Page 38 of Bloody Wedding (The Order of the Owed #1)

TWENTY-FIVE

MARTINO’S

ADRIAN

D o you know how good it feels to have it all?

I’m sitting in my office at the Fortress, shoes kicked up on my desk, arms folded behind my head as I smile like the lovesick fool that I am.

I thought the night of Loni’s birthday party was enough to erase the worst of her memories of that last one we attended together.

Bas’s graduation party all those years ago is the moment I pinpoint as where my life as I planned it went right off the rails.

For an entire year, Loni was my secret. At the Claiming ceremony, when I chose her instead of Haven in front of the newly inducted Order and the old guard, no one could’ve stopped me from Claiming her.

No one, except for Loni herself.

Now it’s ten years later, another Claiming ceremony on the horizon, and it’s like deja vu. Only, this time, the whole fucking world knows that Loni belongs to Adrian Heller, and when I bring her to the Fortress to stand before the fire, she will Claim me back.

I know she will. If she can forgive me for interfering with her life, for stalking her, for hiding the depths of the obsession I’ve felt for her since I was a kid… there isn’t anything that will keep us apart.

And I can’t fucking wait to see the look on Jack’s face when he realizes that.

In a far better mood than I have been for days, I take the unlit cigarette from behind my ear, letting it nestle on the edge of my lips for a moment.

It’s another marker of how quickly everything changed in only a few hours. I was so close to lighting up yesterday after weeks of going without that I ripped it from its new usual spot and tossed it in the fireplace.

Loni noticed. I didn’t want her to think that I relapsed, that nicotine was more important to me than she was, so even though she didn’t accept my offer of a kiss at first, I made sure she did later. When she pointed out that I didn’t taste like cigarette, I told her the truth.

That at my lowest, when I honestly believed that there wouldn’t be any coming back from her learning my deepest secret, I thought about lighting up—but I didn’t. Because I told her I wouldn’t, that I would quit, and if she ever decided to kiss me again, I didn’t want her to taste ashtray again.

Did I expect that she would let me so soon?

I’d hoped , but my pragmatic side told me that I was delusional.

I guess I underestimated just what a turn on it was for Loni when I was both vulnerable and honest. For one of the only times ever, she actually believed me when I was telling her the truth, and I saw a totally different side to my wife.

I like it. I liked it a lot.

Fuck, I’m on cloud nine. Nothing can bring me down now?—

My timer goes off. Removing my shoes from the top of my desk, I reach for my phone. At the same time, a notification from my calendar app pops up on the screen:

LUNCH WITH BAS: 1:15 @ Martino’s

Of course.

It takes ten minutes to drive downtown to Bas’s favorite cafe.

It’s one o’clock now. Jack scheduled a meeting at two-thirty between me, Stephen, and two local business owners to talk about the Order taking them over as a nothing front of money laundering.

Stephen represents the old guard, I explain the benefits of selling to Jack, and if they hesitate, we call up for one of the enforcers.

Luke or Dallas or even Marcus… someone will stand behind the powerpoint presentation, galing menacingly while I do my sales pitch.

When Bas called me last night, after Loni curled up next to me in bed despite the fact that it definitely wasn’t Monday, I almost didn’t answer.

Only the fact that Bas, Dallas, and Connor were the only ones other than Loni that I actually care to talk to, I waited for him to call back—a second consecutive call our boyhood sign that it was urgent, but we didn’t want to leave a text trail or a voicemail—then answered with a muttered whisper so that I didn’t disturb my sleeping beauty.

She snored delightfully through my entire call, and by the end of it, I’d agreed to meet Bas for lunch the next day.

Eventually, my old friend will start cashing in the favors I owe him. Between showing up at the church for my wedding and, now, using his tight friendship with Connor to help me, I’m definitely in his debt.

I’ll pay him back. I always do.

I itch when any relationship is one-sided. My ledgers have to be balanced, but when it comes to my wife… there isn’t anything I won’t do.

Sebastien’s bike is parked along the curb when I show up at Martino’s. He got lucky. The rest of the side-street parking is full, and unless I want to drive around, looking for one, I’m shit out of luck.

So I double-park. If anyone has an issue with it, they can come to me. Either they’re a townie who will be easily bought up with a couple of hundreds and a charming smile, or they’ll be one of the Owed who’ll know better than to fuck with Adrian Heller.

