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Silence follows and I can’t help myself. I peek out to look at Spade and find him staring right at me, his dark eyes boring into mine like he’ll see the answers he seeks without me saying a word.
And hell, maybe he will. You don’t get to his position without being able to read people.
“Why would you be under the protection of a family you’ve never met, Isla?”
I open my mouth to respond, even though we both know I don’t have an answer for him, but I’m cut off when Doc’s body repositions in front of mine.
“You don’t need to speak to her,” he snaps. “She’s under their protection because we’re getting married.”
My eyes widen, and my stomach bottoms out.
There goes my last resort.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DOC
The words leave my mouth before I can consider them, before I can make an informed decision about not only my future, but also the barely legal woman pressed against my back.
She deserves to marry for love. To find some kid her age who can give her all the shit she’s always dreamed of.
But I’ve just signed her fate.
The words I’ve just spoken may as well be a fucking death warrant because I’m not the man who can give her freedom and allow her to live her life. I’m a fucking asshole, and even if a relationship, let alone a marriage, are the last things on earth I want, I’m a possessive fucking asshole and that’s not something I’ll ever be able to change about myself.
I don’t miss the way Isla tenses behind me or how her tiny hands drop away from my back as the gravity of what I’ve just said washes over her.
And I don’t miss how Spade searches both our faces for a lie. Because he knows there is one. The motherfucker has his ear to the ground. He has friends in high places, and if he knows my role within Frost Industries, he sure as hell would know if I had any intentions of marrying my dead wife’s niece.
“I see.” Spade finally breaks the silence, and some of the unease in my stomach disperses. After all the shit I’ve seen, both overseas and at home, I know what’s classified as a life-and-death situation, and this right here is one.
If Spade gets his grubby hands on Isla, he’ll break her, and that’s if she’s lucky. The stories I’ve heard about the Spade family make me sick to my stomach, and that’s without remembering how Clarissa was found. Her body mutilated, to the point she was barely recognizable when Edward and I had to identify her. The police suggested we both go to ensure we could get a positive ID, and it all made sense the second they pulled the sheet back.
I shouldn’t give a fuck about Isla. The whole family disowned me, forced me to move away during one of the hardest times in all our lives. But there’s something about her, the fire behind her eyes, the way she reacted when our eyes met for the first time. I don’t want her to meet the same fate her aunt did.
“Has a date been set?” he asks, looking for a hole in the story.
“Tomorrow,” Edward replies, and both Isla and I turn to him, her body suddenly pressed to my back again.
I quickly train my face, something I’ve mastered over the years, and nod along with him like this isn’t the first I’m hearing of it. “I need to get back to Chicago, but we wanted to have the wedding here in Boston so Isla’s family would be able to attend,” I explain.
Spade nods slowly, but he doesn’t believe a word we’re saying. We can’t bluff our way out of this situation, and not for the first time, I wish Edward had just taken my offer to send Isla away. To get her as far from this city as possible to keep her safe.
But that plan is out the window now, and we’re back to plan A, a plan neither of us actually want.
He looks around at his men peppered through the house and then gives a sharp bark. “Let’s go.”
His attention returns to me, flickering his gaze behind me. “Congratulations are in order. I wish you a lifetime of happiness.” The hatred in his voice makes Isla tense behind me, her tiny hands back gripping my shirt like it’s her only lifeline. “Hopefully you take care of this one better than you did the last.”
I lurch forward, but the whimper behind me stops me before I can get more than a foot away from her.
Isla doesn’t need to see this. She doesn’t need to see the darkness that lives within the man she’s about to marry.
Spade turns on his heel and walks out the way he came, leaving behind the bullet holes in the walls and the broken door as a reminder of his visit.
None of us speak for long seconds, each taking in the gravity of the situation we’ve found ourselves in. I never should have come. I should have ignored his call and got on with my life. Now I have one of the most infamous crime bosses in the country sniffing around and a barely-legal-almost-wife I don’t want.
I turn on Edward, his eyes still glued to the doorway Spade was in a moment ago, and advance on him. Anger beats down on me like a lethal dose of heroin, spreading through my veins until it’s all I can see. This man was my best friend, I would have died for him over and over again, and now he’s thrown me to the fucking wolves. Literally.
