Page 47 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
I have yet to decide, exactly, what my endgame plan is here.
“Yeah?” I quip, wary of my father’s reasons for bringing me here. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been allowed in his office.
“How are you feeling?” Crown asks, his voice tight but professional. His moss green gaze trails to my shoulder. The sweatshirt I’m wearing covers the wound, but this man, he doesn’t miss a damn thing. He notices the dirt stains on the sleeves, and frowns.
“Grainger’s blood is probably poison,” I offer up, and Cat snorts, swiping his hand over his salt and pepper beard. He’s gained quite a few gray hairs during the last several months. Because of me? Was he actually worried about me? It’s too strange of a thought to entertain.
I move across the old wood floors toward the desk. Bookcases line the wall on either side of us, filled with leatherbound volumes of Death by Daybreak lore. Photo albums from the forties, records from the sixties, by-laws passed in the nineties. I ignore it all, pausing a bit too close to Crown, close enough to smell that violet and suede scent of his.
“You’re probably right,” Cat agrees which is a bit too good-natured for my liking. The man is never this nice. Never. He lifts his rust-red eyes up to mine, locking gazes with me. Three months away from him has given me such clarity. While he’s a formidable foe, Cat doesn’t have to be my enemy. I can play him in ways that don’t end with me an early grave. “We need you to go over everything again.”
Crown shifts uncomfortably beside me, but not enough that Cat would ever notice. The only reason that I do is because we have some sort of strange connection to one another.
I heave a dramatic sigh.
“Seriously?” My right hand subconsciously clenches in the fabric of my sweatpants as my legs ache and my shoulder throbs. I’m trying to play nonchalant here, but it isn’t easy. So much is at stake. So much happened. Where are you, Grey? What’s going on?
I wonder if he won’t try to contact me. Considering I have zero access to electronics or Wi-Fi of any sort, I’m not sure how. I wouldn’t put it past the guy to sneak a message in though, send up smoke signals, train a fucking owl to drop a letter down my chimney.
I’d love to talk to him. Or Reba. I just need a friend to vent to, someone to calm my raging fury into a smoking ember. It still burns yes, and it has the capacity to start forest fires, but it isn’t as dangerous in the interim.
Crown stands up straight and then grabs a chair that’s set against the wall, moving it in front of the desk. Our eyes meet briefly, but I can’t glean anything from his gaze. No, this is his VP persona; he won’t give a damn thing away.
And neither should I.
Focusing on Crown and Amber right now isn’t the right move. I need to keep my head on straight, my story straighter, and my emotions in check.
Crown gestures for me to sit, and I do, rehearsing the words before I even begin to talk.
“First, that idiot Cade picked me up at home …” I start, and then I spend four grueling hours going over everything that I know. The clothes the Don wore. The jewels they forced me to put on. The wedding dress. Crown and Cat make me draw a map of the grounds to the best of my knowledge. Every word that was spoken, I repeat, and I tell the truth in every aspect but for how I got there.
Because now, it isn’t just my life on the line.
I bide my time during the meeting, but I can’t forget the expression on Amber’s face, no matter how hard I try.
She’s in love; she truly loves him.
It’s a lot to process, especially with my father’s calculating gaze trained on my face. He won’t miss a single misstep, one wrong detail, a confused stutter. Somehow, someway, I manage to keep it all together.
Once Cat is satisfied that he’s gotten enough information out of me (for now), he pats me on the head while I scowl.
“That’s my girl,” he says, just like he did when I stumbled out of the church after fucking Grainger, blood oozing from my shoulder. “Now, take that goddamn ring off and leave it on my desk.”
He waltzes past me as I blink in surprise, finally dropping my gaze to my right hand to find the ring Grey gave me still perched on my finger. Just before the ceremony, Giulia instructed me to switch it from my left to my right. That way, Grey could place my wedding band on my left hand, the one closest to my heart.
