CHAPTER 22 ALFIE
ALFIE
I sit back on a chair in the corner of the room as the restaurant empties, Caden beside me rolling up his sleeves. We asked Milo to hang about as well for clean-up.
Drago’s minions had swarmed us when El rushed off to the ladies’. Caden got paranoid so he sent Fiz in after her. They both came out, El looking a little flustered, Fiz with an impassive expression. I asked what went down, Fiz said nothing, she was just washing her hands.
Neither of us believed him.
But that’s not why Caden and I are currently waiting for everyone to leave. He asked Fiz to take Elodie to the car. He’s not happy about missing out on the “fun”, but someone has to make sure she stays in the car.
Just a little while before the end of the dinner, we were approached by some of Russell’s other employees. Nondescript, unimportant employees. Drivers, errand boys. It seems their egos were far bigger than they should have been.
“What a gorgeous bride you have!” one kid cooed, eyeing up Elodie, who stood beside Caden, blushing.
Caden kept his cool, thanked him, it was all civil.
Until the blonde bastard next to him had to go and overstep the line.
The boy, who couldn’t have been much older than Caden, perhaps around my age, stepped into Elodie’s space, picked up her hand, and kissed it.
I didn’t understand why Caden didn’t stop him with his cat-like reflexes.
Perhaps he didn’t think the kid would be that dumb.
“Such a beautiful, young woman,” the boy had said, eyes fixed on Elodie, voice full of challenge, like he was daring Caden to do something. “No ring, though? Scandalous.”
Caden stood there, observing the interaction, eyes flicking to Elodie, who shimmied her hand out of the boy’s grip, cheeks red and lips pressed tightly together.
Then the boy grew an even bigger pair of balls.
He reached his hand up to stroke Elodie’s face.
Elodie flinched away, but Caden snatched up his wrist before he could get a finger on her skin.
“Do not touch my fiancé,” Caden warned in a simple, no-nonsense tone, emanating that effortless dominance.
The boy snickered, Caden dropped his hand, but he wasn’t deterred.
“She’s not made of gold, Cade,” the kid said, “not that precious.” Still with a challenge in his voice.
Well, he’s about to learn that Caden never backs down from a challenge.
I’d collected the boy as everyone was saying their goodbyes, told him that Russell has a job for him and to go and wait in the kitchen in the back. He complied without question.
Russell’s the last to leave, giving his son one last handshake before walking out into the night.
We rise from our seats. Caden saunters off into the back, I follow a step behind.
The boy’s got his hands in his pockets, wandering around aimlessly while he waits. I shut the door behind me, the click causing him to look our way.
“Where’s Russell?” he asks.
“Have a seat,” Cade says.
The boy frowns. I think it says a lot about his importance and position in the business if I don’t even know his name.
He looks around and finds a chair in the corner. I step ahead and grab the chair, dragging it to the middle of the floor. “Sit.”
“What’s going on?” he asks as he lowers himself down.
Cade ignores him, goes over to one workstation where the knife rolls are. He unravels one, taking his time. The boy watches him, panic slowly rising in those brown eyes.
“Can you tell me what this is about?”
“You seemed so comfortable with my fiancé tonight,” Caden says casually. “Any reason why? Do you know her? Or are you really just that stupid?”
The boy looks confused. “I was just being friendly. That’s what this is about? You’re pissed I was nice to your girl?”
“Nice is one word for it. Audacious, flirty, way-out-of-fucking-line are the words I’d probably use.” Caden turns back around, the blade of a large butcher knife glinting under the fluorescent lights.
The boy leaps out of the chair. I’m there behind him, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and yanking him back down.
He starts flailing around. “Come on, what the fuck, this is crazy!”
“What’s crazy is that you haven’t answered my question.” Caden takes his time coming over to us. “Do you know Elodie?”
“What – no, never seen her before in my life. But the rumours and shit, I’ve heard them. Everyone has,” he’s speaking rapidly, trying to get his defence out before Caden closes the gap.
Once he reaches us, he leans nonchalantly on the workstation behind him, folds his arms over his middle, butcher knife hanging loosely in front of him. “So you really are just that stupid? You think you have the right to touch my girl?”
The boy laughs nervously, manically. “This is insane. You’re acting like no one’s touched her. She’s a who-”
I give him one crack to his jaw before he finishes getting that word out. “Careful, kid.”
He groans and shakes his head, dazed from the punch. It reminds me I haven’t unleashed my full strength on someone for a while. My muscles tingle, eager for another taste.
