Page 31 of Dragonfly

Patience, Damien. Search for patience.

“She’s twenty-nine. Thirty in June,” I tell my sister after a moment.

At least, according to her fake identity, Savannah is. I’m leaning toward that being the case if only because, in my experience, a fake identity works best when there’s some semblance of truth to it.

“That’s a relief.” Gen blows out a rush of air. “And you really did it, Dame? Got married and everything?”

“It was in front of a judge,” I explain before she can grow upset that she missed the simple, expedient ceremony. “But, yes. I did.”

And it doesn’t matter that Savanna’s fake name is the only one I had to put on the license. As soon as I get her to trust me enough to learn who she really is, I’ll fix that up as soon as I can.

The way I see it, I already decided she was mine long before I enticed her to approach me tonight. And maybe I did because I was sick and tired of waiting for her to make her move, or that seeing how devoted ‘Rolls’ McIntyre was to the Williams girl made me rethink my relationships with women—and my lack thereof. Tonight, I went through getting stabbed, then stitched up to claim Savannah.

Fuck it, I’m keeping her.

But there aren’t any more tears coming from Genevieve at the moment. Not ones of sadness, at any rate, since, out of nowhere, she bursts into roaring, wild laughter.

Oh?

“Something funny?”

“It just hit me. All these years of women trying to figure out a way to lock you down and become Mrs. Libellula, and the only one who manages to do it is the woman who caught your attention by stabbing you.”

I sniff. “She was trying to kill me.”

She dissolves into another peal of laughter. “That’s what makes it so much funnier!”

Despite the pull on my stitches, I cross my arms over my chest as I look down my nose at Gen. “Aren’t you supposed to be loyal to your family?”

“Yeah, well, you made her my sister-in-law, didn’t you? She is family.”

Once Genevieve finally stops laughing before disappearing upstairs, I press the intercom button in the hall to page Vincent while keeping my eye on my closed bedroom door.

Our home has three floors, plus a basement. I had it built with my immediate family in mind. Genevieve has the entire third floor to herself; she was seventeen when the building on the house was finished and threw a temper tantrum until I agreed she could have her room, a massive bathroom, and her dance studio installed on that level. The second floor is mine, from my bedroom to my private bath, my office, and my television room. Downstairs is where Vin sleeps. The first floor hosts the kitchen, the living room, three guest rooms plus his master, and a dining room we rarely use.

It’s wired so that I can reach either of them with just a touch of a button in case I need them and I don’t feel like relying on phones. While I always have mine on me—like how it’s in the back pocket of my pants right now—and Gen is glued to hers, Vin’s from my generation. We didn’t grow up with them and, if business didn’t call for it, I’d happily toss it to the side and forget about it for hours at a time.

Vin usually does. Unless he’s on duty, waiting for me to call and give him a particular job, he sets his phone down once he’s home. So I page him, and when he grumpily answers, I tell him to get his ass upstairs.

Considering the most he’s done is strip off his jacket, I’m sure he’d been expecting this assignment—even if he’s still going to give me shit about it.

We meet in the hallway before I jerk my thumb at my closed door. “I’ve gotta go out for a bit, Vin. I want you to watch her.”

I don’t have to tell him who. That she’s in my bedroom tips him off, and he isn’t happy to hear that I moved her into my bed instead of trapping my new wife inside one of the guest rooms until I have a better idea what to do with her.

And since fucking her seems off the table for the moment—and Gen’s scandalized ‘perv’ is still ringing in my ear—I might as well make some effort to prove to her that, so long as she respects me as her husband, she’ll want for nothing as my wife.

Except, perhaps, her freedom…

Vin narrows his gaze on the door.

He scowls. “My job is to watch your back, boss. Not some murderous twat.”

“That murderous twat is my wife, Vincent.”

And I’m sure he’s dying to get me to explain just what the hell I’m thinking.

He did while we were in the car. Even if I did feel inclined to explain myself, I wasn’t going to do that with Savannah absorbing every single word we said. I have no illusion that, just because she chose the option I wanted her to, she’s lost her desire to kill me.

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