Page 23 of Wife Number One

The words hung in the air around me like pictures. Images of the life I’d so desperately wanted but had watched slip through my fingers just an hour before.

Luca was offering it all to me on a silver platter.

He tossed me an envelope, thick with the papers it enclosed. It had my name on it. Not Chaos, but Hayden Whitling.

“I don’t sleep on talent, Chaos. That’s contracts and shareholder documentation. A draft because my lawyers can only do so much in an hour, but it’s a solid deal. Have your brother look it over if you want. You’ll see it’s all above board.” He paused, watching me carefully. “Come work for me, Hayden. I think we both know you want to.”

I pulled out the top page of the contract, my gaze catching on the number printed neatly next to the word salary.

It was six figures.

And came with a ten-percent share in ownership.

Luca grinned. “You like?”

There was nothing about that offer not to like.

Except for the man it came from.

I pushed the contract back inside the envelope and stuck my hand out of the open window.

Then let it fall to the road.

Fuck Luca Guerra. My words held a barely concealed snarl. “You can take your offer back to whatever fiery pit of Hell you crawled out from. I wouldn’t work for you for all the money in the fucking world.”

I was done with that life. I was done with gangs and violence.

I wasn’t going to be dragged back in with the lure of everything I had ever wanted.

Regret burned bitter on the back of my tongue.

Apparently, I was done with dreams too.

8

KARA

Alice wasn’t at the meeting spot.

I stared up at the house I’d grown up in. It was one of the original properties, built back when these lands had just been a hundred-acre farm, surrounded by a couple of polite neighbors we would wave at as we traveled into town once a month for supplies.

Josiah had bought the land to the south of our property first, and then soon after the property that bordered our northern fence. What had started as a friendship between my father and the new owner next door had grown until we were calling him uncle, and then brother.

I’d been a stupid, naïve kid. I hadn’t understood what was happening as the land around us became dotted with small cottages, and more and more people moved in.

But even if I’d been older, like my parents, I doubted anyone could have foreseen what this place would become over the course of the next two decades. Even five years ago, the commune had been nothing like it was today.

The fences had seemed important. Necessary for keeping us safe.

But now I saw them for what they truly were. Designed to keep us in. Small. Scared.

“Come on, Alice,” I mumbled, desperately searching the windows for any sign of her moving around on the other side. But there was nothing. Had something happened? Surely a light would have come on if my parents had caught her.

I glanced up toward the road, knowing it was there even though I couldn’t see it. It was a mile or two, but it should be an easy walk, since we could follow the main driveway. Once we were beyond that, it was miles more to the nearest town though.

Panic lit up inside me again. This was never going to work.

I glanced down at Hayley Jade beside me. She stared dead ahead, completely silent and unmoving.

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