“Fact, not a compliment,” he corrected.

  His gaze fell to the nightstand where the phone he’d deemed mine remained. “Is the cellphone going to be another argument?”

  I finished off my water and shook my head. “There’s no reason for me to carry it. Who am I going to call?”

  “Me.”

  “Right, because we have so much to catch up on.”

  “That mouth of yours is going to pay for every smart-ass remark out of it.”

  He grabbed my phone from the nightstand and shoved it in his pocket when he realized I had none.

  “You need to start carrying a purse—a large one.”

  I laughed. “Any other fashion tips you wanna share?”

  “Yes, actually. When we’re home, don’t wear underwear. I want easy access.”

  “I’ll pencil that in my notes.”

  “Be sure that you do.”

  He grabbed my hand and linked our fingers together--a preference of his.

  “Who makes the bed?” I asked as he led me from the room. I’d noticed last night that someone had come in and set everything anew.

  “We have housekeepers, but usually me. I know you’re not as organized, so it’s been added to their daily task lists.”

  “Are you calling me a slob?” I feigned insult.

  “You describe it so much better than I do.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not until he glanced over and flashed a heart-stopping smile. “I don’t give a shit if you don’t make the bed or want to leave your laundry all over our bedroom. I just want you here. I can take care of everything else.”

  “I think I’m capable of making a bed.”

  “I know you are, but you don’t have to. And Cookie already knows his kitchen needs to be protected from you at all costs.”

  “Whatever, I’m not going to burn down your house.”

  He slowed and made sure I saw his reproachful frown. “Whose house?”

  “Our house?”

  “Good girl.”

  “You want me to just accept all of this within, what? Two days. We haven’t even had an actual discussion about…anything.”

  His responding sigh was amusingly exaggerated.

  “We need to talk. We’ve been over that at least ten times now. We will. Talking isn’t going to change your future so yes, you need to simply accept it or at least understand this is your home. Sooner than later would be nice.”

  He walked with me down the second staircase to the first floor. As we were coming around the curve the sound of music playing began to reach my ears.

  “Where is that coming from?”

  “Oh, your best friend is fucking mine. They were courteous enough to add background noise.”

  Well, that confirmed what I already suspected. Leave it to Judas to relay such information like one would the daily forecast. I would never hear Glamorous the same way again.

  “I know you’re not on the best terms with her. If it continues, give the word and she’s gone.”

  I came to a full stop. “What do you mean gone?”

  “You’ve got to stop asking me these dumbass questions. I adore you, but there’s only so much I can take.” He released my hand and finished descending, turning to face me once he reached the bottom.

  “Dead. Buried in a hole somewhere. Cut into tiny little pieces and fried up for Romeo and Juliet. Bullet to the head. Or if you want, we can do it slow and methodically. I know a guy if you’d prefer not to do that personally.”

  “What? No! We’re not--you—are not killing Audrey. Ever. And stop speaking to me like I’m an idiot.” I contemplated pulling my sandal off and launching it at his goddamn head.

  “Morto.”

  I glared down the few remaining stairs between us. “You know I don’t speak Italian.”

  He smirked coolly. “It means dead. I thought I needed to switch languages to help you understand better.”

  I reached down and slipped my shoe off. With careful aim, I hurled it right at his face.

  He laughed and caught it midair. “Calm down, Rhiannon. Violence is never the answer.”

  “You’re…” I couldn’t even finish my sentence. I hobbled down the stairs feeling like a fool and tried to snatch my shoe out of his hand.

  He held it up above his head and wrapped an arm around my middle, spinning me around so that I was facing the opposite direction. Instead of trying to fight against him, I imagined myself as a dead fish and let myself go limp. His reaction time was notably impressive. He quickly tightened his hold.

  “That was smart,” he remarked, sounding genuinely pleased.

  “Why are you like this?” I questioned with a groan.

  Handling me with care, he turned my body and placed me on the second to last stair. Crouching down, he grabbed my ankle, and I was forced to latch onto his shoulders as he lifted up my foot and slipped my shoe back on. He placed a light kiss on my calf and then removed my hands from his shoulders so that he could straighten back to his full height.

  “Look, it’s a perfect fit.”

  “Yeah, you’re a real prince charming.”

  “No.” He held out his hand for me to take again. “I would hate to be the hero. I’m much better at being the villain.”

  He was still being playful, but there was a darker tone in his words. I didn’t like the way he’d flipped that.

  “I’m sorry for toying with you,” he added, mistaking my hesitation.

  “Did you just apologize to me?” I grabbed his hand and let him gently tug me down to join him on the first floor.

  “Don’t sound so shocked.”

  I didn’t respond. I’d been waiting years for an apology from him, and it had never been because he taunted me into throwing a designer shoe at his head. I quickly deviated away from the thorny path my thoughts were about to take. We had shit to talk about, but that discussion clearly wasn’t happening right this second.

  “So, what are we doing today?”

