Page 101 of The Enslaved Duet

I wanted him to be free of his obligatory vendetta, free to fight his battles against the Order and his father so that he could live the kind of life he truly wanted.

And so, I cooked up my plan to stage Salvatore’s death so that Alexander could move on from Chiara’s murder. It gave Salvatore and Dante the space they needed from police scrutiny to transfer their resources and lives to America, while also allowing them to continue to look into Noel without his being aware they were still in action against him.

It was a perfect solution to that one problem.

Only the issue remained, what was I going to do now? It felt impossible that I should go back to slavery, lonely but for the moments of the day Alexander carved out to use my body like a vessel for his pleasure.

I craved more than his rare moments of affection and the title of slave.

I wanted to be allowed to love him.

“Are you okay?” Alexander asked, finally turning to me, his hands on my body searching for injuries.

I blinked at him. “Physically, yes, but I think you just killed my father, Xan.”

His eyes flicked with a strange light. “And if I did? Are you going to judge me for finally avenging the death of my mother? I’ve been trying to bring that man down for years by legal means, but he was slipperier than an eel.”

“Are you so sure he did kill her? I spent time with him while I was home, and he seemed convinced of his own innocence,” I ventured. “I don’t think he was a good man, but then again, neither are you.”

“I’ve never killed an innocent woman, nor would I.”

“No,” I whispered. “But you bought one to use against her own father.”

“I hadn’t thought to kill him, only bring him to justice in whichever way I could. He destroyed my family.”

“So your plan worked,” I said with a tired, cynical smile that felt wrong on my face. “I was just the right bait to lure him out of hiding.”

The last vestiges of triumph and adrenaline faded from his face and a battle-weary man sat beside me, fatigued by his demons and unsure of his own morality.

“I know it may be hard to believe after what happened, but I stopped caring about that a long time ago.” He looked at his hands as if seeing blood there, and muttered mostly to himself. “I thought I would feel better once it was done.”

“Yet you sent me to Italy.”

He sighed, a sad sound like a toy deflating. “I didn’t know how to deal with what I was feeling.”

“What a classic male excuse,” I said even though I knew nothing of classic male anything.

My experience was limited solely to Alexander, and I doubted anything was typical about his behaviour.

I just wanted to push him over the edge of his own expectations into a new place where he could shine a better light on his life and choices. It had taken me three weeks with Dante and Salvatore to understand that life was rarely as cut and dry as we tried to force it to be.

Alexander lifted his knee on to the seat between us so that he could better face me and sink a hand into my hair. He tilted my chin back just enough to make the angle awkward and my scalp sing with pain.

The small act of domination centered me as it centered him.

“No matter what happens, I’m never letting you go again. Do you understand me,bella?” he asked, his conviction hitting me like the strike of a gavel. “I want you… no, I need you to be mine in every single way you will have me.”

I placed my hand over his wrist just to feel the strength of his pulse and use it as a metronome to set my own. “You have me already. You own me in body, spirit, and currency. I don’t have anything left to give you.”

“But you do,” he insisted, his hand tightening until I whimpered, and my mouth bloomed open. He leaned close, licking at my upper lip, then biting softly into the pillowy bottom. “You can give me your name so I can replace it with my own.”

I blinked at him, trying not to lose focus as he dragged his nose down my throat and bit the junction of my shoulder like an animal marking his mate.

“Xan, what are you talking about?”

“I want there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind—not for the Order, Edward or even Noel—that we are bound together, and I will not allow us to be pried apart over anything. They can come for us if they want to, but when they do, we will be cemented together in the eyes of law as man and fucking wife.”

I’d never imagined the day of my wedding. My sisters talked about it sometimes late in the night when we should have been sleeping instead of whispering about veils and tulle gowns, but I’d only ever listened, happy to imagine their settings and my place at their sides.