Chapter 12 #2
We lie there tangled together, hearts pounding in syncopated rhythm, sweat cooling on skin that still trembles with aftershocks. I have never felt so completely possessed by another person, so thoroughly claimed in a way that goes beyond the physical.
I am his now. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death or the expiration of our contract do us part.
My eyes burn with the realization of that truth. And somewhere in the wreckage of my defenses, I find that I do not mind as much as I should.
Rafael
She is crying.
Soft, silent tears that slip down her temples and disappear into the violet silk of her hair, and the sight of them carves something jagged and raw through my chest.
“Did I hurt you?” I pull back immediately, searching her face for signs of damage, of regret, of anything that would tell me I have broken this magnificent creature beyond repair. “Persia, talk to me, little dove. Did I—”
“No.” Her laugh is watery, hiccupping, the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. “No, you did not hurt me. I do not know why I am crying. I just feel... everything. Too much. Like my heart cannot contain it all and my brain can’t catch up."
I understand what she means more than she knows.
I have spent decades building walls around myself, fortifying the fortress of my heart against anyone who might try to breach it.
And this woman, this fierce little dove who signed her life over to me with trembling fingers and fire in her eyes, has somehow found her way past every defense I have.
I am in trouble. Deep, devastating trouble that no amount of power or money or violence can protect me from.
I press my lips to her forehead and taste the salt of her tears. “Stay here. I will be right back.”
The bathroom is larger than most people's apartments, all marble and gold fixtures and a tub big enough to swim in.
I turn on the water and add the bath oils that appeared in the cabinet a week ago.
I light a few candles, too. All Marta's doing, no doubt.
The woman most likely anticipated this night long before I admitted to myself that it was inevitable.
Steam rises from the water as I return to the bedroom and scoop Persia into my arms. She makes a sound of protest that dies when I carry her into the bathroom and lower her gently into the warmth.
“Oh.” The word is a sigh of pure pleasure as the heat envelops her. “This is... this is nice.”
I climb in behind her, settling her back against my chest and wrapping my arms around her waist. She fits perfectly in the cradle of my body, like she was made to occupy this exact space.
“I have something for you.” I reach for the small velvet box I placed on the edge of the tub earlier and tucked under the edge of a hand towel. “Close your eyes.”
She obeys without question, a level of trust that humbles me more than any display of power ever could.
I open the box and remove the ring inside, a flawless diamond surrounded by smaller sapphires that match the aqua of her eyes, set in platinum that gleams in the soft overhead light and the candles.
I take her left hand and slide the ring onto her finger.
Her eyes fly open and she stares at the jewel sparkling on her hand, her breath catching in her throat. “Rafael…”
“You signed a contract.” I press my lips to the curve of her shoulder, tasting the rose-scented bath oil on her skin. “But I wanted you to have something more. Something that marks you as mine in a way that everyone can see.”
She turns in my arms, water sloshing over the sides of the tub as she faces me with an expression I cannot read. “We are not actually married. A contract is not the same as—”
“You are my wife. And that contract is all that is needed in our world.” I cup her face in my hands, holding her gaze with an intensity that leaves no room for doubt.
“What you signed makes everything binding in all the ways that count. To my brothers, to my enemies, to everyone who matters. You are my wife now, Persia. My queen. And I will destroy anyone who tries to take you from me. We can take care of the mundane legality of it in the outside world later.”
Fresh tears spill down her cheeks, but she is smiling, a trembling curve of her lips that looks like the sun breaking through storm clouds. “What about a church wedding? I always imagined…”
"Like I said, that can come later.” I brush the tears away with my thumbs, gentle despite the violence that lives in my hands.
“We can have any kind of ceremony you want. A cathedral full of flowers. A beach at sunset. A fucking mountaintop if that is what makes you happy. But this—” I tap the ring on her finger.
“This is what makes it real and that piece of paper you signed. This is what tells Magnus and your father that you belong to me.”
