annoyed huff. The heat of her breath shoots an odd sensation straight to my groin.
I ignore it and clench my teeth as Alonzo finds the right key on the ring. The door swings inward, revealing a long, narrow foyer. Together, we make our way into the small apartment, bypassing two doors. One of them is cracked enough to reveal a bedroom, but I’m not sure if it’s hers, so I keep going. A moment later, the foyer opens to an equally cramped semi-open-concept living room and kitchenette area complete with a two-burner stove and a mini fridge. A spiral iron staircase cuts up through the floor in the corner and rises toward a loft area with plant vines crawling over the railing. Snoozing, breathy noises echo down into the living room area.
“This is a two-bedroom unit?” Alonzo asks, sounding horrified when he realizes there’s snoring coming from the loft above, but there are no other doors for bedrooms. The one we passed must be hers if the loft above has someone else in it.
I take a moment to frown at the collection of strange odds and ends gathered in the tiny home. Plants hang from almost every corner of the ceiling, and I can see even more hanging outside of the slitted window above the loveseat shoved against the farthest wall.
“There are plenty of smaller places in the city,” I remind Alonzo. “Some contain families.” Before moving to New York and joining the Syndicate, he’d been raised in a village in Italy. Even if the houses there were small, at least they had land tospread out on. In New York City, space is a commodity afforded only to the rich.
Turning away from Alonzo, I retrace my steps to the foyer and the door we passed before. I lift the woman’s head against my chest as her skirts catch on the narrow doorways and make carrying her through the apartment far more difficult.
I carry her inside the cracked bedroom door from earlier and am thankful to find the room uninhabited. It must be hers. I circle the messy bed with the patterned comforter thrown back and the pillows askew before gently lowering her down. Alonzo appears in the doorway a moment later.
“Her keys are on the counter in the kitchen with a note,” he says. “Do you want me to bring them in here?”
Daisy’s hands flex on her bed, and I watch as she reaches forward, snagging a small flower-shaped pillow and dragging it into her chest, crushing it and her purse together. The shape of her waist draws my eye, and my fingers twitch with the desire to touch her there. My gaze moves up to her neck, and the urge to press my lips to the hollow of her throat makes my mouth dry. Then she lets out a little snorting noise, ruining the arousing thoughts. With a sigh, I extract her purse and set it on the nightstand.
“I’ll get them,” I answer, waving him off. “Go make sure the men Dante sent are in place. I’ll be out in a moment.”
Set on his task, I hear the front door opening and closing a short while later. Briefly, I contemplate the girl lying before me. She can’t be comfortable in that monstrosity of a dress, but neither do I believe she’d be pleased by the idea of me undressing her.
The longer I stare at her, though, and at the dress that swarms her body—a body I’d quite admired when she’d been dressed in the far simpler server’s uniform—the more I hate her in it.
So, with as much indulgence as I can muster, I roll Daisy to her front and quickly undo the row of buttons running the length of her back. Thankfully, she’s not naked beneath the fabric and instead wears a simple, pale shift that isn’t attached to the otherwise massive swath of fabric of the dress.
It takes far longer than expected to remove the dress from her body without just ripping the damn thing. To my utter shock, she doesn’t wake as I maneuver the cupped sleeves over her shoulders and down her arms. Sweating and silently cursing the woman who, for all intents and purposes, is dead to the world as I disrobe her, I practically strangle my fists around the dress when it’s finally kicked to the end of the bed with her tired, annoyed little feet.
The second I’m no longer worried about gently untangling the dress from Daisy’s body, I pause to look her over. My breath seizes and the dress flutters to the floor already covered in various items of clothing. For as big and elaborate as the dress had been, it had made her look small when she is anything but.
Full, round breasts strain beneath the fabric of the shift she’s still clothed in, and the bottoms of her ass cheeks peek out as she twists on the mattress, causing the shift’s silky material to hitch. A shock of something glittery draws my attention away from her body to the sandals—the best my men could find for the ceremony in the time they were given—still strapped to her feet.
I close my eyes and send a prayer to the skies before I reachfor the shoes and deftly undo the straps. Once they’re off, I toss them on top of the dress and head back into the kitchen. Spotting Alonzo’s note, I grab a pen from the holder on the counter and write a few extra details. Then I carry both the note and her keys back into the bedroom and leave them on the bedside stand.
Looking down into the pale heart-shaped face of Daisy Turner, I trace her gentle, slightly rounded features with my eyes. What kind of woman falls asleep cuddled up to a man she was just forced to marry?
After a moment’s hesitation, I reach into my pocket and pull a few more items out, laying them alongside the note on her nightstand.
Whoever Daisy Turner is, she’s mine now. My wife and my responsibility, and I always take care of what belongs to me.
5
DAISY
Baseball bats are good for sports and vermin removal. The bigger the rat, the harder you swing.
Get fucked, you backstabbing, limp-dicked asshole!” My roommate’s scream jolts me out of the deepest, nicest sleep I’ve had in months. For a moment, I’m disoriented and not entirely sure where I am. Then the familiar, stained walls of my bedroom come into view as I blink away the last blurriness of sleep and stumble out of bed.
“What the hell did you expect, Chelle?” Ugh. I know that voice. Tony the Tool is back. “All you fucking do is work. A man has needs!”
It’s go time, my inner psycho says, her own irritation at being awoken so abruptly slipping past my usual barriers.
Glancing down when my bare feet slide over rough, pale fabric, I stare at the pile of tulle and satin that was my wedding dress. Wedding dress? Well, there goes hoping that yesterday was all just an elaborate dream.
