10. Rafe
RAFE
The town car parks out front of my New Jersey compound.
It’s a sprawling estate carved from the heart of the Pine Barrens. Self-sufficient, mostly off-grid. Multiple redundant wells, a slew of solar panels and battery cells, and even a windmill whirling in the distance.
The safest place within driving range.
June hammered me with questions during the trip here. She gave up eventually when I made it clear that I wasn’t going to answer. But god, that woman has done nothing but make this impossible situation even more difficult than it needs to be.
Moments after I step out of the car, Theodora arrives with my daughter, followed by a small caravan of soldiers, Nunzio in command. My guard captain barks orders as the men fan out and take positions around the walled compound.
Theodora’s carrying little yawning Hattie in her arms when June comes flying around the car.
“Baby!” June all but rips the girl from Theodora, hugging her tight. Hattie clings to her mother like a baby sloth. “Oh, I missed you so much.”
“I’m tired,” Hattie complains. “Where are we?”
“Vacation,” Theodora says happily. “I explained on the ride down, remember?”
“Do I have to sleep here?” Hattie doesn’t sound happy. “It looks big and weird.”
June looks to me. I turn to the house. “Theodora, please show them to Hattie’s room. When she’s in bed, bring June to the back sitting room.”
“You know I’m billing you triple for this, right?”
“Like it matters.” I look back once. “Make sure my wife is still in her dress.”
I leave them to handle it.
The house is massive. I don’t spend much time here, however, and it has to be brought up to par.
I called ahead and sent several of my personal staff to tidy up and prepare suitable lodgings.
My suite connects to Hattie’s room and is set back on the most heavily guarded and safest wing of the whole structure.
I bypass those halls though and go straight to my favorite room.
It’s a big glass atrium with views out to the pine trees and the walls around the edge of the property.
Plants grow in profusion all over the place.
I keep an old local lady on staff to tend the garden year round and she does a magnificent job.
Flowers, vines, small ferns, like a jungle in miniature.
I fetch a drink and prowl to the far window, staring out into the night.
This was a fucking unmitigated disaster.
I worked my ass off on this plan. I had everything ready, all the invitations sent, the guests prepared.
It was going to be the world’s greatest forced wedding, a show of my strength, proof that the Lords of Ashes are masters of this world.
No man, woman, or child can resist me. No politician can stop me, no business magnate can buy me. I sit astride them all.
Instead, it was a rushed fucking mess.
“You’re brooding.” Silas approaches through the foliage. He swirls a glass and ice clinks. “You must be in your happy place.”
“How are the others?”
“Cassian disappeared the moment you left. Kellan and Devlin are securing the area. They’ll come around tomorrow to meet the girls.”
“That’s fine.” I crack my neck. “They tried to take her, Silas.”
“I know.” My brother’s usually confident and cocky smirk is missing. He stares into the night beside me. “But Cassian stopped them.”
“Barely. I should have been there.”
“You were preparing for a wedding and running our entire operation. You can’t be everywhere.”
“I should have been by her side.”
“Rafe—“
“This is what always happens.” I clutch my glass tightly, raising it to toss hard liquor down my throat. It doesn’t quench the rage in my heart. “I let myself indulge and everyone gets hurt.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Explain that to June and Hattie.”
He has no answer to that. Instead, he sighs and sips his bourbon. “I’ll clean up back in the city. I’ll find a way to spin this the best I can.”
“There will be ugly rumors.”
“Aren’t there always when the Lords of Ashes are involved?”
“I want them under control.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He turns away. “Looks like she found you.”
I follow his gaze. Standing at the far end of the room, framed by the door and the light from the hall, is June Ashworth.
Now June Corvino.
Still wearing her white dress. Her hair falling artfully around her pretty face.
God, she’s fucking beautiful.
That’s the sickest part of all this. If I didn’t want her, that would be better. She’d be an obligation and nothing more.
But I thrill at the thought of making her my bride.
My blood boils knowing she doesn’t want it, and that makes me need her even more.
“Thank Theodora for me. And tell her she’s welcome to stay the night.”
“Think she’ll happily stay in my bed?”
“Don’t make this night even more painful, Silas.”
“A man’s got to try.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Stop looking like you’re standing at a funeral, brother. It’s your wedding night.”
He walks off, pausing only to say something softly to June. She smiles sheepishly at him before he departs, leaving the two of us alone.
My wife drifts into the room. I can’t take my eyes off her. It’s like an angel floating through an enchanted forest. The way she glides, her hips, the plunge of her neckline, the plumpness of her lips. Her eyes are pink from crying, but that’s to be expected.
“Tell me what’s happening right now or I’m out of here.” She stands there so defiant and gorgeous.
But she has no fucking idea the mess she’s in.
“First, I want to make something clear.” I shift to face her.
“We are hundreds of miles from civilization. If you escape, you will be lost and alone in the pine barrens with no easy access to water and no food for possibly days or weeks at a time. Not to mention our daughter will slow you down. I will find you and I will bring you back. Do not make this difficult.”
