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“On display,” I say. “Like he doesn’t even care if other men see he has Victorian romance novels on his bookshelf. Just, totally unbothered. And he quoted the opening line of Pride and Prejudice to me.”
“Clone him. I want one,” Erica says. “You can’t keep this modern marvel to yourself.”
“Remember the stalking? The creepy weird vibes? The nightmares?”
Erica makes a face. “I know, but… I think we like him now. Can’t we just like him, now? This is real effort, Maddie. Like, way above and beyond 99.9999% of all men on the earth planet. Even most men with money aren’t going to be this generous with it, or… sentimental about their dead mother. That’s so sweet. Can’t we just… cut him some slack? Please?”
She begs like Aidan is the last puppy at the pound about to be put down if I don’t rescue him in the next twenty minutes.
“Cut him some slack? For the stalking? And the forced marriage?”
“Yes! I know it’s not feminist or whatever, but… come ON. Let me live vicariously through you.”
“You have your own wealth.”
“That’s not the point. It’s the principle of it all.”
It’s clear Erica is going to be absolutely no help on my quest to escape this probably not a nightmare situation.
We watch scary stalker movies late into the night on a big screen in the home theater room and eat the pizza Claude made us. Honestly I don’t know how this tastes so much like “gourmet food” while also feeling completely like pizza at the same time. And the caramel popcorn balls he made are divine.
“If Aidan doesn’t let me keep Claude full time, you’ll help me run away, right?”
“Oh, absolutely,” she says, her mouth full of popcorn.
I don’t show her the secret passage or the drawings of the dress. It feels like something that should stay private, and like I’d be betraying Aidan somehow. I also don’t tell her about the gun hidden under the mattress that she sleeps on for the night. I just hope she’s not like the princess and the pea or we’re going to have to have a bigger conversation.
Twenty-Three
Aidan
I receive a text message alerting me of the nearly $3,000 Maddie just spent on spa treatments at a place called Dome. At least she’s not using the card to try to run away. I know my guards won’t let her get anywhere—not that it would matter if they did. Someone from my team put a small tracker inside all of her handbags while we were out yesterday. I got the handbag she was carrying while she was distracted, so if she does manage to slip her detail, we’d find her soon enough. The trackers are small, discrete, and waterproof with an extremely strong adhesive. The Stryker corporation makes them, and I had these made special to match the different linings in her handbags. They aren’t invisible, but with the combination of their size, coloring, and placement, they may as well be.
Even so, if I have to hunt her down, I’ll have to put some restrictions on her outdoor time, something I really hope I don’t have to do. The ideal situation is for her to never fully test the bars of her cage so she never has to know just how secure they are. I’m afraid she’ll hate and resent me even more if she knows. So I’m just trying to convince her that she doesn’t want to leave through various forms of bribery. So she can have all the all-inclusive spa days she wants as far as I’m concerned.
I put my phone away because it’s rude. I’m having a sit down in an authentic family-owned Italian restaurant in a nearby city with a neighboring boss. And when I say family-owned… I mean… Make you an offer you can’t refuse family. Their territory has been encroaching on mine, and they thought because I was young that I’d be easy to intimidate and manipulate. But I brought plenty of muscle with me. And Brian.
I’m relatively sure they can feel the waves of psycho rolling off me, but sometimes that’s not enough. There are some people who will never take a boss seriously if he’s as young as I am. It also doesn’t help that they think I’m “too pretty” to be in charge. And even though I’ve made great efforts with my tattoos and the way I dress and move, and eyes so cold they can be made only through killing people… sometimes age is the only thing that matters to these fools.
So I brought Brian, because my other option is shooting up this restaurant, and I doubt I could pull that off without going to prison.
They’ve reserved the entire back room for us. The wait staff are all Giovanni’s underlings, so they won’t talk. Even so, we keep it to small talk until we’re left alone with our food. Omerta or no, not everyone has earned the right to be in the big rooms.
The garlic bread is amazing, but I’m not about to tell Giovanni that. It’s his grandmother’s recipe. And she got it from her mother who used to make it in Sicily before they came over on the boat. I know this story because it’s printed on the menu. Though maybe it’s just Betty Crocker, and they’re going for old world charm. I mean, how unique can a garlic bread recipe really be?
“So what kind of a name is Stryker, anyway?” Giovanni asks even though I know he dealt with my father back in the day. And Uncle Martin.
“Were you dropped on your head? My company makes some of the best surveillance tech in the world.”
Brian kicks me under the table, and I glare at him.
“I don’t mean the front business, though it’s odd you don’t just go straight if you’re making that much money clean,” he says, eating a giant meatball in one bite.
“Who says it’s clean?” But I know what he’s asking. He’s a purist snob, and in my short time as boss, it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. You look Italian, but Stryker isn’t an Italian name. Yeah, no shit. They all act like this is the first time I’ve heard about this. I’m sure they didn’t fuck around with my father over it.
“So… Stryker…” he persists.
I roll my eyes. “It’s Dutch. Some ancient relative on my dad’s side.”