Page 19 of Dragonfly

Liz tugs on the thread. Thanks to the numbing agents in the analgesic she applied, it doesn’t hurt, though the sensation is strange enough that I feel it. I turn back around, but she’s already on the next suture as if she hadn’t pulled so roughly on the last one.

It must’ve been an accident, especially since she peers up at me during the next stitch, an amused expression on her face. “Grab dinner, get stabbed, go back for dessert. I tell you… there’s never a dull moment with a Dragonfly.”

I wonder how Liz would react if she knew it wasn’t dessert we were heading off to get once she covers up my stitches, but a rushed wedding license instead. To be fair, it’s probably the same way the good doc would react if she knew that it was Savannah who stuck me with my own knife.

But the knife’s out now, my side is stitched, and Liz is giving instructions to Vin about how to take care of the dissolvable sutures because even she knows that it would be a waste of breath for her to try and tell me. Savannah is rubbing her thumbnail over her bottom lip, gaze darting from each of the three of us to the closed door as though she’s wondering if it would be worth it to try to run now.

She could try. If I didn’t chase her, Vin would, and she won’t like what’ll happen if my enforcer gets his hands on her again and I’m not there to stop him.

I think she knows it, too. At the very least, she’s resigned enough not to try to break out of the clinic.

I’m sure she thinks she has more time to escape me. I decide to let her live in that fantasy world a little longer. She’ll be thrust into my world before she knows it. The least I can do is let her have some hope before I steal the last of it away from her.

It’s the least she deserves for ruining one of my favorite jackets.

Moving away from the examination table, I grab my dress shirt, shrugging it back on so that it’s covering the large white bandage that Liz used to protect my stitches. I do up the buttons, then pull on my suit jacket.

My first instinct is to get rid of it. Even if I send it off to my tailor, it’ll never be the same again. But since I don’t want to waste time getting another one—and I didn’t think about my ruined shirt and coat when I was making my arrangements earlier—I wear it regardless.

It’s almost poetic, isn’t it? She tried to kill me while I was wearing this jacket. Why shouldn’t I keep it on as I force her into marrying me?

Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

And, now that I’m all patched up, I’m going to be the one to drive us there.

SEVEN

WIFE

SAVANNAH

Up until the moment I’m standing in a stuffy study, staring down at the wedding license waiting for my signature, I really thought I’d get out of this.

In what world do you a stab a guy, mess up trying to kill him, and instead of him ordering his goon to retaliate, he proposes?

Not like I can call it that. Not really. Proposing implies that I actually had a choice whether or not I actually wanted to marry him, and since the choice was Damien or death, it’s a no-brainer to go with the wedding.

I just… I guess I never thought he’d expect me to marry him tonight.

But that’s exactly what just happened. In front of a grey-haired judge wearing his robes and a fearful expression as he goes through the motions of performing a civil union with Vin as our ‘witness’, all that’s left for me to do now

Because in what world will this crooked judge force me to marry a man I tried to kill maybe two hours ago? In the criminal underbelly of Springfield, where being the head of a gang of thugs means that he can snap his fingers and expect everyone to do his bidding—or else.

Or else…

He threatened me with going to the cops. I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t… I can’t go back to prison again. I would’ve rather his big goon snap my neck over being behind bars again. I almost let that happen, too, until he gave me another way out.

Marry him. I guess I don’t know him half as well as I thought I did, because I was convinced he already had a wife; if not a wife, then a partner. Plus, Damien’s reputation precedes him. He’s a ruthless bastard who hides it behind his pleasant smile and his thousand-dollar suits. The gentleman gangster, I never would’ve thought he’d let me get away with stabbing him.

To make me his bride? I have no idea what he’s thinking. Why he’s doing this. Even after all of his comments while he made me stand in the doctor’s office as he got patched up… I was desperate to find a way out of this because I never once doubted that he’d make me go through with this.

And he did. Dashing his slanted signature on the wedding license on the judge’s desk, smirking to himself as he sets the pen down, he seems almost pleased with himself.

If some crazy chick tried to seduce me, then stabbed me in the side with my own knife, I’d think twice about letting her get close enough to do it again. So unless he plans on marrying me before retaliating against me, that’s the one upside to this insanity.

Sure, Damien. Let me be Mrs. Libellula. Let me go home to my apartment, run my own life with this civic tie between us, and the next time we meet, I’ll fix this problem by making myself a widow.

That’s my plan. I cling to it desperately as he places his hand on the small of my back, giving me just hard enough of a push to have me stumbling in my sneakers toward the desk.

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