CHAPTER 3 CADEN
CADEN
What a fucking disaster.
Complete, utter, disappointment.
I’d heard of the Valor girl plenty, everyone has.
Little slut, fucks anyone that moves within five feet of her.
Depressed and suffocated by grief of the death of her brother.
Weakling. But, apparently, a tech genius.
You wouldn’t guess it by looking at her.
All I saw behind those blue eyes was cold emptiness.
A hollow shell. But I’m not an idiot to think that’s her true form.
She’s gone through something, for sure. No one looks like a mental hospital escapee on a normal day.
Fuck knows what her dad’s done to her, but he’s handed me a train wreck. Does it look like I have time to fix people?
I go through to the kitchen, irritation prickling my skin, the front of my hair now damp and askew from running through it with hot, sweaty hands.
She’s not my type of girl. At all. But again, it’s hard to conclude that when this is the only time I’ve seen her in person.
The photos I’ve seen of her show a completely different girl.
Perhaps even a little attractive. Long, clean blonde hair, not matted and splattered with God knows what.
A tempting little physique, definitely not the bony skeleton I carried to my bed.
A delicate, innocent gleam in her blue eyes, not the hostile, fierce glower I received when she woke up.
The girl in my bed now is not the same. I hope Alfie can handle her, because I sure fucking can’t.
I grab a bottle of water from the fridge as my Cane Corso companion, Sergeant, comes up to nuzzle his nose into my thigh.
“Hey, Sarge,” I say, voice quiet. I drop my hand and give him a scruff between the ears.
“Did you see the state of her? Yeah, that’s your new mum, apparently.
” He tilts his head to the side, and my lips twitch into a faint smile.
“I’m kidding. She does anything bad, you give her hell, you understand? ”
He chuffs and licks my arm in response. I reach onto the counter and hand him a treat.
I don’t know why it has to be her. I understand my obligation to marry, and to preferably marry a woman who knows the world I live in and the job I do.
My father said it will bring our families closer together, if there’s a union between the two of our families, we could reach new heights in the underworld.
More money, more power. I get it, that’s the main objective.
Dominion. The top of the food chain. But her?
I shake my head at the thought. There’s plenty of families in our little world that we could have linked up with, a lot of women more suitable for me than her.
But I respect him. Anything he asks me to do, I obey, because he’s given me everything.
Even if I don’t agree with some things – a lot of things – he asks of me, I would never say no.
But I hate the fact that everyone in our world thinks my new fiancé is a whore.
It goes against every fine line and stroke of the brush I’ve used to craft my pristine image.
But God forbid I try to defy Dad’s wishes.
I don’t want to. All I can do now is try to whip this mess into somewhat of a shape resembling a wife perfect for me.
And I’ll accomplish that by any means necessary.
She’s in my corner of the world now, and we don’t accept mess here.
I can play nice, but only if she does. And judging from that first interaction, plus the fact she leaped on me back at her dad’s place, it doesn’t bode well for a peaceful future.
I’m absentmindedly stroking Sarge, lost in thought of the future, where this will take us all now, when Fiz comes in.
“So, what’s the verdict?” he says, grabbing his own bottle of water.
I shake my head, watching Sergeant strut back off to the front doors. “That my life’s not gonna change because of some broken burden with a pair of tits.”
“You really believe this could help the business? I mean, I don’t really get how you marrying a Valor is the best option. Why do we need to merge with them?”
“Exactly what I was just thinking.” I sigh. “I don’t know. Dad obviously has his reasons. I trust him.”
Fiz scoffs. “Never understood why.”
I don’t respond for a moment. I know Fiz has his own strained relationship with my dad, but I’ve never understood why he’s never trusted him.
Dad’s been good to him. He took him in as a kid, given him everything.
But it’s not a subject I’ve wanted to broach.
It’s between them, and that’s not two people I want to get stuck in the middle of.
I sip some more water to wet this dry throat of mine. “It’s probably just a guarantee of the new arrangement. An heir to merge both families and keep them going. Dad’s already said he wants a grandkid within the year.”
He leans his back against the counter beside me, mirroring my own lazy position. “You’re really not gonna fuck her?”
I screw my face up. “I wouldn’t touch her. She’s a whore. And she’s a Valor whore. I can’t fucking stand that side of the turf. Their dirty drug money and selfish greed.”
I know we’re not much better. We traffic and murder.
Only people who deserve it, though. We rid the world of the diseases the system seems to be happy to let roam free.
It’s the two-faced lying and double-crossing that the Valors are notorious for that I can’t stand.
What’s life without integrity? Dignity? Couldn’t be me.
Even if hurting people’s feelings mattered to me, I still wouldn’t protect them.
