Crow

Pearl didn’t speak to me during the drive home. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and she pivoted her body and stared out the window so she couldn’t see me in her peripheral vision.

I knew what was coming.

Despite her anger, all I could think about was my brother’s stupidity. He made an idiotic deal and dragged me into the mix. I never did business that way—no exceptions. I was paid in full up front for all services, and I never failed to deliver exactly what they asked for. Cane pissed me off from time to time, but he was always a great business partner. There was no one else I’d rather have by my side.

Then he turned on me.

I had no idea what this woman looked like, but there must be something about her that elicited Cane’s obsession. I wasn’t going to bother trying to understand it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were unremarkable.

I still couldn’t believe this happened.

I didn’t need the money. It’s not like I was low on funds. But it was the principle of the matter. If Cane were going to make a stupid deal, then he would be the only one to suffer if it failed. Everyone involved in the process would be paid, even if it came out of my brother’s pocket. I felt like a parent disciplining a child. My brother was a grown-ass man, but I was still going to swat him on the nose like a dog.

The silence that filled the car was hostile. Normally, Button and I didn’t speak much. It was something I treasured in our relationship. I wasn’t much of a talker, and it was nice to be with a woman who could simply exist with me and enjoy the quiet. She tolerated my foul moods and didn’t ask too many questions about my coldness. She accepted me exactly as I was—and I loved her for it.

But this was not one of those peaceful times.

Normally, she would tell me off for pissing her off. But right now, she was so livid she couldn’t speak. She wanted to throw her fists at my face and cause as much destruction as possible.

Not that I blamed her.

We arrived at the house, and the valet returned the car to the garage. It was nearly dinnertime, and I suspected Lars would have something delicious in the kitchen. But judging from Button’s mood, she probably wasn’t going to eat anything.

“Good evening, Your Grace.” Lars appeared out of the shadows, like always. “Where would you like dinner to be served.”

Button turned around and locked eyes with me. “His Grace will be eating in the dining room. I’ll take dinner in my bedroom—alone.” She stormed off and flipped her hair over her shoulder, shaking her hips because she was strutting so fast.

Would I be an ass if I said it turned me on?

“Of course, Mrs. Barsetti…” Lars turned to me and kept his judgments to himself.

Button stormed up the stairs and reached the third landing before she disappeared. She was stomping her feet so loudly I could still hear her footsteps until she entered the hallway that led to the bedroom and my office.

Lars cleared his throat then gave me a slight bow. “Is there anything I can do, sir?”

“Hold off on dinner. It’s gonna be a while…”

* * *

I stayed in my office for a few hours in the hope she would cool off. If I spoke to her now, she was just going to scream then slap me.

Which wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

I enjoyed my scotch and sat in front of the fire as I went through outgoing shipments. Just thinking about the deal with Tristan set me off. They said one beautiful woman was powerful enough to destroy an entire regime. First, it was Helen of Troy and countless others. Now, this new woman seemed to have infiltrated my brother’s reasoning.

Button had done the same to me.

I already knew exactly how the argument would go. Nothing would get resolved, and she would despise me. But I knew she wouldn’t leave me—no matter what. She’d accepted all my past transgressions. This was nothing compared to my former crimes.

After I waited long enough, I finally walked into the bedroom.

She was sitting on the couch with a book in her lap. A low burning candle sat on the coffee table, and the fire crackled in the hearth. When she heard the door open, she glanced up and met my look.

Hatred.

Her eyes flickered back down, and she kept reading.

I sat on the couch across from her and stared. When she was angry, she was even prettier than usual. Her eyes stood out better even when she didn’t wear makeup, and that fiery attitude made her face glow on its own. It reminded me of the first time I laid eyes on her. Like a wild bear, she was ferocious and deadly.

Apparently, that’s how I liked my women.

After fifteen minutes of silence, she snapped her book shut. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Here we go.

“How can you possibly be okay with this?” She threw the book down and made it thud against the cushion.

