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

in seconds, standing there, letting her wetness drip all over my bathroom floor. “What are you talking about? You can’t go to work like this.”

Bracing my hands against the smooth, black marble countertop, I twisted my head in her direction. “Like what exactly? How I’ve been since you left? I’ll survive.”

Eve needed to understand that her Bowey didn’t exist and all that was in his place was a sharp end of a blade. All I knew was pain and it was as much a part of my day as she was at this point.

When she’s weak, I’m strong, and when I’m weak, she’s strong. We would be perfectly balanced if she could just kick Pretty Princess to the curb for good instead of waiting until I pissed her off enough to bite back.

Closing the space between us, she delicately moved my arm so she could stare at the marks again. I considered them to be as private as the details of having a holy man shove his relic in places I’d rather ignore existed altogether. “What are you doing?”

The act of her looking at my scars felt more painful than the pinch where the skin was trying to heal. Letting my head drop to the other side, I forced myself to look away when all the dried-up moisture in my eyes came back, full force.

“Why did you do this?” her voice whimpered and pleaded for answers. She wanted to hear anything that would explain it away.

“One for each trauma I’ve survived. Don’t worry; you weren’t the first scar…” I was a heartless asshole when my walls went up. They might as well reach to the sky and resemble Fort Knox; nothing penetrates enough to make me stop being an asshole.

Pulling my arm out of her hands, I left her in the bathroom without remorse. I will replay that scenario in my head just to pile on the pain; my brain chalks it up to being dessert. It’s just another way to get me through another day.

Grimm was hit or miss at work. Some days he came in, while other days you begged to see him just to break up the dynamics of Khaos and Vic.

I hated asking for anything, but he did all our Clave tattoos when we all got bored and drunk in the mountains one night at Patmos. I also trusted him to have zero interest in Eve, unlike the rest of the population that I don’t trust.

Before Grimm was Death, he toyed with tattoo guns and gave everyone free tattoos like he was going to purpose the art form as a career. We all have matching snakes in various locations on our

bodies—it’s required as Horsemen. Mine is on my inner thigh, Vic’s crawls from his waistband, Khaos’s climbs the back of his neck, and Grimm’s is lost in his sea of other ink.

Making my way to his office, I saw him lying on the couch with his forearm over his eyes even though his office bore zero sunlight. “I need you to tattoo Eve.” The words fell from my mouth while I leaned against the door frame.

We had a strained relationship at best. He was my brother’s confidante, and we both resented what that felt like now. Blame, guilt, harsh realities—all too much between us to work out into conversations.

A deep groan came from his still body. “Why? She’s only Clave by proxy. None of the girls have the snake.”

Everything we exchanged was some form of sparing with underhanded insults instead of fists. “Because I don’t ask you for shit, and Eve isn’t the other girls. It’s my blood oath. Tattoo ink and blood.”

Sitting up, Grimm’s elbows dug into his thighs and his hands scrubbed his face. “Your blood oath is our blood mixed into the ink? Why make it more complicated?”

“It’s already complicated. I’m just making sure she never belongs to anyone else. In or out? If you can’t do it, I’ll find someone else.” I was done wasting any more of my morning on the reaper.

Dropping his head to one side, he analyzed my face and muttered a one word response of, “Fine, my place later.”

Smirking the way I never did, I was already seeing the dynamics shift and Eve wasn’t even present yet.

She was the monster under their beds, the one person who remembered us before the Clave corruption, and the one that could forgive all our sins—but forgetting? Eve didn’t do that.

Trust me, this shit would be easier if she just forgot who I was before.

BOWEN

Eve was thrilled to finally be inked. It was a form of freedom she didn’t have once her mother married royalty.

She wore a see-through sleeveless dress that flowed around her body with a leather band caging her tits. Underneath, my eyes trailed down to a pair of shorts that were barely there, and to her boots that landed mid-thigh. The sweater she brought with her wasn’t going to help matters. I felt my reserve crack, and that ache in my dick returned that I couldn’t keep ignoring.

Walking into Grimm’s, I didn’t bother ringing the bell or waiting for permission. They were Clave, and now they were parents; whatever I was going to walk in on would have zero effect on me.

Leading the wall, I let Eve trail behind me when I stopped dead in my tracks to see Abigail sitting on her knees on the kitchen floor: her hands bound behind her, clamps closed around her nipples, a gag between her lips, and a blindfold keeping her from seeing me. There was a thick layer of tension and PTSD that had my body reacting quickly to the scene when Grimm shouted, “Fucking Christ, Bo! There’s a doorbell for a reason.”

Eve walked right into me, suddenly interested in what I was blocking her