It’s not in Blackwood blood. We run on honour and honesty.
And mixing a Blackwood with a Valor is never going to end well.
I may respect my dad’s wishes, I may follow any order he gives, but it doesn’t mean I have to live up to the expectations, he won’t even know I’m not fucking her.
She just has to be my wife and give the Blackwoods a continued bloodline.
That’s it. I don’t think he’ll care how I do it.
“Then let me have a go on her, Cade, I want to see if the stories are true. I need to see that flesh. You’ve just won the jackpot, gold pussy for life!”
I shove him away from me. He stumbles back, a teasing grin on his face. “You really need to get your dick wet if you think Elodie Valor is the jackpot.”
Fiz sighs in a “don’t I know it” way as Alfie appears in the kitchen behind him. He goes straight to the coffee machine as Fiz continues, “I can’t go another fifteen days. I think my balls will literally explode.”
I take a sip of water. “You can because you know it works. You got fifteen out of forty days left, easy shit.”
“It’ll be worth it this year when I get to sink nine inches deep into that sleeping beauty upstairs.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I scoff, “and you’re not going near her.”
“We’ll just see.” He winks at me.
I’m only half focused on the conversation as I watch Alfie pour himself a coffee.
I make a mental note that’s his fourth one, and it’s not even 11am yet.
We’re all abstaining from any pleasurable substances right now, cleansing before The Hunt, but we let Alf have his caffeine.
He already abstains from a lot more than most of us on a daily basis, although I don’t like how particularly jittery he is today.
He’s already on double what he’d usually have by this time of day.
“She’s going to be a piece of work, bro, I’ll tell ya,” Alf says, turning to lean his back on the counter and looking up to the ceiling.
“How do you know?” I say, turning to him.
“She’s got the look in her eye.” Alfie turns to us and sips his coffee. “The ‘touch me and die’ look. Similar to yours, actually.”
I go to retort about her being absolutely nothing like me when Fiz laughs. “Well, she won’t have to worry about that. Cade’s hellbent on not touching her, and we’re not allowed to either, apparently.”
“Allowed?” Alfie cocks an eyebrow. “You know as well as I do that if I want her, I’ll take her.”
I dismiss the coil of tightness that the prospect sparks in my chest. I keep my voice aloof as I say, “It doesn’t sit right with me if this girl is my wife and my boys rail her too.”
“That was very cutesy of you, by the way, giving her the reins on the wedding,” Fiz says with a wink.
“What difference does it make to me? If I let her do everything, it takes the chore away from me.” I shrug. “Might give her a little sense of security, too.”
“Damn, Cade, you big softie.”
“Fuck off.”
Alf holds up a hand. “Hang on, can we go back a sec? There isn’t a single girl that you’ve had that you haven’t passed down the pieces of what’s left to us. Why her?”
I roll a shoulder and click my neck. “Because I’m not marrying any of those girls.”
Alfie narrows his eyes, studying me. I have to resist the urge to cringe away. “You like her.”
Alfie has this way of psychoanalysing every single thing we do and say.
I thought it might be one of his hyperfixations, like the guitar he bought and played for two weeks, now it sits in my attic collecting dust. The month of carpentry was fun.
I couldn’t tell you how many splinters our housekeeper, Maggie, had to pluck from his hands.
Alfie got a psychology book after his last relapse, and I expected the interest to last five minutes, but three years on and he’s still dissecting our brains.
I lick my teeth and hold back a gag. “No. She’s a mess. I don’t do messes. I do upper class, elegance, respect. Decency.”
Fiz gives Alfie’s shoulder a smack. “Better get in there and make her an even bigger mess before the wedding bells then.”
I roll my eyes and walk off. “I don’t have time to be running in circles with you today.”
The boys hurry behind me.
“Where we going?” Fiz says.
“We are not going anywhere,” I mutter, grabbing my leather jacket as Sergeant jumps up and takes his position beside me. “I have a job to do. Pickup at twelve. You,” I turn to Fiz, “have a drop-off at twelve-thirty, and you” – I point at Alf – “have clean-up upstairs in my bedroom now.”
Alfie flattens his brow. “You’re referring to your precious wife-to-be as a clean-up job?” He crosses his arms.
“What else is she?” I say coldly, running my hand through my hair for the hundredth time.
“Keep an eye on her, don’t let her snoop around here.
” I shuck the jacket on and grab my keys.
“Give her a bath or something, she fucking stinks. And get her to eat, I can count her ribs through her damn nightdress.” I leave the two of them ogling while I get in the car and speed away from what I’m reluctantly beginning to accept might be my biggest challenge ever…
and that says a lot. Elodie Valor as my wife.
All roads are pointing to one place: anarchy.