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

Her face blushed and her hands dropped down to her lap in embarrassment. She was caught but I didn’t know what she was caught with until I rounded the desk to see my desktop opened to Donte’s file—something I only had access to.

None of the other guys knew anything about Donte or what we actually do.

“What are you doing?” I twisted around letting my ass perch on the edge of my desk while I waited for her answer.

She sat there, in my chair, clearly uncomfortable as she looked up at me. “I want answers and this badge gives me access to them. Donte wasn’t the one who took me, he’s just the one I left teeth mark on.”

Donte bitched about that for months, enough to grow the balls to suggest a muzzle for the girls. One I declined ever approving.

I didn’t know how to respond when I was here for the same reason—answers. We both wanted something the Clave was hiding from us.

I sighed heavily, reaching over as she flinched but tried to hide it when I grabbed the folder. “Don’t get caught.”

Leaving her behind my desk, I left my office when she laughed, shouting, “What’s with the panties? It’s creepy!” It made me laugh knowing the little things made Chevy uncomfortable. Maybe it would light a fire under her ass and get her to vacate my office quicker.

In my car, I thumbed through the folder, scanning and counting the pages with the small numbers dead center at the bottom to make sure it was here it in its entirety. As soon as I got to page twelve, it skipped right over to page fourteen like a misprint. Throwing the folder in the passenger seat, I hit my steering wheel with so much force I’m surprised my car didn’t somehow break or chose to malfunction.

There was one missing page like it could be chalked up as a mistake.

One page.

That one page had the power to enrage me with so much ease it felt unnatural. I wanted to burn the whole thing just for pissing me off, but I knew I needed the answers it held.

Once I pulled down my road, I spotted my mother’s gray Lamborghini parked along the curb.

Great. My house seemed fine on the outside so either she was here for no reason or something happened in Eve’s drunken stupor.

Pulling into my driveway, I tried to make it to the door without being spotted by her, but it was no use. My mother was the original steamroller and there was no escaping.

Stalking after me in her heels that clashed against the stone pathway leading up to the door, I had no choice but to agree when my mother decided to breeze her way into my house to let me know Eve’s warning signs weren’t just that—they were a reality.

A reality I could see infecting the happiness we were both so close to keeping forever.

“Elias is moving into the neighborhood to help with the transition and the loss of her parents. I tried to veto it, but the Clave thought it would be a good idea to have some kind of family close,” her voice was tight; she was pissed off.

I wouldn’t cross her; she grew up poor with no real means to be anything but threatening—not much to lose. Her opinion didn’t matter though, none of ours did. Nobody but the four fathers got a seat at the table.

I didn’t get to choose to not get married, to not have kids, to die instead of my brother so having any say in this was pointless. Whatever our four fathers decided was deemed the law and we were subject to follow it.

“You didn’t have to come in to tell me that. My front door is appropriate enough for this transfer of information.”

Having my mother in my house was the same as having her invade your space as a teenager, only now my room was the house. Squeezing my eyes closed, I paused, balling my fists so hard I felt my wrists tingle before I had to become more aware of my surroundings in her presence.

The discarded bottles.

The lack of food.

The wife I wasn’t entertaining.

The leftover chemistry Eve leaves everywhere.

“Don’t be an asshole, Bowen. I’m your mother and I can come to your home whenever I want.” She walked straight back between the two staircases curling their way into an archway that led down a hallway and to the kitchen at the back.

My mother wasn’t always like this, overbearing and consistently emotionally projectile vomiting all over me. A switch in her flipped when Braeden died instead of me that summer. When he died, she lost all ability to act like a normal mother. All those qualities that told you to let your child fall down and get scraped to learn their lesson went out the window, and instead, I was handed a platter of smothering love meant for more than me.

So smothering I rejected it at every turn.

Now that I wasn’t truly her problem anymore it was even more of a strain to let my mother love me the way she wanted.

“Is there anything else? I have a headache. Her brother is coming to live in my neighborhood, fucking great.”

She stood there with her hip popped in her heels and dress that was probably designed for a much younger age group. She always had this way of dressing younger that made the other moms look down at her and respond by buying something their husbands wouldn’t allow.

The Astors were by definition the richest of all the families.

I’m sure my dad would wipe his ass with Versace if he didn’t like the designer so much.

Fidgeting with the rings on her