7. Wife

SEVEN

Up until the moment I'm standing in a stuffy study, staring down at the wedding license waiting for my signature, I really thought I'd get out of this.

In what world do you a stab a guy, mess up trying to kill him, and instead of him ordering his goon to retaliate, he proposes?

Not like I can call it that. Not really. Proposing implies that I actually had a choice whether or not I actually wanted to marry him, and since the choice was Damien or death, it's a no-brainer to go with the wedding.

I just… I guess I never thought he'd expect me to marry him tonight.

But that's exactly what just happened. In front of a grey-haired judge wearing his robes and a fearful expression as he goes through the motions of performing a civil union with Vin as our ‘witness', all that's left for me to do now

Because in what world will this crooked judge force me to marry a man I tried to kill maybe two hours ago? In the criminal underbelly of Springfield, where being the head of a gang of thugs means that he can snap his fingers and expect everyone to do his bidding—or else.

Or else…

He threatened me with going to the cops. I couldn't let him do that. I couldn't… I can't go back to prison again. I would've rather his big goon snap my neck over being behind bars again. I almost let that happen, too, until he gave me another way out.

Marry him. I guess I don't know him half as well as I thought I did, because I was convinced he already had a wife; if not a wife, then a partner. Plus, Damien's reputation precedes him. He's a ruthless bastard who hides it behind his pleasant smile and his thousand-dollar suits. The gentleman gangster, I never would've thought he'd let me get away with stabbing him.

To make me his bride? I have no idea what he's thinking. Why he's doing this. Even after all of his comments while he made me stand in the doctor's office as he got patched up… I was desperate to find a way out of this because I never once doubted that he'd make me go through with this.

And he did. Dashing his slanted signature on the wedding license on the judge's desk, smirking to himself as he sets the pen down, he seems almost pleased with himself.

If some crazy chick tried to seduce me, then stabbed me in the side with my own knife, I'd think twice about letting her get close enough to do it again. So unless he plans on marrying me before retaliating against me, that's the one upside to this insanity.

Sure, Damien. Let me be Mrs. Libellula. Let me go home to my apartment, run my own life with this civic tie between us, and the next time we meet, I'll fix this problem by making myself a widow.

That's my plan. I cling to it desperately as he places his hand on the small of my back, giving me just hard enough of a push to have me stumbling in my sneakers toward the desk.

Because, yup, I'm still wearing the t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers I pulled on this morning when I was getting ready for work. After leaving the Springfield East Clinic, he drove me and Vin all the way to the other side of Springfield, straight to Judge Callahan's huge-ass mansion.

I didn't even feel worthy walking on his expensive floors in my cheap, ten-dollar sneakers. Damien and Vin at least had suits on, even if Damien's is obviously blood-stained in the right light, but I look like he just picked me off the street and dragged me in here.

Oh, wait.

He did.

Judge Callahan didn't even blink at my appearance after the fucking butler—whose sneer tells me that he definitely did notice—at the door let us in, leading us toward the judge's personal office. He had everything ready for us, and when he refers to the message he received from Damien, I suddenly understand why he seemed so busy on his phone when Vin was rushing him to the clinic earlier.

I thought he was planning his revenge on me.

Nope. He was planning our marriage.

Once I've shuffled my feet up to the desk, he lifts his hand. His fingers slide through my hair, settling on my shoulder as he looms behind me. "Sign the license, wife."

I grit my teeth. When all I want to do is snap at him for calling me that, it's a much safer option to just go along with what he said without arguing.

At least, not in front of witnesses.

I pick up the pen. Next to Damien's signature, there's a blank line for me. Printing beneath it, I see my ‘name': SAVANNAH MONTGOMERY.

I see it, and for the first time all night, I have the urge to smile.

I'm not Savannah. Not legally. And if I sign this license with my fake name, doesn't that make this marriage illegitimate?

It's a loophole. A very small one, too, and I know I'm grasping at straws. My future husband is a mafia leader. Somehow, I doubt he really gives a shot over the legalities of things. As it is, I'm pretty damn sure he's only going through the motions—having the judge marry us in his private study after courtroom hours with a hastily printed wedding license—so that I believe that we're married.

Let him. He wants to play this game? I'll play.

I'm going to fucking win, too.

Picking up the pen, I meet his gaze. There's a dare written into every line of his face, almost as though he's waiting for me to back out. To beg forgiveness. To call his goddamn bluff.

I don't. He set these events in motion when he could've just had the decency to die. Now? He'll have to face the consequences same as me.

