THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (ebook reader android .txt) 📕

fake grass to go with my unearned house, and marriage that I had been awful at participating in. Standing over me like a tower, I looked up to the machine in all his shiny glory. “Stop acting like Death when you’re Famine.” Vic’s voice broke, that’s never happened.

I should have been death, it’s all I’m good for… killing beautiful things.

Empty! I’m fucking empty and this is what it looks like. E.M.P.T.Y—see? I can even spell. Now get off my property.”

His normally masked face shattered into a million little pieces as the back of his hand swiped away the moisture at his eyes while looking away at what he didn’t allow to be happening.

“We all know this is a hard time, Bo. It’s hard for me too, he was my best friend,” Grimm spoke out of turn and it made me feel like a wild savage who saw no limits in sight.

Death wanted to finally speak to me about my brother.

I’d feel honored if it wasn’t fifteen years too fucking late.

Pointing my finger in his direction, I shouted my words, “Hard for you? Fuck, I’m so sorry you find mourning your friend’s death hard. He was my brother, my twin, a part of me. He supposed to be the fourth before he went hurling off a cliff because getting raped every summer was too fucking much. So glad you noticed before we had to mourn him at all. And guess who took his fucking place?” I waited for it to sink in, twisting my finger back at myself. “And guess who still turned the other cheek? Well, fuck, that’d be you guys.”

All their faces fell from heroic to stoic in a few sentences.

We weren’t made of hero shit.

Fuck, we weren’t even villains because redemption was just skewed perception and if you saw redemption than welcome to the fucked club.

Vic stood there, hands on his hips, head hanging in disappointment like I shouldn’t have gone in for the kill the way I did.

“We all wanted to save him, Bowen. He was one of us but he’s gone and saving you is more important.” Khaos sat in the grass with his legs folded under him like a kid just taking it in and waiting on someone to shout goose. “This guy seems pretty gone too.”

The smell of a decomposing body is pungent with a splash of cheap cologne that seems too unholy to be the final sleep.

“Is there a reason you all are still here?” I pushed the words into the air, feeling cemented down by my wet clothes and now lighter soul.

Grimm had already left my eyesight as I darted around as much as I could horizontally. Vic kicked off his converse and yanked up his pants so when he sat on the edge his pants stayed dry. “I went to wire the last payment to Eve’s parents and I noticed the account had been defaulted to Elias. I did some digging… he had every asset moved to his name the night before her mom and stepdad died. After I dug him an entire grave, I realized the fucker killed them.”

And I killed him.

It was the least I could do as a shitty husband.

Looking over his shoulder, he watched Grimm drop down garbage bags, gloves, and whatever was in the bucket that hit the ground with a dense thud. We all followed suit watching Grimm glove up like this was a normal day.

“I’m not doing this shit alone. Fucker doesn’t even like me.” Grimm stood there waiting for them to join him while I continued to lay here being unhelpful.

Tossing Khaos a roll of garbage bags into his chest, I already heard him protest with gagging in between every other word. Finally forming whole sentences, he protested some more even with a foot stomp. “I was gonna throw up fifty-feet away. I can’t do this. Can’t we call someone?”

Vic was already tying a rubber apron around his waist. For someone who only killed when it counted, similar to me, it meant this was about something bigger than my drunk brain could comprehend. “Don’t get this on my pants. Start with the head, it’s easier.”

Grimm threw a clean glove that landed next to my head. “Might want to go inside and grovel while we handle this.”

Grovel.

More like beg for eternal forgiveness and sacrifice parts of my soul to make up for the shit I’ve caused and keep causing because I’d rather not be sober enough to feel how much responsibility I did have in all the damage my life has equaled up to.

 

I’m a husband now to a woman who’s been through just as much and managed to find a way to forgive me. She deserves better than me, so much better than making herself a fallen angel just to be with a demon.

Curling up, I got to my feet, still uneasy and buzzed; I tried to get motivated to apologize to Eve for being the flaming pile of shit I am.

We had this beautiful moment, and all my self-sabotage did was whisper hateful nothings in my ears until I felt undeserving.

She forgave me, but I couldn’t forgive myself.

Forgiving yourself means relinquishing control and the last time I did that I was left with scars.

Vic’s hand landed on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze like he understood even when I knew he didn’t. All the guys know what I do, trafficking of people like their high-priced goods. He doesn’t know what happens in the in-between: how we get them, how we sell them, how we condition them, how we keep an exclusive island for those testing out the product in the privacy of being above the law.

He doesn’t know what it’s like to be on both ends the way I do.

He doesn’t know that Eve got caught