I kept a stoic expression but didn’t give a response.

“That woman is no different from me. She was taken against her will and subjected to torture. And you’re just going to look the other way?”

“Button—”

“Don’t Button me,” she hissed. “This is wrong, and you know it.”

“If you want me to speak, don’t cut me off.” I didn’t fight with my wife very often, and this was definitely the worst argument we ever had. There was no solution, so I wasn’t sure how we were going to resolve it.

“Maybe I don’t want you to speak. Maybe I just want you to do the right thing.”

I rested my hands together in front of my lap and felt the heat from the fireplace. The coffee table was in between us, and I didn’t like the strategic distance she’d created. I’d rather be slapped by her than separated. “What am I supposed to do? This is Cane’s deal, not mine. We both know I have no control over what that man does.”

“Bullshit.”

“Button, you know I don’t agree with any of it. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Yes, you can. We take her from Cane and get her back home.”

“Taking her from Cane isn’t the problem. She’s on loan.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her eyes leapt with fire, and I knew she wanted to throw that book right at my head.

“It means Tristan wants her back. She’s obviously valuable to him if he offered her as collateral.”

“So what?” She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up.

I tried to stay focused. “We can’t just interfere and send her home. Tristan would see that as an act of war. I know him, Button. He’s not an enemy I want to have. He’s a much better ally.”

“We can’t just abandon her either.”

I didn’t want to sound like a jackass, but my indifference was clear. “Button, this isn’t our problem.”

Her jaw nearly dropped.

“The practice is more disgusting than any other type of organized crime. I’m not saying I agree with it—at all. But we can’t save everyone. We can’t change our lives and interfere with business. She should have been smart and never put herself in a vulnerable position in the first place.”

Now Pearl really looked like she wanted to kill me. “Wow…”

I knew exactly what she was thinking. Her old boyfriend took her on vacation and sold her into trafficking. Her stupidity wasn’t the reason she got involved at all. She was the victim of a despicable crime. “I’m not trying to be an ass. I’m just being objective here.”

She shook her head, the disappointment heavy in her eyes. “After everything I’ve been through…” She broke eye contact with me altogether and stared at the fire.

When she turned away, I knew she was closing me off. “Button, I’m sorry. But I still stand by what I said. There’s nothing I can do for this woman. I can’t go to war with every man on the planet. I already did it once—and it was because I couldn’t live without you.”

She got off the couch and headed to the patio. “Get out.”

This was worse than I’d anticipated. “Button—”

“I said get out.” She shut the door behind her, only the glass separating us from each other. She leaned over the wooden railing and stared into the darkness across the fields. With her back turned to me, I couldn’t see her face. But when her shoulders stiffened and her back slightly heaved, I knew she was crying.

God-fucking-dammit.

* * *

I assumed Cane wouldn’t answer, so I was surprised when he did. “I’ll wire the money in the morning. You know I keep my word.”

“That’s not why I’m calling.”

“Oh?”

“We need to talk about this loan of yours.” The interest rate was through the roof and was wreaking havoc on my marriage.

“Pearl?” Cane knew Pearl wouldn’t go down easily.

“Yeah. She’s pretty upset.”

“I know. My face is still red.”

He’d get no sympathy from me. “She’s not gonna let this go. We both know that.”

“She’s gonna have to. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Well, something needs to be done.” I didn’t care if Button got mad at me or threw a hissy fit. But watching her cry…I wasn’t into it. It made me feel lower than dirt, worse than taking her as property and making her work for her freedom. “Couldn’t we just pay Tristan to keep her?”

“No.”

“How do you know that? Did you ask?”

“No.” He sighed into the phone. “But I know how he feels about her. He’s psychotically possessive, worse than You-Know-Who ever was. He specifically told me he wants her back and reminded me she’s just a loan. I don’t think there’s enough money in the world for Tristan to let her go.”

Men were ferocious when it came to their possessions. I offered Bones twenty million dollars for Button because I wanted her so much. That was an insane offer, and even then, he wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t have taken the offer either if the positions had been reversed.

