“We don’t take a cut of the girl’s money,” he informed me. “Don’t lay a hand on them. We punish anyone who does, though.”
“You punish anyone who does,” I clarified.
Karson nodded curtly.
Punish. That was a rather broad word. It could encompass a black eye, waterboarding or a shallow grave. Knowing Karson, I didn’t think he would stop at a black eye when it came to a man laying a hand on a woman, and that would not make me lose sleep at night.
“If they don’t have somewhere to live, we’ve got a house, behind gates, with twenty-four-hour security.” Karson watched me intently as I absorbed his words. “Medical care, childcare, if they want to go to college… It’s all paid for.”
“Doesn’t sound like the work of villains to me, honey,” I told him, the endearment coming out sweet on my tongue now. “Sounds like something awfully close to what men on white steads do in fairy tales.”
Karson did not smirk at my joke. “I’m not a hero, Wren. Neither is Jay. He’ll be the first to tell you that. We didn’t get to where we are by being noble. And we sure as fuck don’t stay where we are by being white knights.”
His voice was harsh, but he wasn’t being harsh to me. He was making sure not to embellish the truth, sugarcoat what he did. Maybe, just a little, he was trying to test me, scare me away, because he hadn’t completely gotten over his guilt for dragging me into his world.
“What we do with those women is our fucked-up way of trying to balance the scales, even in the slightest,” he shrugged. “Separate ourselves from the rest of the scum out there. But in truth, we’re no different than them. I’ve killed men before, Wren. Tortured them. Seen the life leave someone’s eyes. It used to keep me up at night. It doesn’t anymore.”
He waited for that to sink in. For me to run, if need be, even if he was keeping me prisoner in his gaze.
“I need you to know that, baby,” he watched me intently as he spoke. “Because that’s the reality of this life. Right now, it may not bother you. But later down the line, when the reality of this sinks in, it might eat away at you. You might ask me to stop. Leave this life. And as much as I’d do anything you asked, I would do anything but that. I can’t be anything else than who I am right now. I've lived enough of my life to know that.” He gave me a long look, as if he was committing me to memory. “I need you to know that.”
I tilted my head, giving him a wide-eyed look. “You really underestimate who I am if you think I’m going to want to change you at any point in this relationship. I’m not going to suddenly have a longing for a white picket life, two point five kids, a golden retriever and a man who works in some office where he fucks his secretary. That is my personal version of hell.”
I leaned over to grab his wine glass then took a long sip from it.
“I’m sure I won’t agree with many of the things you do in your work, but I can tell you right now with complete certainty, I’m not expecting you to be anyone else but the man you were when I met you.”
My eyes ran down his torso, stuttering on his tattoo then finishing at his eyes. “The man you are right this very moment. Because I can promise you that I’m always going to be the woman standing in front of you right now. I’m going to be doing crazy shit, causing trouble, wandering around the house at three in the morning. So it really won’t serve either of us if you think you’ll ever want me to be smaller, quieter, something you can own.”
Karson chuckled at that.
Chuckled.
In the space of my big speech. The one I was rather proud of.
“Sweetheart... I wouldn’t dream of changing a fucking thing about you. And I think we’ve established that you’re the one who owns me. Body and soul.”
I stared at the tattoo on his chest. I didn’t say it aloud, but despite what he said, he owned me too.
Stella had disappeared.
Not Dateline Special disappeared—she’d called and left a message to tell me where she was going—but she dropped off the face of the earth.
Well, almost.
She was at the bottom of the world in New Zealand. A styling job for a TV show had come up at the last minute, and she’d jumped on a plane in an instant.
Because Jay had broken her heart.
As I had predicted.
But it had been over a month. Stella sent emails, texts, anything she could do to avoid phone calls with the three of us. We were all worried. Yasmin and Zoe had devised various ways they could destroy Jay’s life. I’d held them off, barely. I’d held them off because I was waiting for him to get his shit together and realize what he’d lost. Once he did that, he would do the big romantic gesture thing where he jumped on a plane and crossed an ocean to declare his undying love for Stella.
That had not happened.
And that pissed me right off.
Though I didn’t make a point to meddle in my friend’s love lives—depending on your definition of meddle—this situation obviously needed some sort of intervention. One of my best friends was on the other side of the world, heartbroken, without her girlfriends.