Page 128 of Bad Little Bride

He did none of those things.

He saved a young girl who had no idea what she was to our world and he did it for no other reason than she deserved to be saved.

I’m proud to call Enzo Fikile my husband.

And it hasnothingto do with his name.

“You must bethe infamous Katana Fikile?” Nicholas smiles, sweeping his blond hair back in a way that makes me roll my eyes.

She opens her mouth, but I cut her off, stepping up to the door he holds open and turning to face him, my new guard promptly placing his massive shoulder between us, his bandana-covered face pointed in Nicholas’s direction. “Don’t even think about it, Galley. You’re already breaking Enzo’s number one rule.”

“How am I supposed to drive you but not talk to you?”

“You can talk to me.” I smirk, popping a brow. “When he’s around.”

He scoffs, shaking his head as he moves toward the driver’s door, leaving our guards to close us inside. Nicholas climbs in, mumbling his complaint when the guard, who was randomly assigned from an approved list that will forever rotate so thatthere is never a pattern that anyone can pick up on, as Mino broke it down to me, rolls up the privacy screen.

Katana stares at Nicholas, a goofy smile on her face, until he disappears behind the glass.

“Girl. No.” I settle in the seat. “That’s the fastest way to get you, and me, back on house arrest.”

“Why would Enzo give you such an attractive driver?”

“One,” I scrunch my nose, “look at the man I chose. Dark hair, tan skin, stormy, marble eyes. You really think I’d go for a blond? And two,” I shrug, “Nicholas and Enzo already have an understanding when it comes to me—one where Nicholas gets his balls chopped off if he makes one wrong move—so he doesn’t have to do the wholeif you so much as look at my fiancéebit. It made the most sense and after a three-day conversation, he agreed.”

Katana laughs, attention moving right back to the mirrored glass as if she can see him through it. “He goes to Greyson Elite, right?”

“He does. A rare transfer the girls let in because of his promise and family ties. He’s been there for three semesters now, I believe. Maybe two.”

“Maybe he can be my driver, too.” Her smile widens, but she quickly forgets about Nicholas when the guard passes over herone condition.She dances in her seat, taking the massive blunt and lighting the end. She spins it between two fingers, letting the flame kiss over the tip before puffing a few times, finally going in for a long lungful she manages not to choke over.

A long sigh leaves her, and I shake my head, snatching it from her hand and taking a small hit.

We pass it between each other in silence for a few minutes, and I fight a smirk when the guards, who are sitting right across from us, try hard to fight their coughs as the car becomes more and more hotboxed.

Katana drops back in her seat, eyes half closed and a small smile on her lips.

“How did you become such a pothead, anyway?” I ask. “Weren’t you locked in a tower all your life?”

Her head rolls toward me, a shadow falling over her, my interpretation likely hitting harder than intended.

Katana nods. “Yeah, I was, but the fortress I lived in wasn’t built to keep me in; it was built to keep people out because it was a giant pot farm. Most days I couldn’t leave my room, so I would just stare out the window for hours watching people plant, pull, prune…you name it. I could probably grow the best shit you’ve ever had without a single hand to help with all the visual studying I did, simply because there was literally nothing else to do.”

“And because you had unlimited access, you started smoking the supply?”

She shrugs one shoulder. “There was one guy there who was pretty cool. He felt bad for me, I think, so one day he put his fingers to his lips, and I glared at him, thinking he was being a weirdo, but then a single knock sounded at my door—no one ever knocked, and I never had visitors during the day—and when I opened it, there was a small box on the floor. Weed, a pipe, and a lighter.” Her tone was absent, but what’s worse is the way her next words draw a tenderness to them. “It was all uphill from there.”

It's almost as if that was all she had in her life that made her happy.

A fucking plant that serves as either a laughing gas or Xanax, depending on the strain and the person.

I don’t want to feel bad for her. It’s like I said, I hardly know her, and I’ve hated her for more than half that time, but I know what it’s like having only one thing in your life that makes you happy. I know what it’s like to have no one.

Yes, I had my mother until I was eight, but I lost both her and my sister that year when Rocklin was forced to move into the Greyson Manor to begin her Greyson girl training—something Katana would have had to hold on to if she wasn’t kidnapped by her own father and hidden away. After that, though, I was alone with the guards and the maids and my father when he would pop in, only to pop out just as fast—the life of the daughter of a Don. When I was invited into the Greyson Elite’s scholar program two years ago, things sucked a little less, but it wasn’t until the idea of Enzo was put into my head that I felt like I might one day have a place I could belong.

Somehow, all that feels like a lifetime ago now. Maybe that’s because over the last few months, Enzo has made me not only want to be here, but did all he could to ensure I felt it was where I belonged.

Katana still doesn’t have that, and if she doesn’t learn the ways of this world in record time?

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