She was priceless.

“We should try anyway. He did loan her out to you. She can’t be that valuable to him.” No way I ever would have let any man have a go with my woman.

“She’s still his, so it’s different.”

“Just talk to him, alright?” I snapped.

Cane sighed again. “I’m not going to do it. It’s gonna make things tense if I say something like that to him. If we really have to, I’d rather wait until I have the other half of the money.”

That was probably the smart thing to do. “Or you could have just gotten the money to begin with…”

Cane didn’t respond because there was nothing he could say to that. “I heard you the first time.”

“What if we hire someone to steal her back? He’d never figure out it was us.”

“Are you insane?” he snarled. “Tristan may be a psychopath, but he’s not stupid. He’d put two and two together pretty quickly. And we just got rid of You-Know-Who. I’m not looking to have any more enemies, especially when a new overlord is on the rise.”

“Stop calling him that. You’re making this sound like Harry Potter.”

“Well, I’d call him by his real name if you didn’t have a hissy fit about it.”

“Just don’t say his name in my house or around Pearl.”

“The name doesn’t seem to bother her.”

I’d punch him in the face right now if we were in the same room. “It bothers me.”

“Whatever. Even if we were stupid enough to do that, it wouldn’t work. He’s blackmailed her, so she wouldn’t run even if she had the opportunity.”

“Blackmailed her how?”

“He took a friend of hers. Said he’ll kill her if she tries anything.”

That was cruel. “She’s probably already dead—or worse.” Slaves didn’t last long, not with masters like Tristan and Bones. They usually died from internal injuries because they were pushed around so much.

“She’s not gonna do anything to jeopardize her friend. I put a tracker in her, but that was unnecessary. She won’t run.”

We were running out of solutions.

“Believe me, I don’t agree with any of this. When I think of what happened to Pearl, it makes me sick.”

My stomach suddenly filled with acid. I never wanted another man to touch her ever again. I’d die before I ever let that happen.

“When he first offered her to me, I said no. As much as I wanted her, I said no. I knew it was wrong. But he pushed it on me and became offended when I didn’t take his offer. And I would have fucked her, but she told me no. So I didn’t.”

I wasn’t sure why Cane was telling me this. What he did with his dick was none of my concern.

“I don’t want Pearl to get the wrong idea.”

“But you’re fucking her now, right?”

He paused over the line. “Technically, no.”

My eyebrow rose at his response. “No?”

“I tried a few times, but she said she didn’t want it. I could have just forced it on her, but something stopped me. I never considered myself to be compassionate. Whether I fucked her or not, her situation wouldn’t change. But I guess I felt guilty or something…”

I couldn’t do it either with Button. But he didn’t know that. “Then why do you still have her?”

“I told her I was going to take her back to Tristan. There was no point in keeping her if she stayed in her room all the time. But she asked me to keep her. She said she would make it worth my while if I did…”

“So you blackmailed her?” I shook my head.

“No,” he said quickly. “That’s not how it happened. I treat her much better than Tristan does. She can eat when she wants, bathe when she wants, and I don’t smack her around. I’m not into that shit.”

“Anymore.”

Cane didn’t object to the insult because he knew he’d earned it. “She’s treated like a human being when she’s with me. Tristan…let’s just say he makes Bones look tame.”

Now I really did feel bad for the girl.

“But there’s nothing any of us can do. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time…unfortunately.”

“She must really be something. I can’t see why you’d agree to this deal unless she was.”

Cane didn’t say anything.

I thought it was odd that Cane was a sympathetic person. I considered myself to be ruthless, but he made me look gentle. The fact that he kept this woman around without getting his dick wet was a little unbelievable. “Are you fond of her or something?”

“I think she’s sexy. Thought it the first time I saw her at the airport. But that’s it.”

My relationship with Pearl started off the same way…until it changed. “Pearl is gonna be pissed at me…but at least I tried.”