  “We’re on a schedule. We don’t have time for you to eat breakfast, but I had Cookie prepare something for on the go.”

  I quirked a brow. “For me to eat? Is this something I’m always going to do alone?”

  “Would you rather we do it together?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m used to doing things by myself.”

  Wow. That made me sound like a total recluse when I said it out loud. In a way, I guess I was. It didn’t bother me, though.

  “I’ll make sure I eat with you.” He ran his thumb over the back of my hand a total of three times before adding, “You’re not by yourself anymore.”

  Technically, I had Audrey this entire time. I also wasn’t thrilled about us getting into the habit of any routines. He was fully confident about the life we’d live together. I was waiting for it all to come crashing down before it was fully constructed.

  We made our way through the kitchen, and he passed me a small tote bag that Cookie had left on the island. I peered inside and saw a few granola bars, a banana, and a bottle of water sweating condensation.

  “Does the cook live here?”

  “He has a small house at the edge of the property.”

  We exited through the atrium and walked to the driveway. It was gorgeous outside. The weather was perfect for swimming. If I were here for leisure, I’d make good use of the big ass pool Judas had in the backyard.

  There was a different line-up of cars all parked in some type of triangular formation.

  “What do you think?” He pointed out a black SUV that was different than all the others. It was smaller and looked like more of a luxury vehicle than the Suburban and Denali did.

  “I don’t know. It’s cute.”

  “You have plenty of time to form a better opinion. She’s all yours.” He reached into his pocket and retrieved a black fob that had a large B in the center. “I meant to give you this last night.”

  I looked from the key to the truck. “You’re giving me a Bentley?”

  “I’ll give you one in every color if you can keep it a secret from the IRS.”

  I tried not to laugh and failed. Our situation-ship had progressed to crime jokes. We were officially the real deal.

  “This is why I wanted you to carry a purse. You have your car key and phone. A house key.”

  He opened his palm to reveal a copy of the same odd-shaped key he used to get in last night. “You have a wallet too, but I didn’t bring that with me.”

  “What about the codes?” I joked.

  “You already know them.” He returned the fob to his pocket.

  “I do?”

  “You’ve known them since the first night.”

  What a cryptic load of bull.

  “You have time to figure it out. I can’t trust you to go off on your own yet.”

  “The word trust coming out of your mouth is pure comedy.”

  He didn’t respond. His focus seemed to be wholly on the garage. After a minute or so of us standing in place, I tried to pull my hand free.

  “No,” Judas said firmly, tightening his grip. “Give him another minute, we’re early.”

  “Who are we waiting on?”

  It couldn’t be Gavin. According to Judas he and Audrey were off fucking the morning away.

  He cut his gaze to me with a slight smile. “A friend.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “You didn’t exactly give me a choice.”

  “We both know you’ll always choose me,” he retorted matter-of-factly.

  When I didn’t reply, we fell into a companionable silence. I looked around the property to get a better lay of the land. It was so huge that from up above we would be like two tiny blips.

  “How many bedrooms is your—our, house.” I corrected myself before he could get another hair up his ass.

  “Seven,” he replied slowly.

  “Did you just stop and count?”

  “No. I was thinking I should have given you a tour.”

  I waved him off with the hand he wasn’t holding. “I’ll just explore when I get tired of staring at the bars on the windows. And if I get lost, I’m sure there are cameras hidden in the walls somewhere.”

  What started as a joke in my head didn’t translate into my dialogue. He had two security systems on his house, the gated entryway, and armed guards that I had only gotten a glimpse of.

  There was no need to question if he had cameras in his house—he did.

  “They’re not in the bedroom, right?”

  He let go of my hand and turned towards me. “I have them where they need to be.”

  The whir of a motor put a stop to our conversation. A black, metallic UTV came from the pathway that was mostly hidden from sight because of the garage. A man I’d never seen before was behind the wheel.

  “That’s our ride,” Judas announced.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”

  He grabbed my elbow and led me over to idling the utility vehicle. “Theo, Rhiannon. Rhiannon, Theo,” Judas established by motioning between the two of us.

  The man nodded once in acknowledgment. He was wearing sunglasses so I couldn’t see much more than his slightly crooked nose and pierced lip.

  He was so tall the top of his head nearly touched the roof of the UTV.

  “Hop on,” Judas urged, giving my ass a small tap.

  I sat in one of the rear seats. As soon as Judas was seated beside me Theo did a small U-turn and drove back the way he’d come.

  There wasn’t much to see at first. The pathway wound behind the garage and then curved to the left, taking us into a small stretch of woods.

  “Do you like it?” I glanced over and he nodded to indicate my ring.

  I’d been absentmindedly spinning it back and forth. “Yeah, it’s beautiful. What made you choose this one?”

  “Your eyes,” he replied simply.

  “Oh…”

  He looked down and became immersed in something on his phone.

  “How much land do you have?”

  “We have about thirty-six acres. All fenced and under surveillance.”

  “Okay? I wasn’t asking so I could make a run for it.”

