Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
I sit.
“What don’t you understand?”
“Why won’t you do it? Marry her? You have feelings for her that’s obvious. I see it on your face even now. And she has feelings for you. So why don’t you just fucking do it and put everyone out of their misery?”
I bow my head. Can I tell him? Can I reveal this terrible secret to him?
“You know me, Judge. You know everything about me. Yet you don’t talk about your past. Never have. Or on those few occasions it comes up, it’s very superficial. Perhaps you think I haven’t noticed, but I have, all these years. I know I don’t see you, not all of you. So what is so fucking dark that you’re willing to lose everything, every goddamn thing, to hide it?”
I swallow over the lump in my throat, feeling sweat collect under my arms and along my forehead. I look at my friend, but I’m looking through him.
He snorts, shaking his head. He gets up, pours a scotch, and sets it on the desk in front of me.
“Does it have anything to do with the tattoo on your back? The one I never knew you had.”
I pick up the scotch, barely controlling the tremble of my hand. I drink a swallow.
“Or the scar it hides beneath? The knife wound.”
I swallow the contents of the glass. He doesn’t pour another. Just sits back and watches me. This is too hard. It’s not that I want to keep my secrets. It’s that it’s too hard to share them. To bare myself like that.
“You will miss out on a family. Is that what you want?”
I look at the ring on my finger. All Sovereign Sons wear them. The Montgomery insignia, law and consequence. I can almost hear Carlisle.
“You know Hildebrand is salivating to have me on The Tribunal.”
“I know.”
“He and my grandfather had been planning for it for years.” I make myself look at him. “Hildebrand thinks we’ll make a powerful team.”
Santiago watches me. He doesn’t speak, and I can’t read him. But I don’t expect him to make this easy for me. Why would he? If our roles were reversed, I’m not sure I’d even give him this chance. And perhaps a few years ago, he wouldn’t have. This is Ivy’s doing. She has softened him.
“He sees something inside me that he recognizes, Santiago. A violence…” I trail off because I don’t know what else to say.
“Is it there?”
I nod once.
“Have you unleashed it on my sister?”
“No.”
“Did you force her?”
“She was in my care. I was the one in control.”
“Did you force yourself on her against her will?”
“No. Christ. I am not that beast.”
His expression softens infinitesimally. “I know that already. I just wasn’t sure you did.”
That surprises me, and I find I’m struck mute.
“A neighbor delivered the package. Douglas is smarter than to come to the house with the presence of the IVI guard. But he is determined.” He opens a drawer, takes a box out, and sets it on the desk.
I stand, open it, and look inside to find the baby doll chopped to pieces and the funeral invitation. My blood turns cold just like it did when she described the contents. “Christ. Did she see this?”
“No, the guard wouldn’t let her.”
“Let me take her home.” He raises an eyebrow, and I know it’s at the word home. I press on. “I can keep her safe. He won’t have access to her in my house.”
“Nor would he in mine. But she doesn’t want that, and I think it’s past time we respect her decisions for a change.”
“This is life or death, Santiago.”
Standing, he comes to put a hand on my shoulder. “Imprisoning her in your house or mine is a different sort of death. And neither you nor I want that for her.”
18
JUDGE
I’m on my way home when my phone chimes with a text. At a traffic light, I check it. It’s Solana sending some idiotic message I don’t understand.
Solana: Dun dun da dun…
Me: Can you forget my number?
Solana: I hear wedding bells.
Me: What?
Solana: Didn’t you hear? A certain eligible Sovereign Son has asked for Mercedes’s hand in marriage. He was very romantic about it too…
When I pull a U-turn in the middle of the intersection, cars honk their horns, sending traffic screeching around me. My cell phone drops to the floor as I press the gas pedal and race to the apothecary. I double park outside, fuming as I stalk into the shop. Solana is with a customer, and that crack Madame Dubois is filing her nails from her table, wearing a sly smile on her face.
“I’ll be right with you,” Solana says with a shit-eating grin. “Why don’t you look at our selection of mood-enhancing elixirs over there.”
I grit my teeth and consider shaking her when I hear Kali bark. Shit. I forgot about her, and I don’t need her pissing in my car.