“She’ll have to get over it. This happens to thousands of women all over the world. It’s shitty, but it’ll never change. We can’t save them all. She’s lucky we saved her.”

She saved herself. “Yeah…”

“She’s probably not going to want to talk to me.”

“Me neither. I’m sleeping in a different bedroom tonight.”

Cane chuckled. “That’s rough.”

It would be the first time I’d slept without her since we got married. It sucked. “Hopefully, she’ll come around.”

“Eventually.” She couldn’t be pissed at me forever. It wasn’t like I personally had anything to do with trafficking. It’d never been a business I was interested in. I wouldn’t say my living was completely innocent, but we did our best to stay moral as much as possible. I didn’t sell my stuff to known terrorists.

I hung up and tossed the phone onto the table. The fire was going in the fireplace, and I had a whole decanter of scotch to drink. Button was in the master bedroom down the hall, probably already in bed but unable to sleep.

I didn’t want her to sleep alone. She usually got cold in the middle of the night, and she used my body as a heater. Her leg was always wrapped around mine by the time I woke up in the morning. She was all over me, actually. Not to mention, she still had nightmares once in a while. She convulsed in bed, and I was there to chase the terror away.

As much as I wanted to be there for her, I also wanted her to be there for me. I relied on the beautiful sound of her heavy breathing to lull me to sleep. Her soft hair usually found its way across my chest, and it smelled like the roses just outside my window. Sometimes she sighed in the middle of the night, a sexy intake of air that told me she was dead asleep. Despite everything she’d been through, she was still so innocent. Her lips parted and showed her small teeth, and her eyelashes were thick and dark against her face. I wanted to be beside her just so I could witness the sight.

Not to mention, we’d be making love right now.

I knew a dry spell was on the way. I just hoped I could be patient enough and control my carnal instincts. My fingers twitched as I pictured my hand around her neck. My heart rate picked up when I imagined shoving her on the bed and yanking her panties down so I could fuck her hard while her ass was in the air.

But I couldn’t do anything like that.

Patience was a virtue—and I was quickly learning that.

* * *

Button and I didn’t speak the next day. I went to work without saying goodbye, and I spent my whole afternoon thinking about her instead of running the winery. While I understood her point of view better than she realized, she was putting me in a difficult position and holding me to standards I never agreed to.

We couldn’t go long without speaking—especially not fucking. But I wasn’t going to apologize for something I didn’t do. The world was a shitty place with shitty people in it. I wasn’t much better than the men she despised.

Perhaps she forgot who the man she married really was.

When I came home, Lars greeted me by the door. “Where would you like your dinner, sir?” It was obvious by the way he spoke Pearl had already instructed him to bring her dinner to her room—away from me.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know.”

He gave a swift nod. “Good luck, Your Grace.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna need it.” I went to our bedroom upstairs and found her on the couch in front of the fireplace. She was reading again, but she didn’t look up when I entered the room. She probably just assumed I was going to change then disappear.

I walked up to her and stood with my hands in my pockets.

She ignored me, her eyes still scanning the page from left to right.

“Pearl.” I didn’t call her by her nickname when she was this hostile. Button was a beautiful name. It deserved better than this stupid fight.

Again, she ignored me.

My nostrils flared as my temper roared. I had an ego, and I didn’t appreciate being ignored—by anyone. I snatched the book out of her hand and chucked it into the fire.

“Hey!”

“Good. Now I have your attention.” I sat on the other couch and listened to the fire crackle as it devoured the pages. It leapt up an inch higher once the extra material was thrown on top.

“I was reading that.”

“Hope you didn’t like it too much.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “If this is your way of getting me to forgive you, you’re wasting your time.”

I almost laughed. “I don’t want your forgiveness. That implies I did something to break your trust—which I haven’t.”

Now her eyes burned hotter than the fire. “You’re an ass.”

