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I pressed my lips together so hard they went numb. I was shaking, phoneless, my bags were in the back of his truck and I was sitting across from a man who had not raised his voice one single time and that somehow made him scarier than if he had been screaming. There was nothing behind his eyes that looked like he would lose sleep over anything he decided to do. Nothing that looked like there was a line he wouldn’t cross. My biggest fear was of what he’d do to me whenever we got to wherever the hell he was taking me. My own father had thrown me to the wolves. I’d never forgive this.

This man would hurt somebody then go home, eat dinner and sleep peacefully like nothing had happened.

I knew it, that same way you knew things that you couldn’t explain. You just felt it.

So I sat there. Hands in my lap. Tears drying on my face because even they knew it was time to stop.

He watched me settle. Then he reached over and put two fingers under my chin and lifted my face toward his. His touch wasn’t rough but it wasn’t gentle either. It was just firm. Like everything else about him.

He looked at me for a long moment. Up close he was even finer and that made me even more angry because this situation did not need that complication on top of everything else. I shouldn’t be attracted to someone who was trying to take my life and freedom from me.

“Fix ya face, Mrs. Carter,” he said quietly. “This shit can only go bad if that’s how you make it.” he looked at me with a stern expression. Calling me by his last name.

He dropped his hand, leaned back and looked out the window like the conversation was over.

And I sat there staring at the side of his face trying to figure out how a man this crazy could look this damn good.

The ride was quiet, how I liked it. All that I could do was hope that Tattiana understood that I wasn’t the nigga who was about to play with her. In the middle of what I was doing this morning, I had to stop my day and head over to snatch her ass up. That shit already had me pissed. She really thought that she could run away from this, and that wasn’t about to happen. My life, my legacy, and my inheritance of the throne depended solely on me having a wife of her caliber. Her family was well known and respected. She was what I needed, even if she wasn’t what I wanted.

Don’t get me wrong, finally laying eyes on her, she was most definitely beautiful but I’d just never imagined having to be somebody’s husband. My mother and my father made it clearthat I didn’t have a choice in the matter if I planned on taking over. The Taylors had the political connects that we needed and when my father broke it down, it all made sense. There was more than just the marriage that was required, but I couldn’t break all of that to my future wife while she was in the state of hating my ass. I’d drop that other bomb on her at a later date.

The closer we got to the compound, the more I felt her eyes burning into the side of my face. She hadn’t said anything since I took her phone. Just sat there with her arms folded across her chest, jaw tight, trying to look like she wasn’t scared. I could tell she was though, and she had every right to be.

Her leg was bouncing and she kept glancing at the door handle like she was really debating whether jumping out of a moving vehicle was a real option.

It wasn’t. But I wasn’t gone tell her that. If she wanted to kill her crazy ass self, that was on her. Life with a nigga like me couldn’t be that damn bad. Hopefully she lived long enough to see that.

“Put this on,” I said, holding out the blindfold without looking at her.

She stared at it. “Are you serious.”

“Don’t ever ask me that again, I’m always serious. Put it on.”

“You already kidnapped me. Now you want me blind too?” Her voice cracked on the last word and she caught it, pressed her lips together like she was mad at herself for letting that slip through.

I didn’t respond. I just kept holding the blindfold out and waited.

She snatched it out of my hand and put it on herself. Rough. Like doing it fast meant she was still in control of something.

I watched her for a second after she got it on. Sitting there stiff, blindfold over her eyes, hands back in her lap. She was trying hard to hold herself together and I could respect that even if I wasn’t about to say it. She wasn’t crying, yelling or making a scene.

I turned back to the window.

Nothing about this was personal. Tattiana Taylor was a means to an end. Her father had the connects and pull in the community that we needed ties to. Tyree Taylor had done something unimaginable, a secret that would ruin everything that he worked for and turn his world upside down. My father held the strings to Tyree’s life and in exchange, Tyree does what my father asked of him.

That arrangement they came to was my marriage to his daughter in exchange for my father’s permanent silence. A business transaction. She just happened to be on the other side of it. My father made a promise that she would be protected by all means, as well as Tyree’s secrets.In the business that we’re in, I learned long ago that a nigga will do damn near anything to protect his secrets. This is proof of that. This nigga gave away his princess that supposedly means the world to him.

The truck slowed, and I heard the gate roll open. We pulled through and I heard it close behind us.

“Keep it on until I tell you to take it off,” I said.

She didn’t respond. But she kept it on.

—

Sam met us at the door. He was one of my in house security. Six-four, built like a damn wall, and one of the few people who moved through my house with any kind of authority. He held thedoor open and fell into step behind us. He was nervous about something and I didn’t have time to ask what was that all about. I walked Tattiana through the entrance, one hand on her arm so she didn’t walk into anything.

The house was quiet the way it always was at this hour. My staff was gone for the night. Security was posted at every exit like they were supposed to be. Everything was the way I left it.