11. Jet
JET
Her heart is beating double time. I swear, I can hear it. Mine is too. And that was barely the touching of my lips to hers. A small taste for both of us. It’s all I trust myself with.
Now, I watch my wife, my wife, standing where I left her a few feet off looking like a lost little thing while I go over final details with Malcom before he leaves to get the car.
My footsteps echo on the stone floors, bouncing off the walls.
She has her back to me, and I swear she shudders with each step.
Reaching around her into the pew she was sitting in, I grab her coat, which is giving Little Red Riding Hood vibes. Fitting. I am her wolf. I drape it over her shoulders then hand her her purse which is remarkably heavy.
“Ready, wife?”
She looks up at me. “What happens now?”
I tilt my head knowing I shouldn’t have this much fun with her, but unable to resist. I mean, she deserves a little punishment.
“Don’t you know?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
Her face flushes with the heat of what I think a mixture of fury and embarrassment. She makes fists of her small hands. It’s cute. “I mean are you going to let me finish what I came here to do before taking me back?”
“And what is it you came here to do?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. I’ll handle my business.”
“Newsflash, Little Virgin. Your business is my business. You belong to me now.”
“This is not the Middle Ages. I don’t belong—”
“Oh, sweetheart,” I chuckle. “This is going to be fun. Didn’t you hear our vows? I am to protect you. I’m sworn to it. Just as you’re sworn to obey me.”
She bristles, eyes narrowing.
I smile wide. Can’t help myself.
“But now, my darling wife, we have a much more interesting matter. Our wedding night.”
Her face pales, but I don’t miss the way her eyes widen, that blue darkening, becoming stormy with curiosity.
There’s always been a pull between us from day one.
The knowledge that she’ll come to me untouched wakes something primal inside me.
The fact that she’s my wife? Well, I have no words for that.
Only a deep, dark satisfaction I feel in my gut. My chest.
Before either of us can say more, the door opens and Malcom peers inside.
“Ready when you are,” he says.
“Be right out.” I tug Amal’s cloak closer around her, buttoning the single large button at her throat.
It falls fully closed, a good quality wool cloak which is necessary for this weather.
Edinburgh is fucking freezing, wind slapping you with rain, alternating with hail and, if you’re really lucky, all coming down sideways at the same time.
It’s been like this for the full week I’ve been here.
With my hand at her back, I escort her to the exit. One of my men opens the door and sure as fuck, the weather hasn’t let up. If anything, it’s worse.
“Why are you in Edinburgh anyway?” I ask, pulling the hood of her cloak over her head.
“Too cold for you?” she asks, glancing up at me. With the dark sky behind her, she looks otherworldly. It’s this place. This gothic city that time forgot.
“Too wet. Christ, this makes Devil’s Peak look balmy.”
We hurry down the stairs. Malcom opens the back door of the SUV, and I help Amal in before climbing in beside her. Once we’re settled, Malcom walks to the driver’s side, his hair almost completely soaked by the time he’s inside.
“Hotel?” he asks.
“No. 8A Forth Street.”
Amal’s gaze snaps to mine. “My apartment?”
“We need to get your things.”
“How did you know where I was staying?”
“You’d be surprised the things I know about you.”
“What you said that there was someone else?” she asks, ignoring my comment. “Is that true?”
I nod. She doesn’t need to know the specifics. “Why didn’t you tell me about the threats you were getting?”
She looks surprised. “How did you find out?”
“Pulling phone logs isn’t hard, Amal.” My guess is she has a burner phone to call her brother with, or I’d have been here sooner.
“I’ve handled myself just fine. Those threats weren’t anything new.”
“No, I got that last part. But coming here alone gave at least one asshole an opening.”
“No one should have been able to track me. I made sure.”
“Guess you didn’t make sure enough.”
“Who was it?”
“No one important. Some muscle man. Low ranking. An errand boy.”
“You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“To scare me.”
“I think you’re plenty scared already.”
Although I expect her to deny it, she doesn’t.
“Want me to check the place, Jet?” Malcom asks as we turn the corner onto her street and he pulls into a parking spot a few houses down. Amal’s been renting a small apartment a little way out of the center of town.
“No, I got it. Get the boys a couple of those. And me too, will you?” I ask Malcom gesturing to the bakery down the street that makes cardamom buns, the more refined, more delicious big sister of the cinnamon bun.
“Thought you’d never ask,” Malcom chuckles.
“You want one?” I ask Amal. “They’re good.”