“I’m not acting like that.” Caden uncrosses his arms, brings the knife up to inspect it. “I’m acting like no fucking man except me will touch my fiancé, now she’s mine.”
“Alright, got it, message received. Now let me the fuck go.”
Caden sighs, rubs his free hand over his forehead.
He’s exhausted. It’s almost an effort for him to keep talking.
I know he’s not been sleeping lately, know his brain’s too full to let himself rest. Yet he still wants to do this.
Is still mustering the energy to prove this point.
“I don’t send messages with words, Brandon, you know this. ”
He pushes off the workstation, comes over to us, crouches in front of Brandon, and sneers.
“You want to touch my girl? You won’t touch another woman in your sorry life.
Not with both hands, anyway. I’ll let you keep the hand that didn’t touch my woman.
I’m feeling nice tonight. Alfie.” He straightens up.
I grab the kid’s arms, holding them down on the armrests as he fights against me.
It’s futile, the boy hasn’t got half my strength, even fuelled by fear and adrenaline.
“Please, no, don’t,” he’s squealing, begging, crying.
“Don’t you miss,” I say to my cousin as he raises the knife. “I’d like to keep my fingers, please.”
Caden snorts. “I never miss.”
The knife comes slashing down.
***
Milo struts in a minute later. He surveys the room. “In a kitchen? Where they prep food? Seriously?” He places his hands on his hips, shaking his head.
Brandon’s still in the seat, unconscious.
“It’s a good thing you’re so good at cleaning up then, isn’t it?” Caden says, drying the last of the water off his arms.
The blood had sprayed us thoroughly. We’ve washed all of it from our skin, it’s just our suits that look like a Saw movie scene now.
I wonder what El will say. I wonder what Caden would say if she asked what happened.
Milo just sighs. “Alright, I’m on it. I’m gonna call someone to help though, this will take all fucking night otherwise.”
“Whatever you need to do,” Caden says, walking up to him and shaking his hand. “Appreciate it. We’ve text a friend of his to come get him and we stemmed the bleeding. Just keep an eye on him until his friend comes.”
“You got it, boss,” Milo says and salutes.
Caden thanks him again and we leave. I give him a fist bump on the way out.
Once we’re out of the building, I say, “Told you, you like her.”
“Oh, please,” he says, rolling his sleeves back down. “This was to prove how serious I am about my reputation. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” I scoff, irritation bubbling up. “You’re going to stand there and tell me you don’t care about her at all?”
Caden doesn’t flinch. “Yep.”
I stop in my tracks, fix him with a daring look. “So, how comes you haven’t slept in your own bed since she got here? How comes you’ve given up your entire bedroom for someone you don’t care about at all?”
Cade licks his teeth. “It was just easier to let her stay in my room. She was already there and I – I don’t know.
That’s not even what we’re talking about right now, don’t deflect.
” He glares at me, flourishes an arm to the diner behind us.
“You think I was going to allow some nobody to touch on my fiancé like that?”
“Whatever, lover boy. You keep saying fiancé, but the guy was right. There’s no ring.” I start towards the car again.
He doesn’t follow. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I flatten out my now-crinkled shirt. “Why bring her to her own engagement party without putting a ring on it? What did you expect?”
Caden’s tongue pokes into his cheek.
“Well?”
He huffs. “I don’t fucking know. I didn’t expect people to be so dramatic about it. It’s just a ring.”
“It’s a statement. One that proves to everyone how serious you are about her. You can chop off all the hands you like, but that doesn’t make as much of a statement as actually putting a ring on it. Claiming her properly. Dismembering someone means nothing. Just means you’re a psycho.”
He licks his teeth. “Well, I am, and people best not forget it. As for the ring, it’s no one’s business. I haven’t even given her her own clothes, Alf, how am I supposed to give her a fucking ring?”
I just turn and start walking to the car again. “If that’s not a rhetorical question, because of how fucking stupid it is, then fine, here’s my answer. Buy her some fucking clothes.”
I get into the back with Elodie this time, Cade can sit in the front.
She gasps upon spotting my red blotted shirt. “What happened?!”
“Just business, baby,” I say, suddenly pummelled with a wave of exhaustion. I reach over and rest my hand on her thigh. “Best get used to it, I guess. Somehow, I don’t see this being a one-time thing.”
She opens her mouth to respond, possibly ask me what the hell I’m talking about when Caden gets in the driver’s seat, turns the music up to an ear-piercing level, drowning out any possibility for more conversation, and speeds off.
Elodie doesn’t ask again.