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This only makes her sob harder. I turn away and stare out the window, gritting my teeth against the sounds of her distress, watching the city lights move past in a blur. I just want to get this entire thing over with so I have her all to myself.
“Did you send those thugs after me that night so you could pretend to save me? Is that why you didn’t kill that guy? He worked for you?”
I turn toward her, more aggressively than I intended, and she shrinks back.
“I did kill those guys. For touching what’s mine.”
She looks at me with disbelief. “No, you… didn’t.”
“I sure the fuck did! How DARE they fucking touch you. After I took you home, I went back there, and I killed them slowly. I made them beg for death. This is who I am, Maddie. I am a killer. And you knew that as soon as you understood what my name means in this city, so don’t pretend you had no idea that the head of a criminal organization does crime.”
She did know. I know she knew. But it’s clearly something else coming directly out of my mouth, just another confession. Except this one comes with no absolution.
The car fills to the brim with the oppressive sound of silence except for the tears she’s trying to keep quiet.
I pass her the bag that was in her dressing room. I gather all my patience and speak softly. “Please stop crying. Fix your makeup. We’ll be at the reception soon.”
Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at our destination. I take Maddie’s hand and help her out of the car, and then I turn on the charm for our guests—it would have been great if I could have accessed this overwhelming fount of charisma during the drive over here, but fate has never made plans to be kind to me.
Eleven
Maddie
We’ve reached the aquarium. It’s an enormous multi-story shiny black building with sharp triangular planes and jagged pointed edges that reach straight up into the clouds like swords trying to start a war with the sky. If ever there was a symbol of dark foreboding, this is it.
The sky has already started to turn colors for the impending sunset. Streaks of pink look like watered-down blood from where the sharp top of the building pierced it. In less than an hour it’ll be dark, and then I’ll have to face one of many endless nights with this man.
Aidan is out of the car now. Our photographers are at the door snapping away. And while most of our guests are already inside, a few have lingered, waiting for our arrival—some of them smoking or vaping since it isn’t allowed in the building. Erica and Stella helped me detach my train after the photos were taken so I don’t have to worry about moving in it at the reception.
The wedding party followed us in two additional limos.
Aidan reaches back into the car, offering me his hand, helping me out. He’s all smooth smiles now. Laughing. Joking with the photographers. You would never guess the fucked-up conversation that just happened between us. You’d never guess he just admitted to being a killer, and practically scolded me for expecting anything else from him.
Did he really kill those guys that night? Or is it all bluster to make sure I’m afraid of him? I knew he was the head of the Stryker corporation, but I thought the boss never got his own hands dirty. I thought underlings did the killing.
I’d been holding out some weird hope that was the case, as though it would make it less scary if he just ordered death with a flick of the wrist as someone else might order another bottle of champagne. If he hadn’t personally killed, then maybe he wouldn’t be capable of the same level of violence.
I’ve decided not to believe him. He’s been lying to me already so why should I believe a word out of his deceiving mouth. He’s already shown me how he’s willing to play this. He didn’t say a word about who he was the night we met in the alley.
He’s been keeping this secret from me, so why would I believe a confession of murder that he probably thinks makes him look like some kind of vigilante hero? Am I supposed to fall into his arms now that he’s presented himself as Batman? Those guys would have been long gone by the time he returned after dropping me off. There’s no way he went after them, let alone found them.
Satisfied with my rationalizing, I return to what’s actually real. He seemed so cold and angry in the car a few minutes ago. I was afraid he’d lash out at me at any moment, but I couldn’t contain the tears.
I was trying to put everything together, make it make sense. In hindsight, yeah, a guy just happens to be there in an alley to rescue me when I stupidly wander the streets at night? And that same night I’m handed over to my childhood stalker who clearly is now my adulthood stalker? The key word here is stalker. So of course he was following me that night. He’s probably been following me every night. How long has he truly been surveilling me?
What private unguarded moments has he had access to?
But how could I have known? Aidan looks so dramatically different from when we were thirteen. And his energy is different. He was awkward and skinny back then, following me around, constantly trying to talk to me. This time he kept some distance, as though he was barely interested anymore, though the way he’s looked at me every time our eyes have met, leave no doubt that he is fully interested.
This is a grown put-together man. Powerful. Wealthy. Well-tailored. Smelling divine. Dark and dangerous and gorgeous like every fantasy come to life. Except that now that I really am the Captive Bride of the Crime Boss, it’s a nightmare I know I’ll never wake up from.
We’re the same age, but he’s developed a type of poise and confidence that makes him seem at least ten years older. There is a worldliness I feel like I could never touch. I feel so much younger and naive standing next to him. We may have started out at the same school, and both of our families may have had some money, but he’s had a very different life from mine. And our time away from each other has only made that divide grow sharper and more impossible to traverse.
I can’t reconcile these two images of him no matter how much I try to force my brain to do it, to accept that this man is Aidan Stryker. I feel like it can’t be real, that this guy is some paid actor and at any moment the real man behind the curtain will show up to give me the ick I always got before.
And that only starts a more complicated swirl of emotions. I was afraid of the stranger from the alley who drove me home, what he might do to me, if he’d hurt me. I knew he wasn’t a good man.
But I still couldn’t help wanting him to touch me. The ick was entirely absent that night. And when he kissed me in the church? I tried to resist, but I felt myself melt against him, hoping against every hope that I wouldn’t make some horrifying sound that belongs in a bedroom, not in a church in front of witnesses.