  His eyes cut to mine, and I got the feeling he didn’t believe remotely believe me. “It wouldn’t matter if you did. I’d catch you and drag your ass back home.”

  “You’re a real romantic, you know that?”

  “Romance is overrated and you’re not that into it. You like me because I take away your choices, fuck you like a whore, own a private island, and have enough power to bring you the head of anyone that looks at you wrong.”

  “You have a private island?”

  “See?” He leaned over and dropped a quick kiss on my lips.

  I’d genuinely been asking him that, but his attention was already back on his phone. I sighed and settled back in my seat to enjoy the brief ride to wherever we were going.

  The weather was gorgeous, and the breeze felt good. It took a few minutes for us to travel through the cluster of woodland.

  When we emerged into open space again, I was able to make out the silhouette of a large building surrounded by a tall fence straight ahead. I sat taller and tried to get a better look.

  “What’s that?”

  “Our first stop of the day,” Judas replied, slipping his phone into his pocket.

  As we got closer, I could see barb wire running along the upper perimeter of the fence. There was a soft buzzer sound just before we reached the long gate barring entrance. It slid open and Theo drove right through, bypassing two guards that could have walked off a MIB set, and a few parked vehicles.

  Seeing them indicated there was another road that led to this place.

  If the building didn’t look like anything more than a large warehouse, I’d think Judas had a private prison in what was essentially his backyard.

  Theo circled around and came to a stop alongside a stone walkway. Judas easily stepped out of the UTV. I made to exit on the opposite side, but he quickly stopped me. His hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist. I teetered and grabbed his arm to steady myself.

  “What are you doing?” I snapped.

  He pulled me out of the UTV and said something to Theo in Italian that had the man swiftly driving off.

  “Don’t raise your voice at me,” he reprimanded as if I were a child. “You stay by my side, always.”

  “Jesus, Judas!”

  “Good analogy. You made the right choice,” he joked.

  “You’re not funny.”

  “I’m hilarious.” He released my wrist and slipped an arm around my waist to propel me up the walkway that was lined with a colorful variety of flowers. At the end were two solid steel doors with blacked-out windows.

  “What is this place?”

  “A lot of things. Today it’s where you’ll be doing target practice.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of his answer. This was far more than a simple shooting range. Those didn’t need to be surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards. I contemplated if I wanted to share with him that I’d already gone through the motions of learning to shoot, quite well in fact.

  “I have my CCW,” I disclosed as we neared the end of the walkway.

  He pulled one of the doors open and looked down at me with an amused smirk. “I know you do. So do I.”

  That legit shocked me. I squeezed passed him and stepped inside the building. “But you’re a felon.” My voice echoed through the vast space. I winced and looked to see if anyone was around to hear that. “Sorry,” I murmured, offering him a sheepish smile.

  The door shut behind him with a soft click. He stepped into my personal space and brought his hands to rest between my neck and shoulders.

  “Your naivety is starting to grow on me, but you’re forgetting one crucial piece of information.”

  “And what’s that?”

  He lowered his mouth to my ear as if he were about to share a secret. “The mangled bodies, the missing persons, the lives I ruined. I’ve gotten away with everything.” He kissed my cheek and stepped away. “You’ll keep that between us, won’t you?”

  That sounded playful too, but it wasn’t. I started to wonder if this was him making an effort for us. He could have just told me to keep my mouth shut. Still, what he was asking and what he meant were two different things. I knew from the way he’d worded the question. It reflected in his eyes which held me, prisoner.

  The problem was that this unspoken question had two different answers.

  He wanted me to safeguard his darkest secrets. I always had and always would. He’d done the same with mine.

  Therein lied the issue.

  To keep secrets as heavy as ours, you took a risk giving someone your trust. Neither of us was prepared to do that. I didn’t tell him this, but Judas was wise enough to already know. So, I responded with a slight nod in place of words.

  “I knew you would.” He stepped back and grabbed my hand, gently tugging me forward.

  Silence stretched between us as we walked down a hall with solid, white brick walls. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around, but the cars parked out front proved otherwise. “Where is everyone?”

  “Giving us privacy.”

  The interior of the building had a sterile vibe. With air chilled to the point of near freezing and the faint smell of bleach. Now I was more convinced this building was used for all kinds of illicit activities.

  Judas pulled open another door and we entered a large rectangular room that was a mix between an indoor stadium and a paintball arena. A low divider of sorts split the space down the center. The flooring was stone on the left side of the room where we were. Freshly raked sawdust made up the right.

  Four wooden boxes that were wider than me and just as tall as Judas had been randomly positioned around the right side of the room. The targets he’d mentioned were tacked onto them and resembled full-bodied humans.

  I took all of this in within seconds before my eyes landed on the other two people inside. The recognition was instant and transported me back in time.

  Brianna and Owen Rook.

  I’d wondered what happened to them. They were two key figures in the cutthroat clique Judas ruled over. Bri’s face lit up the moment she saw me.