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

His hand around the steering wheel tightened, and I knew I shouldn’t have said her name.

“I don’t have memories that aren’t old. I don’t know what her body looks like. I don’t know how she grew into her features. I’m always finding her in others.” His confession was one-hundred percent alcohol induced, but I didn’t care.

Substances make us brave and honest.

Pulling into his driveway, I looked out the back window for any nosey neighbors before the door yanked open. Grabbing her ankles, she struggled the whole time.

She didn’t want to be saved by guys with angelic faces and villainous habits.

Bowen finally snapped, grabbing her face in his hand and letting his fingers sink into her cheeks. “You wanna go back there? Donte doesn’t follow the rules. He’ll fuck you every day until they decide where you’ll go. He’ll decide your fate and it won’t be pretty. Depending on how much he breaks you in with his dick, you could be sold to some rich perv, put on an island to be a slave, or worse—useless and dead. So pick your poison.”

No one knew what Bowen truly did.

None of us wanted to know what each other did.

Sex trafficking was a hard pill to swallow when I loved sex—the consensual kind.

She shook her head slowly and yanked her hands away from him even after he was honest.

He didn’t even have anywhere to put her. I went through options mentally while he popped off. Library, wine cellar (hold the wine, Henny only), attic—no cage or padded rooms that I knew of.

She let us bring her inside with less of a fight, and only tears dripping down her eyes while she accepted her fate.

Fate was freedom. We all process differently.

To my surprise, Bowen led us both upstairs to a hidden door, brushing a hand over the corner and pressing until the door popped open.

Mental note: he has secret rooms.

Inside there was a set of stairs and an open space that was void of anything but a carpet and an iron cage. It looked familiar when I clapped my hands together and shouted, “From Sins and Forgiveness? I’ll never forget these cages of pleasure.”

Our hostage’s face crumbled, and I ate my words. “Wild night. I’ve never had so many mouths on me.”

Once she was guided inside the cage, her hands grasped onto mine, yanking me closer. “Please don’t leave me! Take me with you. Don’t leave me with him.”

“He’s not going to hurt you. I’ll bring over a care package tomorrow. Do you like video games? Starbursts?”

Bowen pulled me away by the back of my shirt and closed the cage on his hostage. He even pushed me down the stairs just to make sure I got some distance.

“We need an agreement. Maybe a contract. I’m not a rehab program but we can’t just let her go now.” Another big gulp of Henny to clear the mind. I doubted his mind was anything but organized.

Fishing the starburst package from my back pocket I flipped it inside out and waved to Bowen for a sharpie.

Speaking as I wrote a binding agreement between him and I, “You don’t have an assistant. We’d keep an eye on her and she’d be a Clave employee, so we’d have a backup plan if she runs.”

“If you didn’t act like such an imbecile, people might actually get the idea you have brains.” Signing his name away to the new shiny cause, he drank himself sideways.

He started walking away with his coffee mug and the same flat expression he always wore. The memory stole my focus and I had to run ahead to plant myself in front of him. “Don’t be pissed off.”

Taking his mug from him, I watched him sear in a way that made me uncomfortable. I could feel his stare glaring into the truth before I had a chance to say it, “Grace is bringing Eve to the office.” Clamping my eyes closed, I waited for whatever anger was coming my way. All I knew was it wasn’t going to be hot coffee because that mug was fucking glued to my hands.

“Why exactly is that happening?” he spoke through his clenched teeth.

Peeling my eyes open, Bowen hadn’t moved an inch, his eyes locked and loaded depending on my answer. “Something happened… I’m not sure what. She never calls me so I knew it was serious. Thought her water broke, but the nugget is still safely inside her. I’m not jealous or anything, I’ve already slated baby roles for family game night, it’s fine.”

“Khaos,” he threatened my ADHD in one solid word.

I didn’t prepare for this part. Normally when I gave someone the push they needed, I had already plotted. Bowen saw through all that shit and it ruined making this fun.

Holding my wrists above my head, resting them there, I felt my ADHD spike. “I don’t know what happened. She was supposed to teach your wife to drive then she called. She never sounds worried. It’s Grace’s thing… calm under pressure. I’m the thespian in the family.”

Bowen didn’t even wait for the period at the end of my thoughts. He pushed past me to his office with the same scowl on his face as before. Mouthing the word in a scream, I let a dragged-out fuck leave my mouth silently.

I knew who Elias was, and now I was in a dilemma of not being able to intercept the information colliding against Bowen. I was feeding Eve pieces of her past, giving her the map to finding the truth on her own and my own damn wife managed to figure it out before she could.

Texting Grace as quick as my fingers could, I typed out: Don’t freak out. I know who Elias is.