Chapter Ten #2
I trust him. Because...I’m in love with him.
“There’s something else.”
And my king, being astute as always—
“I...um...”
I try thinking of something to distract him, and for once, my brain actually works.
“I want to know more about you. Your world.” I find myself nervously tracing a line along his collarbone as I speak, unable to quite meet his eyes because my words, while not a lie, aren’t exactly the truth as well.
“What do you want to know?”
“Were you and the other kings...also friends there? What kind of life did you—”
"We were in prison."
The words have me forgetting my discomfort, and my heart aches when my gaze meets his.
The past still hurts him, and that hurts me, too.
“All four of us were." His voice is flat. Matter-of-fact. Like he's reciting someone else's history. "Different cells. Same facility. We'd been framed—each of us, separately—for crimes we didn't commit."
As he speaks, his words frame a photograph in my mind. Monochromatic. Black and white and shades of grey, because I don't think my heart can bear seeing what happened to him in full color.
A young man. Beaten nearly to death. Framed for killing his employer—all because someone wanted the employer's wife. Thrown into a cell for a crime that was never his. Left to rot while the real monster walked free.
"One night, there was a riot."
I find myself wrapping my arms around him as he speaks, a childish attempt to protect him from his memories.
"A storm outside, chaos inside.” His voice continues above me, steady and distant. “The power went out. Doors opened." His jaw tightens—I feel it more than see it, the shift of muscle beneath skin. "It was a chance to escape. The kind of chance that doesn't come twice."
"But you didn't take it."
"We stayed. All four of us. We didn't know each other then. Didn't know we'd made the same choice until later. But we stayed."
I don't ask why.
I don't need to.
These are men who would rather rot in a cell for crimes they didn't commit than become the criminals the world already believed them to be.
"That same night...the warden came to each of us. Brought us tea. Hot, sweet." His fingers resume their path along my shoulder, slower now. Thoughtful. "We drank it. And when we woke up..."
“You were in Hewhay’s.”
“But it’s not like yours.”
I blink. “What do you mean?”
“Ours...was...is...a grocery store."
Oh.
Four hardened men. Framed for crimes they didn't commit. Survivors of a prison riot. Transported by magic to another world.
And they woke up in a grocery store.
I can only blink again.
Mafia kings...and grocery stores?
I have no idea how to process that.
"We were always hungry in prison," he says quietly. "Used to fantasize about having an entire grocery store to ourselves."
Oh.
Oh, my heart.
The image shifts in my mind. Four starving men, waking up surrounded by abundance. Aisles of food stretching in every direction. More than they'd ever seen. More than they'd ever been allowed to want.
Hewhay's gave them a feast before it gave them a kingdom.
"And in the paperback section," he murmurs, "there were books. One for each of us. With our names on the covers. Our faces." His hand stills on my back. "They detailed our new lives. Who we would be here. What we would have. The kingdoms waiting for us, if we chose to stay."
I think about my own book. Choose Your Own Mafia King. The illustrations that knew my face before I'd ever seen them. The story that was already written, waiting for me to step into it.
"Is there a catch?"
His hand stops moving entirely.
Beneath my ear, his heartbeat shifts. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice.
"Yes."
The word falls into the silence like a stone into still water.
"What is it?"
He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer. I can feel the tension gathering in his body—the way his muscles have gone tight beneath my cheek, the way his breathing has changed.
Then...
"I had a sister."
His voice has gone rough. Distant. Like he's speaking from somewhere far away, somewhere I can't follow.
"Baby sister. She was..." He stops. Swallows. I watch his throat move in the dim light. "Our parents were not attentive. I tried to—" Another pause, longer this time. "She died."
My heart splinters into a thousand pieces.
"I always thought..." He's not looking at me now. His gaze is fixed on the canopy above us, on something far away, something I can't see. "I always thought I'd like to have a daughter. Like her. A second chance to..."
He looks at me.
“You asked me about the catch earlier, and it’s that.”
I shake my head. What exactly is he saying?
"I will never have children here."
Children.
He will never have children here.
Which means...we will never have children here.
And so...I try.
I really do try to make myself care about this. To remind myself that this will affect our future both.
But...I can’t.
Because right now, all I can think about is his sadness.
All I can make myself care about is finding a way to make his heart stop aching, and that’s how I find myself shifting up until I can press my lips to his jaw. His cheek. The corner of his eye where I can feel the tension gathered like a storm.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry."
“You should be angry with me.”
“Should I?”
“Do you not want a child in the future?”
“I don’t know. But we can always adopt, can’t we?”
“You’re truly fine with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Silence.
And then...
“I should’ve told you from the start. I’m sorry.”
"It wouldn't change a thing even if you did."
"Why?"
Because I’m in love with you.
“Bailey?”
"Oh, um, I think I—" I fake a yawn so exaggerated it's almost cartoonish. "—so sleepy! Wow. Very tired. Long day. Court sessions and murder investigations and—"
"Bailey."
"—so much emotional processing, really takes it out of you—"
"Bailey."
I squeeze my eyes shut and burrow into his chest. "Goodnight!"
He's silent.
I can feel him looking at me. Can feel the weight of the question I didn't answer hanging between us like something fragile. Something that could shatter if either of us breathes wrong.
Then his chest shakes beneath my cheek. Once. Twice.
He's laughing.
"Impossible," he murmurs into my hair, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "Absolutely impossible."
I smile against his chest and pretend to be asleep.