Page 19 of Entangled
Kade wordlessly led me to the island in the middle of his beautifully gigantic kitchen, and I scooted myself onto a bar stool and watched him search through the fridge and the cabinets.
I heard a low chuckle come from him before he pulled out a box from the pantry.
It took me a moment before I realized what he was holding in his hand.
A box of Kraft mac and cheese?
Now I understood the chuckle. Boxed mac and cheese would be the last thing I’d expect to find in the cabinets of a Mafia member too. But here we are, late in the evening and making mac and cheese.
I hadn’t had boxed mac and cheese since I was a child, and it threw me headfirst back into that nostalgic feeling and conjured up memories of my beloved father.
As Kade prepped the kitchen, bringing the water to a boil on the stove, I diligently watched him work. I found it was hard not to get lost in the gracefulness of the way he did things. Theway he moved, even doing the smallest of things, was full of intention. I’m sure he had years of practice. Have to be stealthy on your feet in his profession, I assume.
I watched this heartless man make me a meal, and my heart betrayed me despite my best efforts. Because nobody had ever done something like this since my dad died. I don't think anyone had actually taken care of me since then. I’d had to pick myself and all the broken pieces up and try to tape them back together the best I could.
He was making it harder and harder to stuff things down and not make my heart yearn for him, and I’d only just met him.
And here he was, bringing glue to the fight and piecing me back together without even knowing it.
8
KADE
I watchedSoren eat her bowl of mac and cheese like she hadn’t eaten a meal in weeks. And I don’t think her insanely long nap was the only cause of her hunger. Her face looked sunken in around her eyes, and her wrists looked like those of a child. I didn’t know if it was her husband not making sure she ate or preventing her from eating. Maybe she didn’t like to eat at all. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Because if I found out her husband had anything to do with it, it would give me all the more reason to tear him apart limb from limb for being such a controlling douche.
But the way she was scarfing down her food, I didn’t think she was the issue. She looked like life had put her through the wringer one too many times. I’d expected her to scream when she woke up in a different place, staring at the son of the opposing side, but she didn’t even flinch.
It was like she was used to the shitty curveballs that life continued to throw her way.
After I had woken up this morning and left her bedroom, never intending to sleep there in the first place, I decided to find out everything I could about her.
I knew about her acceptance to the University of Georgia and how her father died when she was only eighteen years old. How she worked only a short time for Canella Inc before she was wed to Jude. I knew the surface level bits of her life, but I wanted so much more from her. I wanted to know what made her tick, and what made her get up every morning and carry on with the whole charade.
I know I’m supposed to be this bitter man with a dark heart, but knowing that she wasn’t upset to be here or racing to get home gutted me. But I wasn’t sure what caused me to care so much. My responsibility was to keep her here until we reached a peaceful agreement in our favor, and then she would go home.
I tried to avoid the nagging thought inside my head that betrayed everything else by saying I should fight for her, because she sure looked like she needed someone to.
I’m just not sure why the fuck that should be me. Why did my brain think thatIshould be the one to save her?
I don’t know what it was about her that pulled me in so deep. Was it the fight that was beginning to emerge in her dead eyes? The same kind that was in mine, that called to it like its other missing half?
It’s like I couldn’t stop wondering what had caused her to become so empty inside. She was like sunshine in human form, and someone had trapped her in the dark. I was just now getting to see those sun rays from her, and I was desperate to break down all her walls and know everything about her inside and out.
I still couldn’t explain what my infatuation with her was, but I could also do nothing to stop it, no matter how hard I fought against it. I just felt absolutely and irrevocably infatuated by her — the mystery of who Soren was entangled in my every thought, like overgrown ivy.
Soren was my enemy’s daughter. I shouldn’t have any good feelings towards her. But getting to see her up close and talk to her, I could tell she was wrapped up in something that she had no intention of ever touching with a ten-foot pole. I bet Soren Canella was an entirely different person than Soren Peirano.
“Did you want some water?” I asked, needing to break myself away from my thoughts. I tried to tell myself I was only taking care of her so the repercussions of kidnapping her were less severe. I thought that if she went back in one piece, and had no horror stories to tell her husband, that he might just let me off the hook for the whole ordeal.
But I knew nothing like that happened in our world. Nobody got off of something so easily.
“Yes, please,” she said, after gulping down another bite. “With ice please.”
“As you wish, princess.” I laughed before walking over to grab a cup from the cabinet.
She wasn’t shy even a little bit, and there was no fear in her tone. It’s like we’d been friends for years, just messing around and having a conversation. Like we did this all the time. Like she wascomfortablearound me. It made nausea coil in my stomach, making my appetite for my own bowl of mac and cheese to almost disappear entirely.
I placed it in front of her, and as she went to grab it, our fingertips brushed against one another. And a jolt of electricity went through me, jolting me like nothing I had ever felt before. I tried my best to not jerk my hand away and play it cool.
