Chapter 2
TWO
JUST IN CASE
DALLAS
Heather rises from her seat, offering me a small smile as she smooths out the wrinkles in her skirt. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.”
I nod, not sure how to answer that. See me soon? If the society has it their way, she’ll be stuck with me for the rest of our lives, though I know better than most that an Order marriage doesn’t mean that we actually are.
A wife in name only. That’s what this is. A political marriage, one that I’ll consummate, then forget about for as long as anyone will let me…
Following Heather’s lead, Adrian also stands. I realize too late that I should’ve been the one to offer, but it’s my cousin who says, “I’ll walk you out,” while my ass stays firmly planted to Jack’s old seat.
Her heels click softly as they leave the office together, the door closing behind them with a final, echoing sound.
I know Adrian. He never does anything without a motive, and in this case, he has at least two.
He’ll want to reassure Heather that this marriage is something I want—because no one is a better liar than Adrian Heller—before he sends her on her way, then takes a few minutes to flirt with my secretary once Heather’s in the elevator, on the way down to the lobby.
I’m alone, the sudden silence in the near-empty office closing in on me.
For a few heavy heartbeats, I don’t move at all. I just stare over the desk, searching for the ghosts forever haunting me, before I suddenly lean forward. I don’t have to look to find the handle on the upper right drawer. It’s there, and I tug it open like I’ve done way too many times lately.
The gun is cold when I wrap my fingers around the grip and take it out. I check the weight, the balance of it almost absently. Muscle memory takes over as I lift up the Ruger, allowing the mouth of the pistol to kiss my temple.
Just for a second.
Just to see if the thought of pulling the trigger and ending it all scares me like it should.
It doesn’t. It hasn’t in a long, long time, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to do it. To blow my fucking brains out before I take another innocent down with me. One little flick of my finger. One tug. Heather could find some other Owed to Claim her and—
The door to my office opens, then closes as Adrian slips back inside much sooner than I expected.
The footsteps stop. I hear him sigh before he says, “Put it down.”
His voice is calm. Too calm.
Put it down, Adrian? Why should I do that? When the gun fits so perfectly in my hand, and I swear I hear Jack’s voice on the suffocating air, goading me, telling me to do it, telling me that the Order deserves a King with balls—
My cousin crosses the room in a series of quick, long strides. One moment he’s standing in front of the door, waiting for me to drop the piece. The next? He’s in front of my desk, leaning over it so that he can take it from my hand before I decide whether I want to stop him or not.
“Jesus Christ, Dallas,” he mutters, pressing a button near the trigger guard so that he can release and remove the magazine.
Pocketing it, he tosses the useless gun onto the desktop.
“You going for dramatics out of revenge for me dragging your ass out of bed or were you actually going to do it this time?”
That’s Adrian for you. Anyone else would worry about my mental health if they caught me in the throes of suicidal ideation.
Only my cousin would know that, deep down, I’m too much of a pussy to pull the trigger after all—and too goddamn stubborn to give anyone the satisfaction of getting rid of me that easily.
Hell, if I made it through losing Mom and Lucy, there isn’t anything I won’t survive.
That doesn’t mean I can’t think about it or take solace in the familiar weight of my gun.
Leaving it where it is, I lean back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling instead, once again ignoring the knowing look in Adrian’s deceptively soft green eyes.
He sighs again. “C’mon. You agreed to this.”
“Had no other choice, did I?”
That’s not true. I could walk away. It’s not often that an Owed leaves the society behind—once you get branded-in, it’s as much of a ‘til death do us part’ sitch as getting hitched is—but I could do it.
Or I could—
“Not at all.” Adrian’s answer is so simply stated, I can’t help but jerk my head, looking at him as he tugs on the edge of his suit jacket sleeve.
“Thanks.”
He arches his eyebrows. “Don’t be bitter, Dal. Like every fucking Collins over the last two hundred years, you have to take a wife because the Order says so. Not even being the King saved your ass, but it’s not as bad as you think it is. Marriage isn’t that bad.”
