Page 37 of Dragonfly

Savannah made all of those promises to him; at least, he probably thinks she did. But you know what? I don’t have to be Savannah. I can shed that identity as easily as I got rid of Georgia if I have to.

He warned me not to leave. Not to run. But so long as he doesn’t have anyone guarding that door—and, as far as I can tell, he hasn’t since the first night—it would be worth if to at least try.

For Orion, I think I have to.

Let’s just hope I can pull it off and get the hell out of here before my ‘husband’ finds out.

THIRTEEN

ATTEMPTED ESCAPE

DAMIEN

My new wife might have spent months stalking me, but if she thought I’d stand by and let her leave me after I promised her I’d never allow it… she doesn’t know Damien Libellula at all.

I pride myself on my honesty. I never say anything I don’t mean. I told her, if she tried to leave me, there would be consequences.

Savannah will not make me a liar.

That she made it further than she should’ve only infuriated me more. The security on my house is high-end for Genevieve’s sake. It has alarms and sensors, but I realize my mistake the moment my cameras catch Savannah dashing out of the side door, sending me a notification right to my phone. The security is designed to keep threats out, not to trap them in.

That’s because Vin and I need to be free to take care of business at a moment’s notice. Gen knows better than to leave on her own without a chaperone to keep her safe. And Savannah… she should’ve known better by now than not to test me.

I was doing this for her own safety. She tried to take me out, and not only did I make her untouchable by marrying her, but I let her into my home. So what if I did so because I maneuvered her into a position that she couldn’t escape without my help. She didn’t have to agree, but she did—and now she’s going to pay for it.

I was in the middle of meeting with our top accountant, Noel, when I got the notification. With the influx of bad Eclipse spreading through Springfield, our sales have taken a dip and I needed to see the numbers on what the fucking snowflake crew is costing me. So already I was dealing with bad news. Is it a surprise that I didn’t take Savannah’s attempted escape as well as I might have.

Frankie might be my valet, making sure things run smoothly in my manor when I’m occupied with other elements of the Family’s business, but he used to run with my dad going back thirty years ago now. Closing in on sixty, he did his time out on the streets. A working retirement, he’s not exactly a lieutenant anymore, but he does run the staff.

And when I called the house and told him that my wife made a break for it, Frankie locked down the gates before she could find a way out. The garage was closed off, too. From what he told me, he caught Savannah trying to climb before he convinced her it was useless.

The gun he keeps tucked beneath his valet jacket probably helped.

Either way, Savannah didn’t look at Frankie and see an even older man she could attack. She hung her head, followed him back inside, and went to our room without any trouble.

By then, I’d gotten in touch with Vin. He was checking on the latest batch of bills coming out of the laundromat so, technically, he was closer to the man than me. He hauled his ass home, parking his big body in front of my door while waiting for me to arrive.

I had every intention of doing so. I only had to make one pit stop first.

Last summer, before our truce, one of Lincoln’s men decided to switch sides. Robert Cullens got his dragonfly, and to prove his newfound loyalty to my Family, he told Christopher everything about the Devil of Springfield and his new bride.

I knew immediately it was Ava Monroe. I also could guess just how he got the woman he’d been obsessed with since he was a young teen—and who he left fifteen years ago after his brutal run-in with Skittery the junkie—to finally forgive him and marry him.

Joey Maglione.

Maglione, like Cullens, was a recent recruit to the Family. He was also, for a time, Ava Monroe’s boyfriend. He vanished shortly before Lincoln married her, and rumors ran that it was because St. Ava pulled the trigger on Maglione one night after he attempted to sexually assault her.

And why did that fucking moron do that? Because once he realized his Ava was Lincoln’s Ava, Maglione wanted to bring her to me to use against our rivals in the Sinners Syndicate. He thought he was showing initiative. Maybe if he didn’t try to get his cock wet first, I’d see that, but no. I didn’t blame Ava for killing one of my men when I probably would’ve done the same thing if she hadn’t done it first.

Lincoln didn’t know that at the time. He was protecting his wife from the police and from me. So he kept her hidden away, locked away in the penthouse of Paradise Suites, and it was only a stroke of luck that I was able to use Cullens to nab Ava and bring her to me.

I wanted this truce. I would’ve done anything for it. Making Lincoln’s new wife leverage to control my former friend turned rival? I knew she was in no danger. He didn’t. I could’ve gotten him to promise me the world with my gun to Ava’s head, but the only thing I wanted was for our two syndicates to work together to block out any others from heading onto our turf.

In one decision, I got rid of the biggest threat to me while also using Lincoln’s crew to shield my Family from any others. It’s something I’ve been working toward for years, and I was so damn pleased when it finally came to fruition—no matter how low I had to go to get that.

He’ll never forgive me, but he knows enough about the life that he’s done his best to move on. He also—as he told me smugly during one of our early dinners—made sure that he’d never love tabs on his wife again, all thanks to a particular invention his tech guy came up with.

Lincoln definitely caught my interest with that statement. And though I know he charged me through the nose to get a couple of prototypes of my own, I happily paid it to him in good faith, hoping it would help him get over the whole ‘me putting a gun to Ava’s head’ thing that he still had an issue with.

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