Page 31 of Seduce & Destroy

She looked away from me then. Her features fell into a pained expression. “Please,” she breathed.

“Give me one good reason to not go back to that Church and gut him like a fish.”

She closed her eyes. “Please, don’t start another war.”

The words shocked me. We’re at war? I knew the attacks on Laney’s family were provocations, but it was still the cold war stage. The Ravencrofts hadn’t retaliated yet.

“There is no war,” I said but my tone wasn’t entirely sure. As far as I knew, they didn’t suspect a Karstein plot. Or does Laney know more than she let on?

“There will be. You can’t kill Logan Novelli, he is part of a dangerous family, we can’t afford to piss them off.”

“But they pissed you off!”

“Yes, but I am a girl.” She choked. “Collateral damage.”

The thought reinvigorated my anger again. It wasn’t reason enough to withhold justice, I just needed a justification. “What happened with Logan?” I said, darkly.

She lifted herself off the floor, coming to stand on shaky feet, then turned her head to me. Her eyes were filled with a mixture of sorrow and resignation that made my stomach churn. “You really want to know?” More than anything. I nodded. “We were married.”

What the fuck.

That was the last thing I expected her to say.

“Father set us up. In this world, it was perfectly routine to be engaged by seventeen. We were married the day after my eighteenth. May sixth.” She began walking further into the woods as she spoke.

I followed, transfixed and quiet at this new information. How had I missed this in my reconnaissance? “How old was he?”

“Thirty-two.”

I grimaced. She was married four years ago, making him Thirty-six now.

Laney shrugged as if it were a regular thing. Though, thinking about it, Tilly’s husband appeared to be a lot older than us too. We listened to the song of the birds while the words hung in the air like grease clung to pans. If only I could drench myself in boiling hot water to rid the disgusting feeling that had overcome my body.

“He hurt you?”

“No,” she breathed. I didn’t believe her for a second. “Not really.”

I stopped in my tracks, shooting her a confused and disbelieving glance.

“He’s an asshole. I don’t deny that.” She kept walking. “It’s just…I was the problem. I couldn’t be a wife. Not to him.”

The light dwindled the further we traversed into the forest, and with it, the warmth of the sunshine. Laney's flowing dress couldn’t have retained much heat, but if she was cold, she didn’t show it, even as I caught a glimpse of the goosebumps forming on her arms.

“Somehow I don’t believe that,” I whispered softly, stepping close to her to share some of my body heat. I’m not sure it was working.

“It’s the truth,” She began, again, defensive. “Can I be frank with you?”

There’s nothing I wanted more. “Please.”

She took a deep breath before releasing it in long bouts. It took a minute before her words came out. “I knew a love match would be unlikely. And my father’s taste in men was…clinical. But I had such faith that a man could love me, and I’d have that white picket fence life that I’d read so much about. That all-encompassing love that I read in my stories. What I didn’t know was that my marriage would be an emblematic alliance—a gesture.

“As soon as I found that out, I left behind all my ideas of a future husband who would be a sane or loveable man. Although it devastated me, I prayed that he would be absent. Careless. So, at the very least I could play a doting housewife and pretend that I had it all even if it was in solitary misery. If it were in exchange for a free life? Out from under any man’s thumb? I’d take it.” She nodded, sadly. It was obvious these words were said to not only convince me but also herself.

“A marriage just in name.” I added, hoping to prompt her to say more. Marriage wasn’t something that I had on my radar, love was a pressure point that exposed people to their weaknesses. Publicly declaring that through a certificate signed in law was plain dumb.

“Then Logan Novelli showed up.” She continued. “And well, you’ve seen him, he’s a clutchy, handsy motherfucker who wanted an obedient little wife with doe eyes that never left his body out of lust and admiration. I leaned into it for a while, but his touch disgusted me. It wasn’t love, it was lust, and it scared me. After that, I refused to have much contact with him until our wedding. I begged my father to stay in the room with me when he was around. Didn’t stop him though. His wandering hands branded me publicly, a fact that he revelled in while I cringed.

“I thought my fear of him was only rooted in the fact that I didn’t like him, that he was an asshole. Plain and simple. I thought that was all, but….”

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