Chapter 3 Raven
THREE
RAVEN
Istood at the door to our shitty apartment, my hand on the knob and my chest twisting with agony.
As if I weren’t already stressed enough trying to escape my situation, now I had literal mobsters after me?
How would I come up with the money now? My scholarship would handle the tuition in Paris, but I had to get on that plane before I was dead.
I needed money for airfare and two months’ rent for the flat my friends and I would share.
My options were slim to nonexistent. Maybe I could talk to Mom and see if she could help?
After all, she’d managed to run away from my father and stay off his radar for all these years.
The despair was wreaking havoc on my mind, making it impossible to come up with a feasible plan and causing me to lose all hope.
Fighting back tears, I pushed into our apartment. But instead of being met with darkness and my passed-out mother, I came face-to-face with something worse.
Aiden Callahan.
I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at the man sitting on the secondhand sofa in my tiny living room.
“Miss Croft.” He greeted me with a hint of danger in his voice. “Come on in. And shut the door behind you.” My gaze darted around, looking for my mother while fear clutched my chest. “Your mom’s in the bedroom,” he added.
“She better be alive,” I hissed with foolish courage.
Aiden’s lips twitched, but his expression remained cold. His hands rested on the armrests, a gun gripped in one with white knuckles.
“You better worry about yourself, girl. Now, shut that door.”
I did as he said, our eyes clashing while my mind furiously searched for ways out of this situation and coming up with none.
“Sit down.”
“How did you find me?” I whispered, refusing to appear ruffled even as my breathing became labored. I’d given the club a fake name and address.
“That’s irrelevant.” His murmur sent a wave of anxiety through me. “I hate repeating myself, Raven. Sit down.”
I closed my eyes before walking slowly to the empty chair opposite of him. When I finally got to it, my legs shook so much that I practically slumped down.
“I—”
“Don't speak.”
“Excuse me,” I spluttered. “You’re in my house.”
His big frame straightened up, filling the rickety chair. It was only now that I noticed he no longer wore jeans. Instead, he was sporting a William Westmancott suit. Jesus. I was spotting designer labels now? Remind me to thank fashion-obsessed Reina for this useless new talent.
“Don’t piss me off,” he warned. “I’m too fucking angry for that. You’ll sit and listen to what I’m about to tell you.”
“Fine.”
I clenched my fists and leaned back into my chair, holding his stare as I waited for him to explain whatever the hell he was here for.
“You got some fire in you.” A small, cruel smile pulled at his lips as he tucked his gun into the holster under his lapel. “You’re going to need it.”
“Why would I need fire if you’re just going to kill me?”
His breath came out on a long, steady exhale before silence settled inside the apartment, stretching like a rubber band about to snap.
“Are we gonna do it or are we just gonna sit here?” I blurted, the anticipation setting me on edge.
He watched me with knitted brows, his hands tightening and relaxing at irregular intervals.
“Since you witnessed something you weren’t supposed to,” he started, his voice even, “you have two options.” He crossed an ankle over one knee, seeming far too relaxed for the set of his jaw and the sharpness in his eyes. “I can kill you, or I can marry you.”
I blinked, the adrenaline roaring loud in my ears.
“You… What?” My voice betrayed me, trembling like the rest of my body. “Those are not options,” I rasped, fighting a hysterical laugh bubbling in my throat. “That’s like choosing between a death sentence or life in prison.”
His expression remained blank while he watched me with a coiled restraint.
“Marriage to me would hardly be a prison,” he said flatly. “As future mother to my heir and my wife, you’d be protected forever.”
“From you and your family too?”
His jaw ticced.
“Look, you walked into a pile of shit,” he said. “The moment you did, your life stopped being yours. So you have two choices. Make one.”
“I’m only nineteen,” I rasped, my mouth suddenly dry.
He let out a sardonic breath. “Exactly. Over the legal age to be married.”
I failed to see anything positive in that statement.
“I’m not ready for marriage,” I spluttered. “Besides, how old are you? Forty? Fifty? You’re practically an old man!”
The dude, although good looking, was fucking ancient. Wasn’t there a law against this?
“I’m thirty-one,” he gritted through a clenched jaw, then hesitated before continuing. “I’m hardly an old man, but it does feel like I’m robbing the cradle.” He sighed. “Better than killing you though, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Is it?”
“Just say the word, Raven Croft,” he said quietly. “If you’d rather die, I’ll oblige.”
I swallowed hard. Both were bad options. For Christ’s sake, I’d barely started living. I had so many bad decisions left to make. That was the point of life… Wasn’t it?
“So if we get married, I’m no longer in danger?” I asked finally. “I’m untouchable?”
He tilted his head, eyes locking with mine. “Exactly.”
My heart drummed against my rib cage, threatening to break free. Or maybe it was warning me about this man and the slightly different cage I would enter if I agreed to his ridiculous proposition.
“Okay.”
One simple word, and my fate was sealed.
Aiden reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, black velvet box. He tossed it onto the table beside us with a dull thud.
“The priest will be here in ten minutes,” he announced.
“A p-priest?”
His jaw clenched as he gritted out, “Yes. Once my ring is on your finger, there’ll be no way out. I’m Catholic, after all.”
He said it as if that explained everything, yet it meant nothing to me.