Page 108 of Provocation
She giggles.
We leave the cellar and go up to the club, where I find that a table has been laid out, complete with flower decorations and fall leaves of all colors.
'Happy Thanksgiving,' Shade and Blake say together.
Her eyes widen and she gasps. 'Tacos!'
Chapter Nine
DAISY
We don't leave the club for the rest of the day, nor the next, and no one comes in either. It’s just the four of us. Mav spends a few hours teaching me how to mix drinks, and I find that after a good night's sleep and some time with my guys, I feel a lot better after all the things that happened yesterday.
After our impromptu Thanksgiving dinner of tacos, I did tell them what had happened, omitting the part about the Stinger. I'm just not ready to tell them about The Heath yet.
They were upset, as I knew they would be. Blake punched a hole in the wall of the office, snarling that they should never have let me go there. Shade, pissed as well, clenched his jaw and his fists and ground out that it would be worse if John thought I wasn’t playing ball.
He's right, of course. I know it just as he does. John still has absolute control over my life however much we pretend he doesn’t. He can sell me to the Bandervilles. And, once that’s done, that power cedes to Joe and his family. They, like John, can use the system to do what they want. They can keep me prisoner like they do with the clearly indoctrinated Martha and their beaten-down sister.
Joe could have me taken back to The Heath if I don’t do whatever he wants. Or maybe put in a facility closer so that he can visit me, probably force me to get pregnant with the next generation of monstrous Bandervilles. Yeah, he could easily do that. Legally, probably.
The thought makes me break out into a cold sweat and feel like I’m going to throw up, but I say it all out loud and by the horror in Blake’s face when I do, and the fact that he goes quiet as the grave and sits down, I think he gets it.
‘Jesus,’ he whispers, looking at the other guys. ‘This is… We need to dosomething.’
‘What?’
‘Take her away from all this.’
I smile at him, sitting down next to him and putting my head on his shoulder. After a moment, he rests his on top of mine.
‘Would you marry me?’ Shade asks.
My heart skips a beat as I look over and see that he’s serious. I’m shocked to realize that I’d say yes under different circumstances, if he really wanted that. But I couldn’t ask that of any of them, not marriage to me, especially not with everything else happening.
‘It wouldn’t matter,’ Blake murmurs, his eyes closed. ‘Daisy can only marry if her guardian approves it. Eloping isn’t a way out of this. The marriage will just be annulled. We need to get out of here. Run.’
‘If I left today, they’d just find me and bring me back,’ I say quietly, giving voice to the other fear I now have. ‘They have money and power. More than we do. Why do you think I wanted Envy to work? I thought I might be able to just leave if I had enough money. I thought maybe I could disappear. But that was before John made the agreement with the Bandervilles and I realized what kind of a man Joe is. That isn’t going to work. Joe’sego won’t let me just disappear. He’ll probably enjoy chasing me.’
‘She’s right,’ Shade says. ‘Joe would come after her. It’d be a matter of pride.’
‘I wouldn’t let myself be brought back,’ I whisper. ‘I’d die first.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Mav says sharply.
‘Why not? It’s true. I’d rather be dead than live a life like that after…’ I look down. ‘After coming back here and things being…mostly good.’
I look at Shade. ‘What if Joe is at the Christmas gala?’
I had been almost looking forward to it only because I'm hoping we find some information while we're there. A lot of the same people will have been at the party the night my mom was killed. But with Joe or one of the other Bandervilles there making sure they have more reasons to punish me, I don’t think I want to go.
‘I’ll take care of it,’ Shade says grimly.
‘Like you have so far?’ Blake asks with a scoff.
‘Lay off!’ Shade snarls. ‘I’m not going to explain this shit to you again. This isn’t helping!’
‘You’renot helping!’