She shakes her head and we climb out, then head to her apartment. She opens her purse and fishes out the key. I hold my hand out and, with a roll if her eyes, she hands it to me. Once we’re inside, I switch on the lights.
Although neat and tidy, the apartment is small. I think the entire place would fit in my living room with room left over. “You have five minutes to get your things,” I tell her as she slips her cloak off.
“I’ve been here three months. I’m going to need more than five minutes.”
“Well, you have five minutes so prioritize.”
“Asshole,” she mutters then turns and walks down the hall to her bedroom, hands clenched into fists, muttering some nonsense. I follow her, feeling weirdly happy.
Once we reach her bedroom, she switches on the light and faces me. “If you’re so anxious, let’s just get it done here and now. Get it over with.”
I snort, make a point of looking at the tiny, rickety looking bed over her shoulder. “For what I have planned, we’re going to need a bigger, sturdier bed.” I turn back to her. “With posts,” I add, narrowing my eyes at her.
She swallows, then steels herself. “Well, sadly this was all your watch could afford me.”
I feel myself tense. “That watch was important.”
“I didn’t think you’d miss it. I mean, it was tossed in the back of your drawer and broken, and you have what? A dozen more? Fucking rich people.” She tosses over her shoulder and starts to walk away but I grab hold of her and tug her back.
“You think you understand things you don’t understand. You shouldn’t have taken it and definitely not pawned it. If you needed money, you could have asked me. I’d have given it to you.”
“Oh yeah. So, if I’d asked you for a couple thousand dollars you’d just have handed it to me?”
“Yeah, actually, Amal. I’d have given you anything you asked for.”
That is not what she’s expecting to hear and I’m not sure who’s more surprised by that admission, me or her.
“Why? Why would you do that?” she finally asks.
“Doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Everything’s different now. Five minutes.”
I release her and leave the bedroom before I can do or say something else stupid. I walk back down the hall where she set her purse on the table by the door. Habit, I guess. I pick it up, go into the small living room and plop down on the couch. I open the tote.
She’s got lipstick in there, a compact, a couple of notebooks, one spiral bound, the other looks like an old diary for a little girl who likes princesses and pink. It even has what was once a small lock that’s broken.
In addition, I see two phones, one which is a burner.
I pocket the burner and try to switch on the other one but it’s completely out of charge so I pocket that as well.
Taking one of the notebooks out, I set her purse aside to flip through it, reading her notes.
Her handwriting is tiny and neat but it’s just a jumble, nothing concrete that will give me an indication of what she’s doing in Scotland.
I mean, fucking Scotland? It’s nice, I’m sure, but what is here for her?
On various pages, I do see some crossed off names and addresses. All men, I note.
The diary is larger and pretty beat up. The top is stained and warped.
I wonder if it was her childhood diary. Flipping through, I glimpse the date on one of the entries.
It’s from seventeen years ago and the handwriting is not that of a little girl.
I hear a sound from the bedroom and glance up, but it’s just her slamming some shit around so I return my attention to the diary and read a few sentences, not much of which makes sense.
I flip farther back to find the first entry is over twenty years old.
It’s not her diary.
Before I can search further, I hear Amal’s footfalls as she approaches. I close the diary and pocket the smaller notebook. My gaze catches on the book lying on the dining table. The Bloody Chamber. The book she ‘borrowed’ from me.
When she enters the room, her gaze lands on that book. “Here. I’m returning your book,” she says, picking it up and holding it out for me. She’s got a large duffel slung over one shoulder.
I chuckle, standing, and open my mouth to say something but when she sees the diary in my hand, her face loses all color.
“That’s mine!”
She drops the duffel and runs to grab the diary. I pull it out of reach just because. “Take it easy. You’ll tear it. It’s old.”
“Give it to me. That’s none of your business. I mean it, Jet. Give it to me.”
“Whose is it?”
She shakes her head but keeps her lips tightly sealed. I cock my head waiting.
“It’s mine,” she lies.
“Really? So you were writing in it from within the womb?”
“You can’t read that!” She tries to grab it again, but I hold her off.
“Whose is it, Amal?”
“It’s my mother’s,” she finally says, eyes panicked. Vulnerable again, like that night I brought her to my house. “It’s all I have of hers.”
I realize I don’t know anything about her mother. Nothing at all.
“Please give it back,” she says, teeth clenched, eyes watery and sounding nothing like herself.
I hold it out to her.