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

up at S&F put me on autopilot—only more numb than usual. I couldn’t save any more copies of Eve now that she lived with me. I was pretty sure she already noticed the cages and wondered what kind of freaky shit I was into.

Saving damsels in distress. 

Parking out of sight, I watched him complete his normal antics of antagonizing the girls and making this process more of a pain in my ass. Shouting over the yelling he and his men did, “Who is the Romeo in Denmark?”

Halting almost every movement, every word, everything except a look of concern, he finally acknowledged my presence. Donte’s hand maneuvered my shoulder, forcing me to turn away from the girls left in the van who weren’t accounted for. “That’s above your pay grade. You’re just deep pockets with money to burn. You approve the money, the women—not the clients.”

Above my paygrade? I was a founding fucking family.

I gave him a scowl that felt so full of rage, it would scar my face forever.

“None of those girls are Eve. You saved her, lover boy. Don’t get soft on me. You can’t save them all.” He thought that made a difference in him going behind my back without my permission and it didn’t.

Stepping towards him, I didn’t think twice when I used all my boxing training to strike him across the jaw. I was hoping it was made of glass, but in fact, it was solid. The reverberation rattled my knuckles and instantly stung in a way that I could easily add to the pile of pain I carried around.

Stepping back on some wobbly legs, I watched Donte nurse his jaw while he mumbled around profanity: fuck, motherfucker, and a fan favorite cunt.

My shoulder checked his with enough force to knock him over, but he only put his weight on a different leg. “You fucking cunt. You were such a good little cult member until you fell for the bait we sell. Now what, suddenly you don't feel like being the villain because your new wife wasn’t such a virgin by the time you got her?”

Every last drop of control I had was dissolved against Eve’s name rolling off his tongue when we both lunged towards each other, starting an actual brawl. My knee dug into his stomach while my fists rained down heavy shots over his face, sloppily hitting whatever I could.

“You don’t know shit about her. She isn’t like these girls.” My hoarse voice came out breathless as I took the advantage of having the upper hand.

Donte pushed me off him with a kind of ease that made me think he was just acting like a punching bag. He knew I needed to cut myself deep enough to let the evil pour out, and he was doing that for me.

His forearms rested on his knees with the Burberry jacket falling around him like a pair of fucked up wings. After a heavy inhale and fishing for his cigarettes, he spoke, “There’s a lot you don’t know. They don’t all look as desperate as the ones we deal with. Some of them are royal, special, one of a kind, groomed to be better than the scraps you’re used to saving.”

Rubbing my hands of the tiny rocks stuck to my skin from breaking my fall to the pavement, I let my ass fall down next to him. “She wasn’t groomed just because I paid to be the one to marry her.”

“No, but Romeos pay more for polished products. That doesn’t involve you. You don’t get your hands dirty enough to stain them—that’s above your pay grade.” He practically growled the words into the air like the brutal truth it was. I chose to stay in the dark as much as possible, hiding in my office, letting Donte be immune to the insanity.

I wasn’t an idiot; I knew the words leaving his mouth might as well have been a closed door on the lies I let myself believe. The truth was ugly, and it meant her halo was cracked and my demons were going to only hurt her more.

Donte scuffed before taking a long drag of the cigarette pinched between his lips. “She was groomed and had a Romeo just like the rest of them. This isn’t the 1800’s where parents don’t ask for a dowry. I’m betting her mom got a fat check for going along for the ride.”

His words shattered the rest of the lies I had solidified in my heart. 

Hating her mom was easy when she was never around when we were younger. Eve was left to her own devices or dropped on our doorstep every time she was swooning over a new boyfriend.

Every boyfriend was the same: loaded and not afraid to show it off.

Eve was the one thing between her mom and happiness since every new boyfriend would get cold feet when she finally dropped the bomb that she was a single mom. It was baggage they didn’t want or need. Until the last one—he was so bland and acted like he loved being a replacement dad for Eve until he realized I was a permanent figure in her life.

He always had a problem with me.

I was a threat to the life he was going to build because I was a built-in future for her.

No wonder he picked up and dragged them to Denmark where he could groom her to be something she wasn’t with no reminders of who I knew her to be.

Dusting off my ripped skinny jeans, I stood, zipping my hoodie up even higher, trying to swallow the amount of ache my heart felt for Eve.

It didn’t matter how bad I felt, I was just another knife, ready to cut some more.

Safely inside my car, I looked through every hiding spot for a bottle or nip of Hennessy. Under the seat,