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And what Emery needs, what Isabella needs, what my father and my Bratva and I need, is for me to keep my cool.
So with a massive force of effort, I shove all that wrath back down where it came from. Not gone for good—just waiting for the right moment to rain hell down on this smug son of a bitch.
“I’m supposed to give her back out of a sense of charity to you? Is that the deal?”
Malcolm shakes his head. “No. It’s to save us both a lot of unnecessary hostility.”
I tilt my head to the side, studying him. For once, he’s not wearing his public persona as a mask. His expression is even and flat.
He’s telling the truth.
“So the Volandris don’t pay you enough to take care of yourself, but they’re going to start a war with me to get your fiancée back? Forgive my skepticism.”
“Be as skeptical as you like, Adrik. They will come for you. And you could make it all go away by giving Emery back to me.”
I step towards him, drawing close enough that he flinches when I exhale in his face. “Even if that were true, I wouldn’t do it.”
“Why?” he snaps. “She’s nothing. Inconsequential.”
The word sticks in my memory. I just said it to Emery a few hours ago.
The Bratva needs me to marry, so I will. Who is standing next to me while it takes place is completely inconsequential.
And in a lot of ways, it’s true. It could be anyone. Emery isn’t essential.
Or at least, that’s what I’ve spent weeks telling myself.
I’m starting to suspect that I’m full of shit.
“She’s not nothing,” I hiss. “She’s mine.”
Malcolm opens his mouth to say something, but the words die on his lips. Instead, I hear a familiar voice over my shoulder.
“How delightful to see you, Mr. Waters.”
I tense up. Emery was supposed to wait for me at the table.
“Delightful? Maybe not,” Malcolm says. “Surprising? Yes. I had no idea whores worked in broad daylight.”
I lean forward with a growl, but Emery’s voice slices through my rage before I can get a response out.
“Funny,” she drawls, “I thought the same thing about fat, corrupt politicians.”
Her response startles a chuckle out of me. The chuckle turns into a full-blown laugh when I notice how Malcolm’s face is turning redder and redder.
His top lip curls in rage as he turns to me. “You know, Adrik, maybe your new fiancée wouldn’t feel so brave smarting off if she knew how your last engagement ended.”
Emery inhales sharply behind me.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Malcolm continues. “Has he not told you about Sofia?”
I’m about to lay the fat fuck flat with my fists and give my lawyers yet another thing to get scrubbed from my record.
But before I can, a sharp cry cuts through the restaurant.
Emery and I both whip around to search for Isabella.
She’s still at our table, but a young waiter is standing behind her wheelchair, lifting up the back two wheels by the handlebars to try and move her out of the way of a server with a large tray of food coming through.
“I can do it,” Isabella squeals, jerking on her joystick to try and get the man to drop her. “Put down my chair! I can do it.”
Her back wheels are spinning uselessly in the air as she flops forward against the chest restraint.
“Shit!” Emery cries as she darts around the tables to get to her daughter.
“Think about my offer,” Malcolm calls after me. “Time is running out.”
“Choke on your offer, mudak. I’ll see you in hell.”
* * *
I’m on the phone when Emery walks through the door that once again adjoins her room to Isabella’s.
“She’s finally asleep,” she sighs, dropping down on the edge of the bed.
The maids must have cleaned up the wedding dresses while we were gone or Julia took them with her when she came back to pack up, because the bed is clear and made. No sign of what we did on it just a few hours ago.
I’ll have to send Julia a bonus for the rather unexpected end to our session.
“I think she was just tired,” Emery continues. “She gets grouchy after big days sometimes. The guy shouldn’t have grabbed her chair, but he didn’t—”
“Hello?” A voice on the other end of the line says.
“Fucking finally,” I growl, standing up.
Emery follows me with her eyes, frowning. “Who is it?” she mouths.
I ignore her. “I’ve jumped through enough of your hoops. It’s a service dog, not a nuclear bomb. Cut the shit and tell me why this isn’t finished yet.”
The man stammers, “Oh, sir, um… we have a process we must follow. It’s to ensure the dog is legally recognized as a service animal. I can connect you with my manager or someone from the business department if you have specific questions about—”
“As a matter of fact, I do have a specific question,” I interrupt. “Did you have to surgically insert your head that far up your ass or were you born that way?”
Emery gasps. “Adrik!”
The man on the other end of the phone stutters and splutters, unsure what to do. So I continue.
“My daughter was accosted by a man who grabbed her wheelchair in a restaurant. He grabbed her chair and moved her, and I want to know how much longer I need to wait before this animal arrives.”
“Following the usual schedule, it should be within a couple weeks,” he says. “Sir, I will say, it sounds like you are upset. As you should be. But our animals are not guard dogs. They are not attack animals. They are trained to respond to medical emergencies and assist their owners in daily tasks.”
“Precisely. Daily tasks like warding off fuckwads who don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s—”
Suddenly, Emery grabs my phone and pulls it away from my ear. “What are you doing? You’re ruining everything.”
“No, I’m fixing everything,” I retort.
“By undoing all the hard work we did by sitting through those interviews?” she hisses. “They’ll never give us a dog if you call and verbally assault their employees. Hang up.”
“Not until they give me what I want.”
“Hang! Up!” She enunciates each word clearly.
“Fuck. Off.”
“Sir,” the employee says, his voice shaking. “I’m sorry, but… I have to— I’m hanging up now. I’m sorry.”
The line goes dead. I hurl my phone into the pillows in disgust. “Son of a bitch.”
“He had every right to hang up on you!” Emery yells. “What the hell was that about? I thought we were going to follow the protocols and do this the right way.”
“I don’t do things the right way,” I bark. “I don’t adhere to protocols or follow ‘the usual schedule.’ I get what I want, when I want it. And I don’t have to answer to anyone. Least of all you.”
She steps closer to me, looking more concerned than scared. “Is this about what happened at lunch? Because that kind of stuff happens all the time with Isabella. You shouldn’t let it bother you.”
She reaches out to grab my arm, but I shake her off.
“What bothers me is that I’m paying a fucking fortune for a dog that I don’t have yet. And why is that the case? Because you begged me to play along.”
“So this is my fault?”
“No. That gives you far too much credit. It’s mine,” I say. “Because I thought if I let you win this inessential bullshit that you’d be more agreeable. But you’ve been a nuisance since you showed up here. It’s time you learned how things actually operate.”