She kisses me then, soft and sweet and tasting of tears and the future I never thought I would have. When she pulls back, there is something new in her eyes, something that looks dangerously close to the emotion I have been fighting since the moment she walked into my club.
“Speaking of…what about Magnus?” The question shatters the peace of the moment, dragging us back to the brutal reality of the world waiting outside this bathroom. “He still has a contract with my father. A contract I was forced to sign but it’s still my signature.”
I knew this conversation was coming. I have been preparing for it since the moment I read her wish and understood exactly what I was taking on.
“Magnus Sterling's contract is not worth the paper it was printed on.” I trace patterns in the water on her hip, keeping my voice calm despite the rage that simmers in my blood at the mention of that man's name.
“Your signature was obtained under duress.
Once I have a meeting with a few friends of mine, they will refuse to validate that contract. "
Club Genesis is the one place everyone who had their fingers in dirty pots trusts to enforce our unspoken rules.
If you enter the revolving glass doors of Club Genesis, you need to know what you are getting into.
You need someone dead, want to do an arms deal with some South American baddies or need someone scouted out with a find-and-retrieve contract…
done. You have an arranged marriage contract between two willing parties…
they make sure it’s honored. You want backroom deals witnessed, protected and enforced…
also done. Club Genesis is the place to make sure everyone stays honest. Which is pretty fucking hard to do when tipping the scales in your own favor is just the nature of a villain’s way of doing business.
The three men who operate it, Harlon, Cassius and Santi, are friends of mine. Well, that might be a stretch. I pay their yearly fee and I do business in what I like to think of as our city.
It works and I have support when I need it. Like right now. Magnus will probably already have the contract he forced Persia to sign at Genesis and registered.
Now that I have one of my own, there will be some hellraising coming our way.
"Magnus does not care about anyone and some set of rules."
“Nope and I’m counting on that.” I meet her eyes with the cold certainty of a man who has waged war against worse enemies and won. "I will be meeting with him and your father at Club Genesis to make it very clear that you are no longer available for negotiation."
Fear flickers across her face, followed swiftly by something fiercer. "He will not accept that."
I lift a shoulder. “He does not have a choice.” I pull her closer, settling her against my chest where she can feel the steady beat of my heart.
“I am not asking for his blessing, little dove. I am informing him of reality. You belong to me now. Any claim he thinks he has is void. And if he tries to challenge that claim, I will end him, Genesis rules be damned.”
She is quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing the lines of ink across my arm. “You would kill for me.”
It is not a question, but I answer anyway. “I would burn the whole fucking city to the ground if that is what it took to keep you safe. I would destroy everyone who ever hurt you and build you a throne from their bones. I would—”
Her mouth on mine cuts off the declaration, and I let her swallow the words I was not ready to say anyway.
The ones that have been building in my chest since she hugged my brothers like they were friends.
Since she asked about my mother like she genuinely wanted to know.
Since she curled into my arms every night and made me feel something other than empty for the first time in twenty years.
We stay in the bath until the water cools and our fingers prune, talking about everything and nothing, learning the shape of each other in ways that go beyond the physical.
She tells me about the girl she wanted to be before her father broke her spirit.
I tell her about the boy who used to walk twelve blocks for chocolate croissants because it was the only sweetness left in his life.
Her fingers trace idle patterns through the water on my forearm, following the lines of ink that disappear beneath the surface. The silence between us has grown comfortable, soft around the edges in a way I am not accustomed to, when she goes still against my chest.
"I know you’ve seen my scars." Her voice is barely a whisper, fragile as spun glass.
“Yes.”
My arms tighten around her waist instinctively, and I press my lips to the crown of her head. “You do not have to tell me anything you are not ready to share.”
“I want to.” She draws a shaky breath that I feel move through her entire body. “You kissed them earlier like they were something precious instead of something shameful, and I need you to understand what you were touching.”
I stay silent, giving her the space to find her words while the cooling bathwater laps gently against the sides of the tub.
