BLOODY WEDDING, PART I #2
Haven sticks her tongue out at me. “Screw you. I’m just deciding whether I want to stay down here or not.”
That wipes the teasing smile right off my face.
Because that’s the thing. No one comes into this house without Haven’s permission. Not Adrian. Not Dallas. Bas is the only exception, and even then, that’s only because Haven decided he was tolerable.
These days, she’s friendly enough to him, and she stopped hiding whenever he’s around. If she’s eager to bolt midway through preparing breakfast…
“It’s your choice, Haven.” I move closer, stopping at the edge of the counter instead of crowding her. “You want to be here for whatever he has to say?”
Haven watches me for a long moment, weighing the question. She does that now. Takes time. Decides. I fucking love it, even when the answer doesn’t go my way.
Finally, she shakes her head. “No.”
“You sure?”
She nods. “I’ll be upstairs.”
“Door locked?”
Her eyebrow arches. “Probably.”
“You know I got a key.”
A small smile curves her lips. “Yeah, babe. I know.”
She passes me on her way out of the kitchen, and I catch her hand before she gets too far. Not to stop her. Not anymore. This time, I just want to bring her knuckles to my mouth. Her fingers flex against mine, twitching, but she lets me kiss them.
“Love you,” I murmur.
She rolls her eyes. Then, after a slight pause, she whispers, “I know that, too.”
What a brat.
God, I really fucking love this woman.
Unfortunately, I also have a fondness for my old friends—my brothers—and if Bas is at my door this early in the morning, some sort of shit’s gone down.
I’ve purposely withdrawn from the Order over this past year.
I had to. I don’t know how exactly Adrian managed to convince Jack to let it go, to let Haven stay with me, but he never pushed it after Wise disappeared.
After Father Francis married us, I sent in the wedding license, then passed a message along to Adrian to have the Order ledgers updated to say that Connor Heyward has married—and Claimed—Haven Smith.
I checked the website religiously until it updated there, too.
According to the Order, she’s mine. That means Adrian can’t have her, and if I need to go one step further and make a blood oath, I will.
That wasn’t necessary. So long as I kept Haven as my responsibility—and we both made tithes to the Order to shut the King up—he was happy to look the other way.
Still, Dallas’s old man is as corrupt as they come. I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him, and though I’ve decided the best way to stay off of Jack Collins’s radar is to stay in my house and out of Order biz, whenever one of my boys needs me, I’m there for them.
After all, they were there for me when it counted, and I will never, ever forget that.
Even so, I head down the hall and wait until I hear her footsteps on the stairs, followed by the bedroom clicking shut before I pull open the front to let Bas in.
The second he steps inside, I know this isn’t a social visit. Not that Bas comes by often without a reason. He has his own life, his own problems, and though he’s still my best friend, he learned quickly that I don’t leave Haven unless I have no other choice.
Today, judging by the tension in his jaw, he thinks this counts.
“We need to talk.”
I shut the door behind him. “Usually, people lead with hello.”
“Hello, Connor. We need to talk.”
“Better.”
Bas doesn’t smile.
Shit. It’s Dallas who always has a grumpy scowl on his face these days. Bas is the real charming one; he doesn’t fake it like I do. For him to look at me like that… yup. This isn’t good.
I turn, heading back toward the kitchen because, if he’s going to ruin my morning, I might as well have coffee while he does it. He follows, glancing toward the staircase once before dropping his voice.
“Haven okay?”
“She’s upstairs.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
My shoulders loosen a little despite myself. That’s Bas. He can be a vain, cocky, troublemaking bastard with a face that got him both in and out of more trouble than most men deserve, but when it comes to Haven and my relationship with her, he’s never careless.
“She’s… better,” I say eventually. “Not fixed. Don’t think either of us believe in that shit anymore.” To be honest, I don’t think we ever did. “But she’s better.”
Bas nods thoughtfully, leaving it at that.
I feel a pang when I see Haven’s in-progress breakfast. Just so I can say I did, I scarf down the rubbery, undercooked eggs, then toss the plate into the sink. I offer Bas a slice of burnt toast. He declines like I figured he would.
Those niceties done, I pour coffee into two mugs. A splash of milk in mine. Sugar in both. Offering Bas his mug, I say, “Now talk.”
He accepts his mug, but doesn’t drink it right away. Instead, keeping his voice low, he blurts out: “Loni’s back in town.”
The mug stops halfway to my mouth.
For a second, I don’t react. Then I set it down very carefully before my hand shakes and I slosh the scalding hot liquid all over the place.