“Says you,” I grit through my teeth. Whether it’s due to my lingering hangover or how it stings to know that he’s only telling me what I already know, it doesn’t matter. This time, there’s no reason to hide my pissed-off scowl. “You married the woman you loved.”
“That’s not how it started.”
“No,” I reluctantly agree. Because, well, fair. Loni spent close to a decade out of Adrian’s reach—or, at least, she thought she was out of his reach—before the Order caught up with her and brought her back to Harmony Heights.
Me. I did that. On Jack’s orders, and because she was going to be forced to marry Desmond St. James, I brought Loni back home—and the rest was up to Adrian who used a gun of his own to change his destiny.
Remembering the bloody wedding where Adrian made Loni his wife, I turn my attention to the gun on the desk. Stroking my thumb over the metal, I remind Adrian, “But it’s how it ended.”
“Heather’s a good choice. Even you said so when we first brought up her name.”
I would’ve said anything to end that awkward meeting when Bas and Adrian started throwing out names at me. “It’s fine. She’s an Offering, She’ll do what she’s told.”
And, damn it, so will I.
Adrian doesn’t say anything to that. Worse, he goes quiet.
That’s never a good sign. I learned that one as a young kid.
When Adrian is silent, he’s thinking. No.
He’s plotting. Technically, going through this arranged marriage thing was my idea.
I needed a wife, I’d get one. It was Adrian who offered to find a loophole for me.
After all, when it came to taking Loni from Desmond, he found one for himself. Sure, it involved a blood oath, but he bested the Order. I’m King now. It should be easy for me to find a way out of this, but I’m sick of trying.
And that’s why, when a gentle knock comes at the door, I take the chance to distract Adrian from his scheming by calling out, “Come in.”
If it was Bas or Connor out there, they’d just let themselves into my office, just like how Adrian does. Anyone else would have to go through my secretary, and she usually buzzes me on the landline phone Jack insisted on in the office.
Unless, of course, she’s looking for an excuse to sneak a peek into the room.
I thought I’d have more time to be alone with my gun before Adrian returned to the office.
He came back sooner than I thought, and I figured it was because he didn’t have the chance to do his habitual flirting with my secretary after he saw Heather off.
Maybe she was busy doing her actual work, but when the door eases in and the freckle-faced beauty with her strawberry-blonde hair pinned up and out of her face steps into the room, I see that she’s found us.
Like a hunting dog, his head swivels on his neck, spotting her instantly. A slow smile curves his lips as the heated look in his eyes says that he’s mentally stripping her out of the business casual suit she wears to work.
Avalon Heller blows her husband a quick kiss before turning her attention on me, resuming her ‘professional’ expression. “Excuse me. Dallas?”
“What is it, Loni?”
“Sorry for bothering you, but I just had something weird happen. I thought it would be better to explain in person instead of over the phone. Hope that’s okay.”
There’s a dare to her voice that I pick up on.
So does Adrian.
He walks over to Loni, answering her blown kiss with a quick brushing of his lips over her cheek. “Of course it is, princess. What’s wrong?”
“There was a message. For Dallas, I mean. Not specifically the King, but it got transferred to this office anyway.”
This office, and because Loni is my secretary, she’s telling me.
At the beginning of the year, not that long after I decided to start acting like the King, I decided to clean house. If you worked for Jack, you weren’t working for me. Simple as that. That meant Jack’s latest personal assistant had to go, and that I needed one of my own.
Adrian suggested his wife. And while Loni has her degree in accounting, she was willing to take over the desk while also helping Adrian clean up the Order’s books after we discovered just how deep Jack’s embezzling had gone.
Not only does it give them an excuse to spend more time together, but I was happy to pay Loni a fat salary to make up for my role in bringing her home to Harmony Heights.
She’s my cousin-in-law, after all. I didn’t want her to hate me forever, especially since Adrian would side with the woman he’d obsessively loved since kindergarten a thousand times over anyone else, including me.
Over the last few months, we’ve settled into a truce, and I actually appreciate how she doesn’t simper and kowtow to me all because of who I am.
She’s my employee, but she doesn’t give a shit that I’m the King.