Without a word, I scrawl Savannah Montgomery on the line, then toss the pen down.

Behind us, Vin groans.

Sorry, big guy. He might've pushed his luck as far as it could go, nagging Damien the entire ride over to the judge's house to reconsider, but my new husband seemed insistent on seeing this through to the point that Vin just stopped talking.

He didn't answer me when I point-blank asked him if he's the one who snatched my gun out of my purse, either…

Ah, well. I'll have to figure out a way to get it back. No way in hell is Damien going to let me get close enough to go for his knife again—unless he's a fucking moron, and even if I don't understand what his motives are, at least I'm sure he's not a fucking moron—so I'll have to be a little more… creative.

There's no time to think about that now. Once the ink on the license is dry, I'm basically considered his wife, and now I have to find out what that means to Damien?—

The judge clears his throat. "If you're anything like Lincoln and his bride, I'm sure you're quite eager to consummate your marriage with this, er, lovely young lady here."

Lovely? Maybe if I had a full face of make-up on and my hair wasn't a wind-blown mess. And young… with my thirtieth birthday coming up in June, I'm only ten years or so younger than Damien. The way Judge Callahan says that, you'd think he was accusing Damien of robbing the cradle in a roundabout way.

But none of that really bothers me. Oh, no. It's the part where the judge so matter-of-fact mentions consummating our marriage that has my heart jumping into my throat.

His wrinkled face gets a bit of a leer to it as he adds, "I have a bathroom down the hall you might like to use."

Damien snorts. "Thank you, but no. I like to think I have a little more class and patience than Devil does. I'm taking my wife home."

Holy shit.

I don't think he's a moron, but I just might be. Despite the way he come on to me in the alley before I stabbed him, it never occurred to me that he might have some kind of sexual motivation behind this forced marriage. But when he says he's taking his wife home…

I gulp. He doesn't mean my apartment, does he?

He doesn't.

It's a twenty-minute ride back across time, and I spent every single fucking one of them wondering if it would be worth it to open the backseat door and dive out in the road before we make it to Damien's manor.

I think he could tell. At the very least, he instructed Vincent to sit in the back with me while he drove, almost as if he expected me to make a break for it and knew the big guy would be up to the task of stopping me.

I'm even more confused about his motivations now. After seeing him with that blonde for so many months, I was convinced he was in a relationship. Even if he wasn't, his good looks, his money, and his power have got to be one hell of an aphrodisiac. I hate him for what his gang did to me, and even I can't help but be a little physically attracted to him.

Does that mean I want to marry him? That I want to fuck him?

Hell, no. But there's got to be countless women who would. He doesn't need to blackmail a woman into marrying him just to get laid. Especially not one who is responsible for the hole in his side, but that doesn't change the fact that—according to Judge Callahan, at least—I'm not Damien Libellula's wife.

And now I'm pulling up to the house that, only this morning, I would've given anything to get inside…

I knew his house was big. Even after I saw Judge Callahan's ritzy home, it didn't compare to Damien's.

Now I can say that his house is even more massive up close.

Thanks to the locked gate that surrounds the entire place, I could never get near enough to really check it out. It's always reminded me of the White House because of the pristine paneling that covers it, plus the intimidating gate that kept the rest of Springfield out. Instead of being super wide, it's taller, though the buildings bracketing the outer reach of the fence dwarf it. It's set back a bit, too, almost like it's too good to be part of the city.

But that's the thing. The skyscrapers in this part of the East End have, like, thirty floors compared to Libellula's three. How many people make their homes in those apartment, crammed into tiny spaces like mine? And here's the head of the Dragonflies taking up all this space just for him.

As if I couldn't hate him and what he stands for any more, having his big brute of a bodyguard enter the alarm code—those broad shoulders blocking me from seeing what numbers he punched in—before driving us down the length of the circular drive that brings us to the front steps.

He parks, and Damien shakes his head just enough to be noticeable.

"Bring the car to the garage," he says. "I'll get my wife settled in."

My wife.

My wife.

My. Wife.

I'm seconds away from spiraling. The more he repeats that—my wife—the more it's beginning to sink in that I agreed to this. I married him. And now… now he plans on bringing inside his house to… what?

I don't know, and I'm terrified to find out.

I won't let him see that, though. I won't let him see how much being near him gets to me. I won't give him the fucking satisfaction of seeing that he's rattled me…

Pull it together, Savannah. Remember who you're supposed to be. Keep the accent, don't act bothered at all. Don't give him any excuse to change his mind before you cand find a way out of this…

Damien gets out of his side of the car, then turns and opens my door for me.