Holy fucking shit.
Loni?
Avalon Dougherty walked away from Harmony Heights when we were all eighteen. That was ten years ago this month. I say walked… that poor girl ran out of here, and because Adrian is the King’s nephew, he couldn’t chase after her.
Oh, he wanted to. If he wasn’t a Heller, he would have. But, like me, he knew that he might have to wait for what he wanted. He would have to work for it, too. I always wanted Haven. For Adrian, Loni was his endgame.
There’s no way that Adrian would have gone after her now. Not when he has two years left until he believes he can finally make a move…
“Why?”
Bas blows out a breath. “You’re not gonna believe it. I heard it from the ass’s mouth himself, and I still don’t want to believe it.”
Uh-oh. “Probably not, but you can tell me anyway.”
“Des Claimed her.”
Sebastien is right. I don’t want to believe that.
Desmond. Are you fucking kidding me?
Suddenly, I’m thrown back to the moment of the first August ceremony I attended as an eighteen-year-old kid.
If Adrian had stepped forward nine years ago, putting his Claim on Haven, I would’ve had to kill him.
Brother or not. Friend or not. Along with Dallas and Bas, Adrian is the closest thing I have to family apart from my parents, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
If he tried to put his hands on Haven, if he had tried to take her from me, I would’ve slit his throat before he said I do.
He knows that. Hell, if I’d lost my mind and made a move on his girl, I would’ve expected him to do the same.
Back in high school, our group of five nearly broke up because Desmond asked Loni out.
He tried to say that he took Adrian’s bullying of Loni to heart.
While Adrian was trying to make Loni untouchable, Desmond was a snake.
He went after Loni, dumping her publicly after accusing her of fucking Adrian.
She had been, of course. While I had to wait until I was twenty-seven to be with my Haven, Adrian seduced Loni when they were both seventeen. He was so obsessed with the idea of being the only one to have her, he couldn’t even make it to the Claiming ceremony in August.
He thought that meant he would have her sooner. The opposite happened. When he tried to play the Order’s game, hoping he’d be the big winner in the end, he lost Loni instead.
At least, that’s what it seemed like. For years, Adrian’s been manipulating Loni’s life—her job, her home, her love life—behind the scenes. He won’t be satisfied until she has his name and wears his ring… so how the hell did Desmond Claim Loni ahead of this year’s August ceremony?
I have no clue, but there’s definitely one thing I do know.
“Des is a dead man,” I tell Bas.
“Yeah. That’s Adrian’s point of view, too.”
I look at him, waiting for him to continue.
Bas finally takes a sip of coffee, probably to give himself a second before he explains.
“Adrian reached out to someone as soon as he got word that there’s going to be a wedding between Desmond St. James and Avalon Dougherty.
He’s looking for hired help outside of Harmony Heights so that it doesn’t get traced back to him.
If it comes down to it, though, he said he’ll handle Desmond himself. ”
As he should. “Good.”
“Figured you’d say that.”
“What does Dallas think?”
Bas snorts, but there’s no humor in it. “Dallas is the one who brought her back to Harmony Heights so she can be forced into marrying Des.”
Oh. So Dallas is a dead man, too. “Adrian and Dallas aren’t just cousins. They’re bros. Why would he do that?”
“Because Jack sent him after her with the invitation to her own wedding. Dallas delivered it, brought Loni back when she accepted because, fuck, we all know Jack made it so she had no choice. Then, as soon as he could, he went straight to Adrian to tell him what happened. Which means,” Bas adds, “that Adrian has a plan.”
Of course he does. Adrian Heller always has a plan.
Sometimes that plan is brilliant. Sometimes that plan ends in bodies.
How much do you want to bet that, this time, it’s both?
“Let me guess. There’s going to be a wedding.”
Bas nods. “Adrian thought he had to wait until Loni hit thirty before he could stop pretending that there’s ever been anyone else for him. Looks like he’s moving the timeline up a little. Next Tuesday, our boy’s gonna be a married man, one way or another.”
I know I should be happy for Adrian. He’s wanted Loni even longer than I’ve needed Haven. And yet… I can’t think of Adrian Claiming anyone and not remember that, since he was twelve, it was understood that Haven was his intended.
I knew Adrian would never take Haven from me. It still gave me one hell of a complex when no one else in Harmony Heights—including my future/current wife—did.
Bas is thinking along the same lines as me. He takes another sip of his coffee before asking, “You gonna tell her?”
“No.”
“Connor.”
“No, pretty boy. And you’re not going to tell her about any of this, either.”