I told myself to be more patient with her, but that was going to shit—quick. “You know what kind of business I run. I deal with men who chop off heads for a living. I sell guns to bad guys so they can kill other bad guys. This isn’t a news flash to you.”

“Yeah, I know—”

“How do you think I paid for this mansion you sit around in all day?” I cocked my head to the side, my fire matching her own. “How do you think I pay for all the fine clothes you love so much, the delicious dinners you eat every night? You don’t get to object to what I do but then enjoy all the perks it comes with. That’s not how it works.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s not what I’m—”

I held up a finger. “I’m talking. Now you listen.”

She looked like she wanted to slap me.

“I already heard everything you said. Not once did I disagree with it. But travesties like this come with the territory. I’ve worked with lots of men who own slaves. Tristan isn’t the first, nor will he be the last. If I discriminated against everyone who did, I wouldn’t have a business to run. Is it wrong? Yes. Is it cruel? Absolutely. But I deal with men who do much worse things. I’m sorry if that hurts you. I understand why you’re so repulsed by it. I’m not a fan of it either. But there’s nothing I can do.”

Her eyes filled with a slight film of moisture, but they weren’t tears of heartbreak. They were tears of fury.

“With all of that being said…I talked to Cane about Adelina’s situation.”

Her intensity halted for just a moment.

“I asked Cane if we could buy her from Tristan so we could release her. But Cane said there was no way Tristan would ever sell her—no matter the price.”

“Can’t we just break her out of there?” she asked with a raspy breath.

“We can’t do that either. One of her friends was taken too, and Tristan is threatening to kill her if Adelina pulls something. So we can’t help her escape. If she runs, the friend dies.”

“God…” She rubbed the ridges of her eyebrows with her thumb and forefinger.

“So there’s nothing Cane and I can do. I just wanted you to know we discussed it. And also, Cane treats her well. Whenever Adelina says no, he listens. Since he wasn’t getting any action from her, he decided to return her to Tristan. But she begged him to let her stay and said she would give him a reason to keep her…” I didn’t need to explain further than that. “Because being with Cane is much more preferable to Tristan. Cane thinks he’s doing her a favor, more than anything else.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes still wet.

I expected something from her. Not an apology, but something. I stared her down as I waited for her to say something. I was tired of the distance between us. We needed to be husband and wife again. We needed to be happy. I’d never been happy before in my life, and Pearl introduced me to the sensation. She made me laugh, made me smile. Now I was dependent on her like a drug addict on cocaine. I wasn’t me without her.

“I just… I hate knowing someone else is going through what I went through. I’ve never told you—”

“And I don’t want to know.” Even before I fell in love with her, I didn’t want the details. Now that she was my entire world, the thought of anyone hurting her made me so angry I felt sick. Ignorance wasn’t just bliss in my situation—it was a lifesaver.

“I can’t just turn the other way…”

“I tried, Button.” I’d be willing to pay a lot of money just to make my wife happy. Button didn’t understand how rare that was. I’d be willing to give millions just to save a woman I’d never met…it was ridiculous.

“That poor woman. I know exactly how she feels.”

I tried to be as sympathetic as possible, but feelings weren’t my forte. “I know. But don’t feel guilty about it. We tried to figure out a way to get her out of there, but there’s no solution. Let’s just move on.”

“You would never move on if she were me.”

I held her gaze and suddenly noticed the way my wedding ring felt on my left hand. “I don’t love this woman. There’s only one woman in the world I’ve ever loved—and I would do anything for her.”

When she closed her eyes, two tears fell.

I hated it.

I hated it so fucking much.

Pearl left her couch and finally joined me on mine. She straddled my hips and wrapped her arms around my neck before she rested her face beside mine. She didn’t burst into tears, but she sniffled here and there.

I rubbed her back and treasured the feeling of my wife pressed against me. I’d been deprived of her affection for a short time, but it was too long. I closed my eyes and treasured the scent of her skin, the softness of her hair. “I wish I ruled the world so I could give you everything you want.”

She tightened her arms around me. “I know…”