If there’s anyone else in Harmony Heights who’d gladly see the Order implode, it’s Loni, and even if I didn’t keep an eye out for her because Adrian worships her, I’d do it because she deserves to have someone at the top watching her back.
Especially after what my old man put her through…
I nod at Loni. “So what’s up? Shoot.”
Adrian’s eyes flutter closed for a moment. Right. Probably not the best choice of words when I have my gun out on the desk—something that Loni obviously notices before her hazel gaze dances from the burnished metal to the office phone perched on the corner of the desk.
“It was just a… a strange phone call, I guess. The main line transferred it so they must’ve convinced them that they caller could reach you specifically, but when I answered, all I heard was heavy breathing, some crackling static, then a scream before the line went dead.
At first, I thought it was a prank, so I called down to Marisol”—the main operator for the phone lines, and a woman who’s worked at the Fortress since I was, like, ten years old—“and she just said that the caller claimed it was an emergency and they needed to speak to Dallas Collins.”
“No name given?”
She shakes her head. “Just yours.”
Adrian’s brow furrows. “Any number that comes through to the Fortress is captured. Did you call it back?”
“Tried to. It’s still dead.”
“Did you run the number?”
Loni gives Adrian a wry look that’s mixed with exasperation and affection, and one she gives him frequently when I’m around. “Run the number? Why didn’t I think of that? Oh… wait. It’s because I did. The number doesn’t have any information tied to it.”
“So a burner then,” I say.
“Or newly assigned,” Adrian offers. “Either way, if it’s some kind of an emergency just for you, Dal, they should have the number to your personal phone.”
That’s true. And considering my phone’s been facedown on the far edge of the desk, quiet as the grave since I came down to the office, no one’s tried calling me on that.
That’s probably a good thing. In Harmony Heights, a call to the King can accomplish a lot. But the only time Dallas gets an unexpected call like that is when they need someone with a short temper, a quick trigger finger, and very few morals.
I’m out of the enforcer game. Not by choice, though.
Adrian—in that Kingmaker way he has—convinced me that the head of the Order can’t be responsible for protecting it.
I’d be putting every one of my allies at risk if I continued to dick around instead of taking the position seriously.
And while I could give a shit about my own life, the idea that my enemies could target Adrian and Loni…
or Bas and his new wife… Connor and poor Haven, who already is so fucked-up and all thanks to the Order…
while I’ll always be a killer to my core, I’m not for hire these days.
I shrug. “Thanks, Loni. You’re right. I don’t know what that’s about, but I’m glad you told me. If they call again, I’ll take care of it. You just send them straight to my line.”
Loni nods, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Then, she bumps her hip against Adrian’s, stroking his bicep with the tips of her fingers before ducking out of the office again, returning to her desk.
Even through the newly closed door, Adrian stares as though he can still watch her go.
He shakes his head. “I should check on her. Something seems off.”
Getting a phone call that cuts off with a scream might be normal for Adrian and me, but despite being married to him for the last year-and-a-half, that part of the Order is still so new for the formerly coddled Offering.
So, yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s shaken up, even though she seemed calm enough as she made her report.
Even so, he’ll be no good if he’s worrying about his wife.
As for me, I don’t have shit to do until an afternoon meeting with the head of the Claiming ceremony committee.
Since I know there’s no way in hell I’m getting out of that with the annual August ceremony coming up in less than a week, I can at least get some food in my belly and wash last night’s mistakes off of my skin before meeting with the middle-aged wives preparing to toss their own daughters to the Owed.
God, I fucking hate that part of the society. Hate a lot of it, but the idea of the Offering and the Used and putting a price to our women in particular…
I flick Adrian off with my fingers, wordlessly telling him to go.
Instead of following right behind his wife, my cousin turns toward my desk. He scoops up the gun, disappearing that inside of his suit jacket.
“Just in case,” he says with a knowing smirk before he, too, is gone.
I think about that after I’m alone again. Adrian must think I keep an extra magazine close at hand, and he’s not wrong. I do. Of course I do. In fact, in this office alone, I have three.
I also have a spare handgun in the bottommost drawer of Jack’s old desk.
Just in case.