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“Hand me your phone.”
“My what?”
“Your phone, Gordon. Hand me your phone.” I don’t try to keep my anger out of my voice. This is bullshit. Marco better marry me soon. If he doesn’t, I’m going to petition the court to have it changed. That way, I’ll never called by my father’s surname again.
I hold out my hand and wait. Gordon carefully puts his hand in it, watching me closely.
“Give me the code,” I mutter, glad that dimwitted Zervas didn’t have a code on his phone, or everything might have gone even more sideways. Once he gives it to me, I click it over to phone and dial my man.
“Gordon.”
“Afraid not, honey,” I correct him.
“Ena, what are you doing awake?”
“Well funny story about that, and by that, I mean, not funny at all.”
“Ena—”
“I woke up without my husband and then, Gordon here was good enough to remind me that I don’t yet have a husband.”
“I will be,” he growls. “Hell, we can do it tomorrow.”
My heart beats harder with his words and my lips stretch into the biggest smile I believe I’ve ever had. “We can discuss that if you want, but unless Gordon here brings me to you right now, there will be no wedding.”
“I’ll be up there in a minute, Princess,” he says and I immediately know what he’s doing. I can’t allow it. I am not a child. I’m not sure I’ve ever been. My father and brother never protected me as a kid. I didn’t have a Marco looking out for me like Melina did. That means, I saw more than I ever should have. I know what Marco is doing. I also know that I can’t let the dark in his life get a chance to settle into his bones again. It’s my job to stop that.
“No. I want brought down there,” I argue.
“No way. I’m coming to you,” he insists stubbornly.
“Marco,” I exhale, frustrated. “I know what you’re doing. You also know that I do. I won’t have secrets between us. In fact, I won’t be separated from the life you live ever again. I wasn’t here to help you when you had to deal with your father, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to be by your side for everything you face while we’re together.”
“Ena—”
“Just to put it out there, sweetheart, I plan on that being here for the rest of our lives and into the next one, so tell Gordon to bring me to you.”
“Fuck,” he grumbles, but the way he does it makes my body come alive.
“Put him on the phone.”
I smile my victory at Gordon who smirks at me. I switch it over to speakerphone. “He can hear you now, honey.”
“Elias is standing by the elevator. Bring her down to him.”
“Sure thing, Marco,” he says, and I hang up, handing the phone over to Gordon.
He laughs. “No wonder you and Mrs. DeLuca are so close. Have you met Niko’s woman Emilia? The three of you are a lot alike.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I mutter.
“It was meant as one,” he says, and I feel that move over me.
He takes me to the elevator and pushes the button that will take us to the basement. It’s a short ride—just one floor down. Once the door opens, Elias is there waiting. I walk out and he wraps his arm around my back. He looks worried and I know why the minute he begins talking.
“Helena, you need to know that Marco is still the same man you love. He is just doing what needs to be done. This is the world we live in—were born into. In our world if you don’t make a statement that you can’t be fucked with—”
I put my hand over his mouth to stop him. “There is nothing Marco could do that would make me love him less. I may be young, but I am under no grand illusion that my man sells cookies, goes to summer camp, and sings Kumbaya all day long, Elias.”
“Kumbaya?” he laughs.
“Exactly.”
He shakes his head and says okay, you asked for it. He opens a white door, but I can tell it is heavy metal just by the way Elias pushes to open it.
My nose curls at the contrasting smell of bleach and filth. This room is white granite—all one solid piece along the walls in front of me. The floors are the same material and there’s a big drain in the middle of the floor. There’s also bars around the front which are slide open. It’s like a jail—but a very expensively built jail.
When I get to Marco, I’m not really looking at him and that’s because my gaze is on Zervas. He’s on this huge, thick wooden stand, his body pressed against it. His hands are over his head in a “V” position and each of his wrists have a metal cuff around them that is connected to metal inside the wood. His legs are in the same “V” pattern, with similar a similar cuff on his ankles. He’s also naked and obviously has felt Marco’s wrath for a while. He’s been burned over his body. His eye and cheek—incidentally the same one that Zervas hit on my face—is swollen shut. His cheek has had the skin stripped off probably by razor blades and it’s clear those are just a few of the highlights of the hospitality my man has bestowed on my former boss.