Grabbing my phone and my keys, I climb out of the car, glowering at the driver zooming past me. They swerve, I scoff as I lock my Mustang, and then I’m heading toward the front of the cafe.

“Adrian. Hey, Adrian! Over here.”

My head snaps, body detouring toward the back of the crowded outdoor seating area. Harmony Heights is in the middle of a slight cool snap—it’s mid-seventies, with a forecast for thunderstorms later today according to my weather app—so I’m not surprised that Bas chose to sit outside.

He has this thing with confined spaces. Sometimes, I think that’s why he prefers to ride his back and just drive.

He craves freedom, him and the open road, and if I know it’s because he’s outrunning his family’s legacy, I keep my mouth shut.

Why judge? Especially when my uncle will never let me forget who I am.

He’s wearing his road jacket, a sleeveless white tank underneath the open leather coat.

His eyes are covered in a pair of expensive shades, his motorcycle helmet an odd decoration in the middle of the delicate table setup.

When he saw me, he flagged me down, and he kicks out the seat opposite him as I wind my way through the filled tables.

“Thought you’d be late, Adrian. Didn’t want to think my oldest friend stood my sorry ass up.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s 1:13. I’m technically early.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve been here since one. You know what they say. Timeliness is next to godliness.”

I lower myself into the seat he picked for me. “Isn’t that supposed to be cleanliness?”

Bas shrugs. “Who the fuck knows? When Maman is pissed at my old man, she speaks in French. You know she likes to use those kinds of phrases, but they never translate right. That or my French is still shit after all these years.”

Ambre Reynolds is a unique case in the Order.

She came to Harmony Heights about thirty years ago as an exchange student.

Guy Reynolds fell for her at first sight, and when she was supposed to leave at the end of the summer, he seduced her, then Claimed her that August. He was twenty-three, she was eighteen, and if the name Heller or Collins means something in this town, that’s nothing compared to the legacy of the Reynolds.

It didn’t matter that Ambre wasn’t an Offering.

His father was the King at the time, and whatever Guy wanted, Guy got.

He married Ambre, trapping her in Harmony Heights, and when she realized how he’d manipulated her, he trashed her passport so she couldn’t leave.

Then she was pregnant with Alexandre, with Bas coming fourteen short months later, and she gave up on leaving Guy.

She never petitioned the Order for an escape, either.

However, the old guard turned on the King.

Led by my uncle, they decided that because Guy married out of the Order, he wouldn’t be allowed to succeed his father as King.

They gave him the choice to abandon Ambre, he refused, and that’s how Jack wormed his way into being Mitch Reynolds’s heir.

Then Mitch… died, Jack took over the Order, and Guy Reynolds did it all for love.

For obsession.

For a woman that he’d sacrifice anything for…

And Jack has hated the Reynolds family ever since.

“How are your parents?” I ask.

“Worried that Alexandre is still going to fuck up the Claiming ceremony deadline. Yours?”

“Vacationing in Hawaii.” I laugh a little under my breath. “They still don’t know I’m married.”

“That’ll be fun when they find out.”

That’s what Bas thinks. “I figure they won’t need to know until Loni has our first kid. They’re so oblivious to anything I do, I doubt they’ll even notice if I shove a crying baby under their noses.”

“Wow, Adrian. I mean, I know you were fucking, but you knocked up her up already? Before the Claiming? I guess that’s one way to make sure she has to accept you, but?—”

“Nope,” I cut. “Not pregnant. Not yet.”

“What’s the matter? You shooting blanks? Or is she insisting on a condom? Some of my girls won’t let me fuck ‘em without one. Ans, sure, they may be Used, but if they ask, you gotta wrap it up.”

Only Bas would casually talk about his hook-ups at a place like Martino’s. And since he is…

“No. She knows better than to think I’ll let anything get between us. Not even a piece of rubber. But she’s got an IUD. For the next two years, I can nut in her whenever I want without worrying about being a daddy before I’m ready.”

“Good shit, buddy. Congratulations.”

I shrug, then gesture over his shoulder with my chin. “You ready to order? Looks like they finally realized I sat myself down.”

“Yeah. I told Walt that I was waiting for a guest. I probably should’ve had you go up front, but that’s fine. I’m not in any rush.”

If I didn’t have that meeting today, neither would. “Do you know what you want?”

Bas looks over his shoulder at the curvy blonde approaching with her order pad. He winks at her. “Hey, Polly. Do me a favor, would you? Put me down for the usual.”