29
Ihead up to the attic bedroom after showering, finding Wren curled up in the centre of the bed. Her breathing is even and steady so I cross the room, looking down at her. She’s curled on her side, hands beneath her face with her wild hair stretched across the pillow like flames.
I lean down and scoop my arms under her body. She groans but lets me lift her, cradling her to my chest as I leave the room and head back to the master bedroom.
“I can sleep alone,” she mumbles sleepily, nuzzling her face into my chest.
“That’s not how this works,” I whisper back, kicking the door open and then placing her into the queen sized bed in my bedroom. She doesn’t get up and leave, instead, she scoots herself into the middle and buries herself under the blankets, one eye watching me over the sheets.
I flick the switch and climb in beside her, pulling her closer, wrapping my arms around her. She sighs heavily and begins to circle her forefinger on my chest.
“You should not have left the compound,” I say after a beat of silence.
“You can’t keep me locked away forever.”
“I can,” I tell her, “do not forget who you are dealing with little bird.”
“Like I could forget, Lex,” she huffs, trying to pull away from me.
I don’t let her go, not even an inch. “You belong to me and there are people out there who want to take you away.”
“You make this hard,” she answers. Life with me, it was never going to be easy for her. But she’d get used to it. And she’ll learn her place.
We lay in silence until her breathing steadies back out and she relaxes against me, finally asleep again.
I don’t sleep though. I lay there, staring up at the darkened ceiling with her in my arms.
Everything in me that feels for her seems too big, too strong, too fierce, forget just Valentine and the Syndicate, I’m sure I’d take the entire fucking world on if it meant her staying right where she is now.
It’s become more than revenge. More than the city.
I’d never thought about taking a wife. Or I had, but in the sense of continuing my lineage but nothing more, with her though, I want it all. I want the marriage and the children with my surname and her fire. I wanted her to stand by my side with our enemies slain and the city at our feet.
On the bedside table my phone buzzes loudly against the top, the vibrations shaking the frame. I quickly reach out and snatch it off, glancing at the name lighting up the screen. My brows pull down. Ainsley didn’t phone me. She phoned Ryker.
Gently, I pry Wren from my body and answer the phone, not saying a word until I’m out of the bedroom.
“Ainsley.” I greet.
“I’m fucked.”
The second floor of the house is dark but I know my men are around here somewhere. I don’t go looking for them, instead I take the stairs and head to the office, settling in the chair behind the desk that’s been in my family for generations.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I did something, Lex,” she breathes heavy down the line as if she’s jogging. The sound of her feet setting a steady rhythm joins the sound of her ragged breath. “They’re coming for me.”
“Who?”
“The Syndicate.”
My spine straightens as my hand curls into a fist atop the desk, “What did you do, Ains?”
“I need to get to you,” Ainsley says to me, “But not now, they’ll be expecting it. I have shit you can use, Lex. I have it all.”
“Ainsley, how do you know they’re coming?”
She laughs but it lacks humour, “I got the message loud and clear.”