My stomach tightens. I know better than to think he's being a gentleman, holding up the door. This is a reminder that I fucked-up, I failed, and until I can get my hands on a weapon again, I have to go through this farce.

So when Damien offers me his hand to help me scoot out of the backseat, I pretend not to notice.

He lets me, though when he grabs my elbow to lead me inside and I shake him off, he pauses, thins his lips, and takes my elbow again.

He doesn't squeeze it. There's no warning gesture. He just lays his hand lightly on my elbow and I know that, no matter how many times I try to shake him off, he will stubbornly take hold again and again.

It's not worth the fight. Not when I still don't have any idea what game he's trying to play.

Once he disarms the alarm, letting us into the house, it takes every ounce of resolve I have not to gape at my surroundings. The outside was magnificent on purpose—a statement to his power and his wealth—but if I thought the inside would be understated even a little, I'm fucking wrong.

I feel like I'm walking into a museum. It's quiet, with an open entryway, a spiral stair in front of me that leads up, and a pair of decorated halls that lead off to the rest of the house. The floor is expensive tile, perfectly shiny and clean, and as I take a deep breath, I catch the hint of disinfectant on the air.

It doesn't look lived-in at all. As he leads me toward the spiral stairway, I half expect a docent to come out and offer us a tour.

Don't need one. Damien knows exactly where he's going—and though the next floor up has another wide hall with divots that lead to large rooms, there's one in particular that he guides me toward.

It doesn't take seeing the massive king-sized bed to realize that he's taken me to his bedroom.

I mean, that helps. So do the stuffed armchairs in one corner, the antique wooden furniture—including a nightstand and a dresser—that matches the headboard of the bed, but more than anything, it's the spicy musk overlaying the ‘clean' scent that makes me sure it belongs to Damien.

It smells like him, and I hate that I like it.

Once I'm inside, I try not to lose it when the first thing he does is close the door behind us.

This is it. He has me right where he wants me, and I'm not even a little surprised when the second thing he does is shrug off his ruined jacket, before he waves at the bed.

"This is our room. Our marital bed. If we're going to make this marriage work, there won't be any of this trying to kill me bullshit. Outside of this room, go for it. Don't be surprised if I don't stop Vincent next time, but knock yourself out. In this room? I'll stop you, and you might not like the way I do." He shrugs off his blood-stained dress shirt, letting it fall to the floor. "Though I pride myself that, when I'm done with you, Savannah, you will."

Once his bare chest is on display—and I have to look at the sculpted, hairless torso like I did back at the clinic and wonder how the hell he's still in this good of shape at forty—it takes everything I have not to store.

Half-naked Damien. A bed.

Consummate…

"Stay over there," I tell him, backing up so that there are a good ten feet separating us. "I don't know what you think you're going to do tonight, but it's not with me."

"You're my wife?—"

"You say I am."

"Judge Callahan says you are. The wedding license says the same. By tomorrow, the city of Springfield will know that you're mine."

Oh my god. He sounds so certain—like he fucking means it.

His gaze narrows as he takes one step toward me, then another. "What's the matter, Savannah? Is there someone you don't want to know that you agreed to be my bride?"

Look who's talking. I'm not the one who goes out with the same blonde chick all the time…

"No."

Damien looks thoughtful as he continues to stalk me. Once he got close, I backed up again, only for him to continue following me around the room.

"You said that so quickly. Either you're lying?—"

"I'm not," I drawl lazily, pouring the honey into the Southern accent as he continues to herd me back toward his bed.

That's what he was doing. I know it, and so does he. But when he senses a kernel of truth in my fake accent, he pauses. "Really? You have to have someone you care about."

Someone he can use against me?

"Not anymore," I tell him honestly.

"They're dead?"

As good as.

"My, my. Ragna mia, hm? A black widow, is that it? I'm not your first victim?"

He's being playful now. Who would've thought?

He's playful—and I hate that he's backed me into a corner as easily as he moved me so that the bad is right behind me now.

Glaring at the bandage covering his skin, I snap. "A victim would've bled out and saved me from all this trouble."

"I'm so sorry. The next time you attempt to assassinate me, I'll be more considerate."

He's fucking with me. I know that, but something in my face gives away my intentions before I can keep them back.

Damien tsks. "So there will be a next time."

He can't honestly be surprised.

"I didn't stab you on accident," I remind him.

"No. But you did a piss-poor job of it, wife."