The Unwanted Marriage They Mean to Claim

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Lucian

Houston, Texas

There are some things a man should never have to bet, but Richard Langford is about to discover I don’t give a damn about his moral boundaries.

I watch as he stares at his cards. Sweat beads on his forehead despite the perfect climate control of Altair’s Houston domain.

The chair beneath Langford is probably slick with his desperation.

How sad.

I mask my satisfaction behind calm indifference. The man’s fear might sway a lesser man toward mercy.

But not me. Every move Caleb and I have made over the years have pushed Richard Langford to this moment.

And the only thing I really want is about to be mine.

Right now, the second floor of the Retreat stretches around us like a monument to controlled power.

Crystal chandeliers refract light across art worth more than most people’s annual salaries.

The subtle scent of expensive leather mixes with the quiet hum of the technology that monitors every inch of Altair’s empire below.

On the massive projection screen, camera feeds flicker between scenes from the club’s main floor. There are bodies bent in submission, power being exchanged, and boundaries being tested.

How perfectly appropriate for what is about to happen here.

Across the table, I catch my partner’s eye. Caleb and I are always on the same wavelength and have been since those dark days in Geneva.

His almost imperceptible nod tells me we’re thinking the same thing. It’s time.

“Your call, Langford.” Caleb’s voice cuts through the silence with that surgical precision I’ve come to rely on over the past eight years.

He sits motionless behind the dealer’s position, missing nothing, his dark eyes cataloging every microexpression, every tell, every sign of Langford’s mounting panic. Where I project casual dominance, Caleb is pure predatory focus. We’ve perfected this dance.

Langford’s gaze darts to Altair, who observes from his position near the bar like some golden-eyed god of the underworld. Langford is smart to look for salvation from that quarter. Tonight, he won’t find it.

Nothing happens in Altair’s territory without his blessing, and Altair Montgomery understands the value of what we’re after tonight. The fact that he’s allowing this game to continue proves where his loyalties lie.

Langford swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a man drowning. “I need more time to—”

“Time’s a luxury you exhausted two hands ago.” I lean forward, letting him see the predator beneath the polish.

I’ve learned that confidence is the ultimate weapon, especially when backed by the kind of power that can make or break lives. “Your markers total four point eight million. Your liquid assets wouldn’t cover half of that, and we both know your wife’s treatments aren’t getting any cheaper.”

The words hit him like I intended—physical blows that make him flinch. Elizabeth Langford. His wife is his Achilles’ heel. Love makes a strong man weak. Fortunately for me, I don’t believe in love.

Over the years, I’ve watched him hemorrhage money in a desperate attempt to save her. I’ve seen him spiral into increasingly desperate gambles. All leading to this moment. This beautiful, inevitable conclusion.

I can be his salvation and his destruction, wrapped in the same deal. “However,” I continue, savoring the way his face goes pale, “there is one asset you possess that we might consider…equivalent collateral.”

His eyes widen. Has his heart stopped?

“Sophie.” Caleb speaks her name, and I feel that familiar tightness in my chest. Sophie Langford.

The woman who has haunted my thoughts for eight years, who looked at me with such fury and heartbreak the night we saved her from that bastard, Adrian. The woman who thinks she’s built herself a life outside our reach.

She has no idea how wrong she is.

“Your daughter’s hand in marriage.” I lean forward. “To both of us.”

This is it. The moment I’ve been maneuvering toward for years.

Every carefully orchestrated loss that brought Langford deeper into debt, every strategic piece of information Caleb fed into our network, every move designed to corner this pathetic man into giving us what we’ve wanted since the moment his beautiful daughter would become my obsession.

Langford’s hands shake so violently that I’m amazed he doesn’t drop his cards. “She’s not… She’s not chattel.”

The protest is laughable. Everything is chattel if you have the right leverage.

Altair finally moves, pushing away from the bar with the liquid grace that makes him so formidable. “No.” His voice carries absolute authority. “But you’re in deep, Langford.” His golden eyes fix on the man with focused intensity. “And you’re desperate.”

Perfect. I couldn’t have orchestrated Altair’s intervention better myself. The man understands power, realizes that sometimes you have to sacrifice pawns to capture the queen.

Langford closes his eyes, and I know he’s seeing his dying wife. Seeing the woman he loves wasting away while treatments that could save her sit just out of reach. Treatments we’ve made sure he knows exist, made sure he understands are his wife’s only hope. Treatments his next move can provide.

Does he spare a single thought for Sophie in this moment? For what he’s about to cost her? I doubt it. Love makes men selfish, and desperation makes them ruthless.

“Sophie will never agree to this.”

I smile, letting him see exactly how little his daughter’s initial consent matters to me. “Sophie’s agreement is not a prerequisite for the arrangement. Though I suspect, given your…current financial predicament, she’ll find the terms quite reasonable.”

Reasonable.

The word tastes like victory on my tongue.

What’s reasonable is that Sophie Langford belongs with men who can appreciate her fire, who can match her intelligence, who won’t let her waste her considerable talents on charity cases and lost causes.

What’s reasonable is that eight years is long enough to wait for what should have been ours from the beginning.

Langford looks at his cards one final time, then sets them face-down. The gesture of a man who’s finally accepted his fate. “If I do this…” He gulps. “My wife gets the treatment. All of it. Whatever it costs.”

“Whatever it costs,” I agree, sealing the bargain that will deliver Sophie Langford straight into our hands.

Caleb smiles, and the heady, familiar surge of satisfaction that comes from a plan perfectly executed rushes through me.

Richard Langford thinks he just lost a hand of cards.

But I have gained everything.

In that moment, I forget about him, and my mind shifts to what really matters—Sophie and the way her stunning green eyes will flash with fury when she learns what’s happened. The way she’ll lift her beautiful, stubborn chin as she struggles to find a way out of our trap.

She’s spent every day since that fateful night building walls to keep men like us away, convinced she’s untouchable.

She’s about to discover how wrong she is.

I picture her walking down the aisle to us, that fire in her eyes slowly transforming into something else entirely. Something hotter. Something that will burn for Caleb and me.

And our wedding night…

Christ.

I’ve been patient as I watched, wanted, waited.

The moment I slide that ring onto her finger, the moment she says “I do”—even if it’s through gritted teeth—she will become ours completely.

I lean back in my chair, satisfaction spreading through me like warm Bonds whiskey.

Sophie Langford has no idea what’s coming for her.

Across the table, Caleb reaches for the deck with deliberate slowness.

The final community card hits the felt with a soft whisper.

Queen of hearts.

Absolutely fucking perfect.