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The blonde woman waves this off. “You are his child. There’s nothing a parent will not do for their own.”
If they are banking on that, they are barking up the wrong tree. Declan despises me. It sits on the tip of my tongue to tell them the truth, that I’m not really Declan’s daughter, but something stops me. Secrets are best kept close to the chest. Once they are out, there is no putting them back in the box.
“Don’t worry about Declan Easton,” Luke says. “My family will handle him—and Jeremiah Wood.”
He leads me outside the chapel, refusing to release his hold on my hand the whole time. Considering I barely know him, it shouldn’t make butterflies flutter inside my stomach, but it does. Luke has a way of getting under my skin far too easily.
The rain is hammering down and bouncing off the pavement, so we run to the car waiting outside the church. I was bundled into the back of one when I was brought here; I didn’t expect to be leaving under my own steam in another. This whole thing feels bizarre. Like I’m living somebody else’s life or I’m seeing everything play like a movie reel. I just married a man I’ve only had sex with three times. What was I thinking?
That he could offer an escape.
That he could be the lesser of two evils.
And that he might give me protection when Declan comes calling.
As we get into the back of the car, his bodyguard, Winters, gets into the front seat. Now I understand why Luke needs one. He is a mob boss’s son.
Luke helps me with the enormous skirt of my dress, pushing it down out of the way.
“I hope you know what you are doing. You just unleashed a war on your family. Declan will never let this go. He doesn’t like to be humiliated.”
“You call him Declan. Not Father or Dad.”
It’s hard to call someone who beats you a parent. The make-up covers most of the bruising on my face and neck. It’s why I’m so made up, but the wedding planner couldn’t hide the worst of it. My body is littered with purple and black marks, and my ribs still hurt, something the dress is not helping with as it’s so heavy. “I don’t view him as my father.”
Because he’s not. I don’t say this out loud because while on some level I trust Luke, I’m not sure what he would do with the information. I’m not ready to give this part of myself up to him yet.
“I know that feeling.”
“You don’t get on with yours?”
“My father likes to control my life, as does my mother, and neither sits right with me. I hate feeling like a chess piece to be moved around on the board.”
I know precisely how he feels because it’s how I feel too. I’m just part of Declan’s games. “But they love you?”
He makes a noise in the back of his throat that is somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “I don’t think either of my parents are capable of love. They see me as a resource that they can use to further their agenda.”
“We have that in common.” The car starts to move and I peer out of the side window. “Where are we going?”
“Back to my apartment. I need to put you somewhere safe.”
There will be nowhere safe for me to hide. Nor for his family. “What is the endgame here?” I ask.
“To stop your father and Jeremiah Wood from creating an alliance. If we can bring the Easton syndicate onside, all the better, but that wasn’t the goal. My mother was terrified of the strength your father might have if he combined forces with Manchester syndicates. We had to stop it, no matter the cost.”
I watch the London skyline whizz past the window, my mind feeling full. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I’ve never been in this kind of situation before, and my upbringing certainly hasn’t prepared me for being stuck in the middle of a battle between three syndicate factions. “You really would have married whoever came through that door?”
“I would have done what my family needed me to do.”
“Even though I am a stranger.”
“Were you not set to marry a stranger yourself?”
“Not of my own free will, Luke. You were waiting willingly for your bride to walk through those doors. How do you do that? How do you just… turn off that part of your brain that says this is wrong?”
He considers my question for a moment before he speaks. “My whole life I have been trained for one thing. To take care of my family. To protect my sister. I’ll do that by whatever means necessary, even if it means marrying somebody I’ve never met before.”
He cups my face, and I can’t help but leaning into his touch. I’ve missed him. Missed what we had, even as short lived as it was. It is the first time in my life since my mother died that I felt wanted, needed, desired. I’ll admit I got caught up in the drama of it all. In the hype and the emotions. I think I still am, considering I married Luke in a legally binding ceremony.
