Page 62 of Barristers & Bones

“What do you mean?” But I knew exactly what she meant.

Alexa’s eyebrow went up. “I hacked the system, Fowler. I know you waived her presence at the marriage license division by getting that subpar doctor of yours to give you a hospital exception. That’s why he was here examining her yesterday. And who married you? Ivan, that wannabe hacker, motorcycle gangbanger?”

Her description of Ivan made me grin because I knew his head would explode when I told him. “No, Xander married us, and before you look it up, he’s legally licensed to perform marriages. But Ivan was a witness and ensured the signed marriage certificate was filed before midnight.”

“Then they’re on my shitlist too. For now, let’s get her safe.”

Later that morning, I carried Luna into my house. Sylvie and Alexa followed us inside, bringing in suitcases and bags with Luna’s belongings they’d picked up from the mortuary apartment. I suspected half the bags held books.

Sylvie whistled mockingly as she walked into the foyer, then the vast living room. “This place is like a modern art museum. Do you even live here?” she asked.

I kept walking. “You can set her things down in the foyer and leave. She needs sleep now.” Luna had gone silent and drowsy, and I wanted to take care of her without her friends looking over my shoulder.

“Listen, dickhead. We discussed this,” Sylvie growled, following me down the hall to my room where I laid Luna on my massive four-poster bed and slipped off her shoes.

Alexa touched Sylvie’s arm. “As much as it pains me to admit, he’s right. We’ll come back tomorrow afternoon. Let the guard at the gate know who we are, and text us the gate code.” She gazed at me challengingly.

“I will, but she needs sleep.”

“You don’t have to go,” Luna murmured weakly from the bed, her eyelids drooping. It was clear the painkillers they’d given her before she left the hospital had kicked in.

Sylvie walked over to her. “It’s okay, you need sleep. At least one of us will be back tomorrow afternoon to check on you.”

When I locked the front door behind them, a wave of brutal satisfaction rolled through me. Luna was alone with me in my house. I returned to the bedroom and gazed down at her, snuggled under my bedcovers. She looked drained, and the angry purple bruise on her jaw stood against her pale skin, but she was still beautiful. This wasn’t how I’d pictured her first time in my bed, but I wasn’t complaining. Even with her immobile arm and bruised face, lust rose in my gut. She didn’t know it yet, but she wouldn’t be sleeping in another bed.

“Get some sleep. I’m going to take a shower and get cleaned up. I’ll bring you some water and leave it on the nightstand first.”

She sighed heavily. “Okay. Even though you did it in the most underhanded, asshole-ish way, thank you for keeping me safe. We can get it annulled when the Stracks lose interest in me,” she murmured as her voice faded. She was asleep seconds later. My gut tightened in anger and annoyance at her bringing up a fucking annulment a second time. We needed to reach an understanding when she woke up.

While I showered, my mind replayed what Lionel and his man had done to her in that parking garage, and what they probably would have done to her if they’d taken her. I braced my hands against the tile wall while the hot water sluiced down my body.

My mind went back to Bitter Creek Ranch. I knew what it was like to be beaten and to choke on unrelenting helplessness. Xander had been there the longest, and his friends, Peter and Jonas, never made it out. He told us Luna’s father visited there at least once, but he wouldn’t talk about it.

I’d wondered so many times while I was there if my own father knew what he’d sent me to. By the time we got out, I didn’t care. After learning how to amass power and wealth, I set about ruining him. My mother had divorced him seven years ago when he lost his fortune, and she caught him cheating with his twenty-year-old assistant. My partners and Gideon were my family. And now Luna. How had that happened? I finished my shower, toweled off, and got dressed.

As she slept, I brought Luna’s bags in and put her clothes away in my oversized closet. She’d be annoyed at me for going through her things, but I didn’t care. The sooner she got used to the living arrangements, the better. I shook my head when I studied her clothes hanging next to mine. Almost everything she owned, including her underwear, seemed to be black, navy, or gray. I’d have to get my personal shopper to order some lingerie. Luna’s eyes would glow in an emerald-green corset. And her breasts… fuck. Shaking off the thoughts, I headed to my office.

That afternoon, I spoke with Ivan and Drakos on a video conference call. “How’d she take being suddenly married?” Ivan asked.

“She raged, called me an asshole, and told me she never planned to marry. Then she grudgingly thanked me for keeping her safe.”

Drakos smiled fondly. “Lovely Luna. She’s something else, isn’t she? Did she throw anything at your head or demand an annulment?”

“She was too weak to throw anything, but she did say we’d be getting an annulment. I told her it wasn’t going to happen.”

“You don’t plan to annul the marriage?” Ivan asked carefully.

“Fuck, no. I want her, and I plan to keep her. Don’t start with your bullshit about her being just an obsession. Despite her parents, she’s somehow still idealistic, kind, and so fucking sweet. So, no, there isn’t going to be an annulment.”

Drakos cleared his throat. “And how’d she takethatbit of news? Or does she even know yet?”

“She heard me, but I don’t think she believes me. We got interrupted, and we’ll finish that conversation when she wakes up.”

Ivan sighed. “She can hold a mean grudge. I like it better when she’s teasing us and asking annoying questions.”

I nodded. “We’re on her friends’ shitlists too. Drakos, Sylvie knows you were at the hospital last night to get her out of the way. I’d sleep with one eye open for the foreseeable future.”

Drakos grinned, and his eyes almost glowed. “Yes, she kept throwing out the term ‘unlawful detention’ and talked about medical castration when I held her down in that empty hospital room.”

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