Page 59 of Ruthless Reign

He pursed his lips. “Who do you think it was?”

“I don’t know,” I said, though I had my suspicions, “but whoever it was is still feeding her information. Someone told her thugs to come to Roman’s house. They almost killed me, Chesco.”

“Tell me about this attack. Were you injured?”

A knock upstairs drew my attention, and I furrowed my brows before standing to investigate. Steps at the back of the house led to the second floor, but Della was only supposed to use the bathroom down the hallway. Chesco walked behind me, probably prepared to fight whoever had broken in, but when we passed the bathroom, it was empty. Which meant that Della must have gone venturing on her own.

Skeptically, I walked up the stairs and down the corridor on the second floor, but she came out of what had become my bedroom before I caught up with her. “Oh, there you are.”

“What are you doing?” I asked, peeking inside the room. Nothing was messed up or askew, but I knew Della better than that. “I heard a bang up here.”

“Yeah, I was looking for your tampons.” She held one up. “Just got my period.”

I narrowed my eyes on her and nodded behind me, a sick weight settling deep in my gut. “There were some in the cupboard under the sink.”

“Oh,” she said with a smile, pointing at her head like she’d become such a ditz. “Stupid me. I didn’t even think to check there.”

Leo’s warning rattled through me, his reminder to watch her because he didn’t trust her, and I looked inside my room again.

“Well, come on,” Chesco said. “I’ll order us lunch, and Jules can tell us about her wedding plans and how we’re supposed to accept some Rose gremlin into our family.”

“We’re already married,” I teased. “Technically, he’s already a part of the family.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Chesco groaned.

I smirked but followed my cousin back downstairs with Della right behind me. I, of course, knew what this was. She thought she was being smart, but she wasn’t nearly as sneaky as she’d need to be to fool me. After all, Della thought we were playing checkers, and I’d been playing chess far longer than she knew.

17

BEAR

“She’s the spy,” Julia told me later that night, after her cousins had left and she’d frantically searched our room for whatever Della might have seen. “I’m almost sure of it.”

“What do you think she found?” Leo ran a hand over his lips and raised his eyebrows. After Julia told us Della had snuck off on her own, we’d had the house swept for bugs or tracking devices, but we turned up nothing. She must have been looking for intel, and seeing as Leo kept his bedroom door locked for this very reason, there wasn’t much she could have found.

“I don’t know,” Julia said. “I was so stupid. I shouldn’t have let her go by herself for so long. I got caught up talking to Chesco.”

“Hey,” I cut in. “Stop talking about yourself like that. He agreed to help us, and that’s worth its weight in gold.”

“I don’t think she saw anything substantial,” Julia said. “There’s nothing much here. Just wedding plans and seating arrangements. Gabriella already knows about that. We planted that information weeks ago.”

“Keep her talking,” Leo said. “See if you can find out what she saw.”

I could tell Julia didn’t like that, but she ultimately agreed. After all, if Della was a spy, she was playing both sides. We got as much from her as she might have been giving to Gabriella. Knowing gave us the advantage, and we could manipulate the situation how we wanted.

That was two weeks ago. Now, we had moved back into my house…ourhouse, and I couldn’t help staring at the spot in the living room where Stallion had her kneeling and waiting for me to arrive. If we’d been even a minute later, if Leo hadn’t answered his phone when he had…I shuddered to think about it.

Despite this, Julia reassured me she didn’t think of me any less than she had before. Which was to say she didn’t think of me any more than she had when we’d gotten married.

Sure, we fucked most nights, and I loved making her submit to me. But lately, I wanted more. I wanted adoration in her eyes when she looked at me. I wanted her to talk about me the way a wife should about her husband. Fuck me for being a sap, but maybe I wanted my wife to love me.

Do I love her?

It had been almost four months since we signed the marriage contract and three since we’d been living together. Her incredible mind worked faster than mine, and it was her plan that we’d decided to put into motion. She stood by me at every club meeting, holding my hand and reassuring me we were doing the right thing. She matched my sexuality in ways I’d never experienced before. When I woke up before her in the morning, sometimes I watched her sleep just to memorize the way her forehead sloped into her beautiful eyes and pouty lips. She had become a better partner to me than I ever could have asked for.

There was no way Leo could have known this when he proposed we get married, so it must have been fate. And who was I to point a gun at the universe and tell the bitch she was wrong?

“We’ll have to pick up our final fittings tomorrow,” Julia said, leaning over her vanity to swipe mascara on her lashes. Based on where we were going tonight and what we planned to do, I had every intention of smearing that pretty makeup down her cheeks. I tried to stay focused on the conversation, but daydreaming about the rotten things I would do to my wife had become one of my favorite preoccupations.

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