Her lips twist and her hands ball to fists. “Stop saying our daughter. She isn’t yours.”
I choose to ignore that. We have plenty of time to bicker over semantics. “Come here.” I hold out my hand, gesturing for her to join me at the windows. “We have our future to discuss.”
She doesn’t move immediately. Which is fine. She’ll learn to jump in time. I sip my drink, savoring its smoke and flavor, until she finally comes and takes a position a few feet to my left, out of reach.
“You can’t hold me against my will, and there’s no way that wedding was legal.”
“I can and it was. You already signed the documents.”
“I didn’t sign anything!”
I glance at her. “You think you really needed to?”
“This is crazy. How is this happening?!”
I turn to her, one palm against the glass. Last time we were together like this, I had her tits against a window; my cock sank between her legs. I don’t think that will happen tonight, but my god, I would bleed to taste her again.
“Here is the reality of your situation. Out there—“ I tap at the darkness beyond. “You are not safe anymore. If this could be any other way, I promise you, that’s what I would do. However, if I am going to protect you and my daughter?—“
“My daughter,” she hisses at me.
“—I must do so with all my resources and as publically as I can. Your existence is no longer a secret, and I will not allow it to be a liability. Making you my wife and Harriet my legitimate daughter is the only way I can protect both you and my empire.”
“Your empire?” She spreads her hands. “Who the hell are you, Rafe?”
“The details of who and what I am are not for you to worry about. All you need to know are a few simple rules, which you will obey.”
“This is crazy.”
“The first rule: you may never leave the grounds of this house without my explicit permission.”
“Got it, I’m a prisoner.”
“And the next rule: you will respect my men and you will ensure they respect you in turn.”
That gets her attention. “What do you mean, respect me in turn?”
“Any comments, any unwarranted attention?—“
“Do you think your employees are going to hit on me?”
“You are my wife now, June. You will have to deal with a lot of attention.”
She bursts out laughing. I don’t find it funny. Maybe she doesn’t realize how beautiful she is, but she’ll quickly learn that male attention is hard to avoid in a world like mine.
And I’ll be damned if anyone so much as glances in my wife’s direction without answering to me.
“Should I walk around fully covered too? Necklines to here, hems to here?” She points at her throat and her knees. “Actually, maybe down here?—“
“This is not a joke.”
Her smile slowly fades. “You’re right. It’s a kidnapping.”
“The third rule: you will be faithful, no matter what.”
“I don’t cheat on people.” She grimaces and holds up a hand. “Except we’re not really together. And that’s convenient of you, saying I’d better keep it in my pants, when I bet you’re spraying that thing all over town.”
I arch a single eyebrow. “Spraying it? Should we discuss how reproduction works, love?”
“Shut it, you know what I mean.”
“I will be faithful to you, June.” I don’t mention that I already am, that I have been since the night we slept together. Years of celibacy haven’t been easy. A lot of long, thoughtful showers have kept me sane. But she was a slip to begin with.
Any woman. Any attachment. Any desire. It becomes a liability.
A weapon my enemies will use against me.
The fewer ways I can be hurt, the stronger my family will be.
“I’m so sure.” She groans and starts pacing. “This is crazy. People are going to worry about me. Beth and Marnie?—“
“Will be contacted and dealt with.”
She opens her mouth to list more names, but who else is there?
Her grandmother is gone. Her mother abandoned her a long time ago. She has other friends and acquaintances, but none that care about her enough to call the police if she doesn’t check in for weeks.
She doesn’t even have a normal job that will miss her.
“You can’t just make me disappear.” She whispers the words, and I watch the full weight of her situation settle over her.
I smile, lips curling with delight despite myself. I should hide my joy, but in this moment, it’s hard.
Yes, yes, that’s exactly what I can do: make her fade away.
Her shoulders slump. Her face goes pale.
What else does she have? Who else is going to miss her?
Nobody.
She’s all fucking mine now.
“Return to our room, wife. Come to grips with your new reality. I will make preparations for your stay and join you shortly.”
For a moment, I think she’s finally broken, but there’s another surge of defiance. “Like hell I’m going to sleep in the same space as you. I’ll go to Hattie’s room.”
“If that’s what you want, but it will only be temporary.
Here’s the most important rule of all, the only rule that guides my life: strength and power are everything.
I will not look weak because I can’t keep my own wife in my own bed.
Do you understand? Everything we do, every word we speak, every action we take, will reflect back on the family.
I will ensure you do not sabotage everything I’ve built. ”
I tilt her chin up. She trembles, rage in her eyes, and I know what she feels right now. I know it better than almost anyone. The desperation, the anger at her situation, the denial, the hate. She’s wondering how the universe could do this to her. How she could find herself in this hell.
But ah, my love, she’ll come to accept it soon.
“I don’t care what kind of two-bit criminal you are, I am never going to be yours, and neither will Hattie. Do you understand? Never.”
She turns and storms off, dress brushing across plants in her hurry to escape.
God, she’s beautiful, especially when she hates me.
But she’s wrong about that.
Because she may not realize it yet, but I’ve already won.