Monster A Dark Arranged Marriage Romance - Vanessa Waltz Page 0,38

from his forehead. His pale skin gleamed bone-white. He stood tall, unwavering. A ghost of a smile touched his lips when I approached.

I hurled the duffel bag at Cainan’s feet. “This is what I’m risking my life for?”

The devil never got his hands dirty. He couldn’t be seen disrupting Legion’s affairs. I’d always respected that. We needed someone on the inside, but more and more I wondered if I was just his attack dog.

Fetch. Retrieve. Kill.

Cainan raised his head, meeting my gaze without flinching. “You agreed to do everything in your power to bring them down. This is what that looks like.”

“We’ve been at this for years, Cainan. I would’ve thought after all this effort we would’ve made some progress!”

Cainan stepped away from the edge, his voice softening. “Legion is a conglomerate. Did you think it’d be easy? That they’d fall overnight? They have chapters all over the country and around the world. It is working but it will be slow. I told you that in the beginning.”

“All I ever do is waste my fucking time for you.”

He smirked, boiling my blood. “Tony, what would you’ve done otherwise? Where would you be, if it weren’t for me?”

Back in that prison.

I was breathless with fury.

I held up a finger in warning. “Careful.”

“I don’t have to be anything. That’s the difference between you and me.”

“There’s a lot separating us, you sick fuck.”

“If I’m sick, what does that make you?” A thin chill hung to his words, raking my skin. “Maybe you need a reminder of what you did on the island. The choices you made.”

“Yes, I did terrible things. And I’ll have to live with them forever.”

“Tony, I’m not trying to goad you.” His smile told a different story. He was a sadist, through and through. “I respect you. I don’t like most people, but I like you. That’s why I invited you into the Circle.”

“I only care about destroying Legion.”

“We’re going to get them. We will. But you need to trust the process. And for God’s sake, drop the self-torture already. You take this too seriously. You did what you had to. That’s all any man can do.”

Surviving wasn’t enough.

Not anymore.

A chime echoed from my pocket. Thank God, a distraction. I grabbed my phone, stepping away from Cainan.

I answered it. “Yeah?”

Christian rasped through the speaker. “Evie’s at the club.”

God was testing me.

He gave me a biker wife to teach me something. Patience. Humility. Grace. Was I supposed to find any of that in this internment camp?

Rows of dilapidated mobile homes filled the east side of the MC’s property. Children played behind the huge brick building. A basketball thumped the pavement. A grill sizzled nearby. Families ate on picnic tables under the setting sun. A group of kids streaked past us, one of them halting in his tracks. Harley-Davidson logos plastered his small chest. A brown mark smudged his freckled nose.

His widened gaze took in my suit. “Who are you?”

I knelt beside him. “Tony. What’s your name?”

“Um—Lincoln.”

He held out his hand and I shook it, eerily reminded of the street kids in Dorchester. I scanned his body for bruises, finding none. “Do you know Evie? She’s my wife.”

“She’s your wife?”

“Yes. I need to bring her home.” I smiled as the boy stuck his hands in his sandy-blond hair. “Any idea where she is?”

“The clubhouse.” The child shifted from foot to foot. “It’s the big red building.”

“Thanks, Lincoln. I appreciate it.” I grabbed my wallet and slipped out a ten, tucking it in his palm. “Here you go, kid. Buy yourself some candy.”

“Wow. Thanks!”

I patted his head. Too bad I didn’t have something better to give him.

I followed Christian to the brick clubhouse, which pounded with a muffled rock beat. Staring at the black doors roiled my stomach but Christian seemed at ease.

The doors opened into a bar and game room. It was a dive. Stale beer and cigarette smoke choked the air, so not my scene. Club sluts mingled about in tube tops and cutoffs. They shot Christian and me incredulous looks. No doubt we looked ridiculous in slacks, overdressed to the nth degree.

A bottle rolled under my feet, and I kicked it aside.

“This place is a sty.”

Christian grunted. “I don’t know why you let her come here.”

“I’ve tried everything to discourage it short of chaining her to the goddamned penthouse, but I’m nobody’s jailer.”

Christian scanned the row of arcades. His attention fell on a woman in leggings. She cradled a blond boy who wrapped his chubby fingers on a joystick. Christian’s