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I wake up early, shower while he’s still asleep, get myself ready, and confront him as the birds chirp at the sunrise.
“I’m going to work.” I pull the uniform over my head and shoot Phel a text.Coming in today no matter what.
Evander sits up in bed and stares at me. He rubs his red, bleary eyes, and gives me that grumpy, pissed-at-the-world glare. “Who said you could?”
“I gave you plenty of chances to come up with a solution, but you haven’t. So I’m leaving.” I put my hands on my hips, trying to look tough but feeling like I might crumble at any moment. It’s not exactly easy standing under the bright spotlight of Evander’s grumpy stare. “Are you going to lock me up?”
“I don’t need to do that,” he says, eyes sparkling with slight amusement. “My people simply won’t take you.”
“I can take the damn bus.” I storm out of the bedroom.
Evander follows wearing nothing but his boxer briefs. I hesitate before moving into the hall, captivated by his enormous, muscular body. He’s been in a sour mood lately and I’ve barely seen him during waking hours. He comes home late, sometimes stinking of blood, takes long showers, then collapses beside me, asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, only to wake a couple hours later to do it all over again. I understand there’s a war, and the Italians have been pushing hard lately, but if he doesn’t go easy on himself, I’m worried that he won’t make it. I don’t remember when I started to feel nervous for him, but now it’s like I can’t stop thinking about all the ways this can go wrong, and all the ways I might lose him.
“My wife will not take the bus.” His jaw works hard. “Give me more time. Two more days.”
“Then what? You’ll stand there in your underwear two days from now and demand a week? Sorry, Evander, but you had your chance.”
“Asteraki mu.” He barks the nickname at me. “It isn’t safe for you there.”
“Then make it safe.” I throw up my hands. “Send more soldiers. I don’t know. Lock down the whole damn block if you have to but dosomething. I never agreed to be your kept bird in a pretty little cage.”
He rubs his face. “Damn it, Camille. I’m stretched thin as it is. The Italians are making waves—” He stops himself like he realizes what he’s saying. Evander never talks about the war, not directly at least. It’s always hints, intimations, if I’m lucky enough to make him speak at all.
“Is it because of me?” I ask quietly. I hate the idea of men fighting and dying for me out on the street, and I had a feeling he was keeping something from me this whole time.
“Not entirely,” he admits. “Things were very bad between us and the Pavones before you came into the picture. I believe you’re a convenient excuse they’re using.”
“They’re actively talking about me?”
He takes a slow, deep breath, then lets it out. “The Pavone Famiglia claims they want to take back their Capo’s wife. They claim I kidnapped you from him.”
I blink rapidly as heat rushes into my cheeks. “You didn’t kidnap me, I ran away from that abusive asshole. And I amnothis wife anymore. I signed the divorce papers.”
“I know you did.” He steps closer. “But in Illinois, a single-party divorce takes at least eighteen months. Gareth is working on cutting that down as fast as he can. He says he’s making progress, but for now—”
I stagger back as if shot in the gut.
My mouth drops open, trying to form words, but there’s nothing, as my mind struggles to fit together what he just told me. I have no breath in my chest, no beat to my heart, and blackness presses at the edges of my eyes.
I’m still married to Christopher.
After all this, it’s still not over.
Anothereighteen monthsbefore I’m really free of that bastard.
“Camille,” Evander says, running to me as I lean against the door, my hand pressed to my chest. “Camille, breathe.”
I pull shuddering, gasping air into my lungs, but shove him away when he tries to touch me. “Don’t,” I say through my teeth. “Don’t, Evander.”
“Camille. Asteraki mu.”
“Stop it. Don’t call me that.” I glare at him as rage wells up in my stomach. He knew from the start, and he didn’t tell me. “You lied to me.”
“No,” he says sharply. “I never did.”
“You said we were married. You called me your wife.”
“Youaremy wife. We signed the paperwork. Gareth just hasn’t filed it yet to avoid legal complications.”