"My father wasn't always cruel. But the higher on the political ladder he climbed, the more of an animal he became."
The words come out flat, rehearsed, stripped of emotion in the way that tells me she has spent years learning how to speak them without breaking. “He has a favorite belt made of italian leather with a silver buckle engraved with our family crest. He keeps it hanging in his closet like a trophy.”
Rage ignites in my chest, white-hot and immediate, but I force my body to remain relaxed beneath her. She needs softness right now, not the violence that is screaming through my veins.
“He used it whenever I disobeyed. Whenever I embarrassed him at a fundraiser or spoke out of turn at dinner or looked at a boy he had not personally vetted.” A hollow laugh escapes her throat. “I learned early to keep my opinions to myself and my eyes on the floor.”
“Persia.” Her name is gravel in my mouth.
"The worst time was three years ago." She turns slightly in my arms, and I can see the way her aqua eyes have gone distant, lost in a memory that still haunts her.
“He found out I had been taking nursing classes at the community college. Classes I paid for myself with money my mother secretly gave me. Education he had not authorized, independence he had not permitted. Those were his words.”
Her voice cracks on the last word, and I pull her closer, tucking her head beneath my chin where she cannot see the murder that must be written across my face.
“I could not sit or lie back for two weeks. My mother told everyone I had the flu.” The bitterness in her tone could strip paint from walls. “The scars from that night are the deepest. They are the ones you felt when you touched the small of my back and shoulders.”
I think of my hands on her spine, of pressing kisses to raised white lines without understanding the horror that created them. I think of a nineteen-year-old girl bleeding through her clothes because she dared to want something for herself.
“That is why you always wear the scarves." My voice comes out hoarse. "The cardigans in summer. The dresses with high backs. My shirts.”
“I have not been truly bare in front of another person since I was a teenager.” She lifts her head to meet my eyes, and the vulnerability there nearly undoes me.
“I was terrified of what you would think when you saw them. That you would see damaged goods. Even now, though I did not want to sign your contract I fear you will want someone–”
“Stop.” The word is sharper than I intend, and I soften it by cradling her face in my wet palms. "Do not finish that sentence."
“Rafael—”
“Those scars are not your shame to carry. They are his." I trace my thumb across her cheekbone, catching a tear I did not realize had fallen. "They do not make you damaged, little dove. They make you a survivor. They make you the strongest woman I have ever known."
She searches my face with those luminous eyes, looking for the disgust she expected to find. When she does not see it, when she sees only the fury and the tenderness warring beneath my skin, something in her expression cracks open.
"I am going to kill him." The promise slips out before I can stop it, low and controlled and absolutely sincere. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday, Barret Fiore will pay for every mark he carved into your skin."
"You cannot just—"
"I can." I press my forehead to hers, letting her see the truth in my eyes. "I will. No one hurts what belongs to me, Persia. No one."
She does not argue. Instead, she closes the distance between us and kisses me with a desperation that tastes like gratitude and something deeper, something that makes my chest ache in ways I do not have words for.
When she finally pulls back, her lashes are wet but she is smiling.
"Thank you," she whispers. "For not looking at me differently."
I tuck a strand of damp violet hair behind her ear and let my fingers linger on the curve of her jaw. "The only thing that has changed is that I now have another name on my list of people who will answer for hurting you."
By the time I carry her back to bed and tuck her against my side, something has shifted between us. Something that feels like the foundation of something real.
I wait until her breathing evens out, until I am certain she is asleep, before I press my lips to her hair and whisper the words I am not brave enough to say when she can hear them.
"I am falling in love with you, little dove. And I have no idea how to stop."
Her only answer is a soft sigh and the instinctive way she burrows closer, seeking my warmth even in sleep.
I hold her tighter and stare at the ceiling, wondering how the hell a man like me is supposed to deserve a woman like her.
The answer, I suspect, is that I do not.
But I am going to spend the rest of my life trying anyway.