All the times I imagined Snow becoming my wife, none of them involved doing so in part to draw out our enemy. But that’s how the chips have fallen and something we’ll both have to learn to live with.
When the Saint James family left our home the other day, Snow jumped into wedding planning. She had dresses brought in to pick from. She had the best wedding planner in the city on our doorstep an hour after she called. And she hasn’t stopped since.
Part of me wonders if she’s walking down the aisle for the right reasons, but as long as she takes my name after all is said and done, I don’t give a fuck what the driving force is.
No matter how hard I try to focus on my laptop in front of me, tracking the movement of our drugs and dealers, I can’t keep my eyes off Snow as she flicks through the last of the decisions we have to make. The seating chart, the programs we give out at the church, and the menu are the last things we have to finalize before we get married the day after tomorrow.
Her blonde hair falls around her face, acting as a shield between us, and I can barely handle it. I can barely keep myself in my seat rather than striding across the room, bending her over the arm of the couch and fucking her so hard she’ll be feeling my cock until she becomes my wife.
As if she can read my mind, her eyes move from the papers in front of her and meet mine, a slight blush brushing across her cheeks. “Do you need something?”
I chuckle. “Careful, Snowflake. Watch your mouth, or I’ll put it to better use.”
“Promises, promises.” She smirks, peering over at her phone beside her. I returned it to her after her siblings left. She’s not a flight risk anymore, and the way she stood up to her brothers with fierce determination is all the evidence I needed of that. The look on her face when I handed over her phone and a new laptop, as well as a set of keys to the house and her new car, was the best gift I could ever receive. Apart from her of course.
“Don’t tempt me, Snow.”
She laughs, her head falling back against the arm of the couch. “I need to talk to you about something, and I want you to listen to me before you jump in and lose your mind.”
I place my laptop beside me and shuffle to the edge of my seat. “Go ahead.”
“I’m going to stay at the estate tomorrow night—”
“Absolutely not,” I growl. The idea of her being out of my sight, let alone in another house, with the people who have repeatedly tried to take her away from me, makes me want to chain her to our bed and throw away the key.
She rolls her eyes and sighs heavily. “That’s not letting me finish, Elijah.”
“You don’t need to waste your breath, it’s a no, and there’s nothing that could come out of that pretty mouth that would change my mind.”
She groans. “Can you just listen to me for a minute and stop being such a stubborn ass?”
I raise my brow, the ghost of a smile playing on my lips. If anyone else spoke to me like this, I would kill them before they could take another breath, but not Snow. No, I find her sass and constant defiance charming. “Go on then.” I lean back in my seat, spreading my arms out across the back of the couch as I wait for her to deliver her argument.
“l know we’re using this wedding as a ploy to draw out whoever is messing with our families, but I would still like to follow the traditions. If this is the only wedding I’m going to have, then I want to do it right.”
I narrow my eyes on her, anger simmering under the surface that I barely manage to tamp down. “Of course this is the only wedding you’re going to have,” I growl.
“So let me do it right! Let me have the freedom to choose to spend the night with my sisters, and to get pampered and primped and for you to see me for the first time as I walk down the aisle. If this marriage is going to work, I need you to trust me to make these kinds of decisions for myself.” The earnestness in her voice disarms me. Will I ever be able to say no to her? Will I ever be able to deny my Snowflake a thing she wants when she looks at me like this?
I close my eyes and blow out a long breath. This woman is going to be the death of me. “What about Wynter and Emerson come stay here for the night? I’ll make myself scarce and make sure we don’t see one another before the wedding.”
“There are cameras in every room in this house,” she counters. “And there’s no way Rayne lets Emerson step foot in this house.”
“Then you just have Wynter, and I turn off the cameras.” I shrug.
Snow groans, frustration radiating off her. “I don’t want just Wynter. I want both my sisters. And even if you turn the cameras off, I know you well enough to know you will just turn them back on again the moment I turn my back.”
She’s not entirely wrong about that. The need to have eyes on my woman is so strong that the moment she walks out of the room, I’m itching to turn my screens to the camera feed and watch her as she makes her way through the house.
I sigh. “Come here.” I pat my knee.
She watches me for a moment before placing the things on her lap to the side. She crosses from her seat to where I’m sitting and carefully lowers herself into my lap. The moment her body makes contact with mine is like I can breathe again. I thought my obsession with her ran deep before, but now I know what it’s like to feel her skin on mine, to hold her through the night, and slide into her sweet pussy, that obsession only grows deeper by the day.
“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think I can have you out of my sight at the moment, not when there’s someone targeting both of our families.” I’m not a man who concedes on anything, but I find myself wanting to give her anything her heart desires.
“The estate is one of the safest places in the city.”
“I know, but what about when you’re going back and forth? What about when people are coming in to do hair and makeup? How can I be sure your family’s security will check every pocket in their bags to make sure there’s nothing that can harm you?” The thoughts whirling in my mind have anger thrumming through my veins, but I force my body to remain calm.
“You’re overthinking this, Elijah.”
I move her so quickly she lets out a squeak of surprise as I position her so she’s straddling my lap. One hand moves up her back and gathers the hair at the nape of her neck in my fist. “When it comes to your safety, there is no such thing as overthinking. I will overthink every single decision that impacts your health and safety for the rest of our lives, and that’s just something you’re going to have to learn to live with.”
Snow sighs, her eyes dropping closed as her mind wanders to another solution. But there isn’t one. Her only option is to spend the night here with me, and she’ll be lucky if I even allow her to sleep in another room within the house, let alone in a house across the city.
“I know this is hard for you, Snowflake, and I’m sorry our wedding can’t be everything you dreamed it to be, but once this is all over, I’ll make up for it, okay?”
She nods slowly, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes that I quickly wipe away.
“Please don’t cry,” I murmur.
“There will never be time,” she whispers. “You forget that I know how this life works. Just because one threat is neutralized, it doesn’t mean the rest are. We will never be safe. I will never have the freedom I crave, because you will always be overprotective and overbearing.” Before I can stop her, she moves herself from my lap and strides across the room, slamming the door on her way out.
In almost any other circumstance, I would likely find her outburst amusing. But the reality is, she’s right. It’s been this way my entire life, and it will be the same until the day I die.
When you’re part of a Mafia family, you’re never safe, and that’s a painful reality we’ve both had to grow up with.
