Page 41 of Prince of Control

My wife is where I need her to be.

Safe, under my watch.

Chapter Eleven

Lara

I should be glad Baron gave me space when we got home, and I stomped upstairs to our bedroom.

I was at first. But then I felt strangely abandoned.

Now, a few hours later, I feel terrible about putting Denis in a bad situation. I knew he was attracted to me. I also knew I was married to a dangerous man. I was acting out without thinking about the collateral damage of my toxic girl behavior.

I’m also just hungry. I guess I’ll have to go downstairs at some point. I head down the stairs. Phoenix is working on a laptop on the couch in the same place he was when I came home.

In the kitchen, the two enormous guys, Alexei and Feliks, shovel ravioli into their mouths.

“Hey,” I greet them. “Is there any left?”

“I’ll get it for you.” Feliks surges to his feet.

The deference everyone shows Baron, and me by proxy, continues to surprise me. I can’t figure out if it’s out of fear or respect. But actually, no one seems jumpy or nervous. The inhabitants of this house are comfortable here.

Feliks dishes me a plate of food and puts it in the microwave to heat while I try to decide whether I’m relieved or disappointed not to find my controlling, apparently violent husband down here.

Is he mad at me? We didn’t speak on the ride home. I half-expected a war. Some kind retribution for making and keeping a date with another man. I was ready for it

I wrapped my anger around me like a blanket, planning to use it as a shield for whatever he threw at me, but he left me alone.

The microwave dings, and Feliks pulls out the warm plate and hands it to me.

“Get her a fork, dumbass. She doesn’t know where anything is here,” Alexei chides his younger brother.

Feliks opens a drawer and pulls out a fork. “Sorry.” He hands it to me.

“Thank you.” Not wanting to sit with them, I head out to the couch and drop into a seat near Phoenix to eat.

He glances over. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

I look over, surprised by the question. Is he for real?

“No. I’m not.”

Phoenix’s shoulders round more over his laptop, as if my anger landed as a physical assault.

I instantly regret being combative. Maybe he is genuinely concerned.

“Sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“No, I get it. You’re in a new place with a bunch of strangers, and you have no idea if you’re safe or not. I know how that feels.”

Some of my walls start to crumble. “Yeah. You probably do.”

“I registered to live in a men’s dorm at Thornecroft when I’d just started my hormonal transition. To me, it felt like a new chapter. Starting college as the gender I always knew I was. But then I got here, and it was scary as fuck.