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After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back 233
ARIANAThe silence changes texture immediately, no longer simply respectful, something sharper underneath it now, calculating."After tonight, the Bindy seat passes to my successor." Her eyes move to me, and every head at that table turns with them. "Ariana."For a moment, nobody speaks at all.Then the murmurs start, low, controlled, the kind of disapproval that's learned to keep itself quiet in rooms like this one. A few hands come together in something that might generously be called applause. Most don't move at all."She's untested," someone says, not quite quiet enough."She's blood," Eleanor says, before anyone else can pick up the thread. "And she's spent the better part of a year proving herself in rooms exactly like this one, to people in this room specifically. If anyone has an objection, I'd suggest voicing it now." She lets that sit, letting her gaze travel slowly around the table. "Or forever hold your silence on the matter."Nobody voices anything.I sit very still throu
After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back 232
ARIANAThe gown arrives two days before the event, no note attached, nothing except Mason's handwriting on the box, wear this, trust me, which by now is less a request than a formality between us.It's black, floor-length, cut close enough to the body that it leaves nothing to interpretation, a high slit running nearly to my hip on one side. When I slide my hand along the inside of the slit, I find the seam, reinforced, deliberate, built specifically to hold a holster flush against my thigh without printing through the fabric.The gold gun fits into it perfectly. I've practiced drawing it three times in the mirror before I stop practicing and simply trust my hands remember what Mason spent a month teaching them.Hair, jewelry, heels, a small clutch barely large enough for a phone, all of it arrives with the dress, all of it matching with the kind of precision that tells me someone thought about every inch of how I'd look walking into that room tonight. By the time I'm finished dress
After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back 231
ARIANABy the time we're back aboveground and walking toward the dining room that evening, the ringing in my ears has settled into something fainter, background noise I have to consciously listen for to notice at all.Eleanor joins us for dinner, settling into her usual seat with the twins already chattering somewhere down the table, Mrs. P keeping gentle order over mashed peas and an increasingly heated argument about whose turn it is with the good spoon."Grace's started training," Mason tells her, quiet enough that it doesn't carry past our end of the table.Eleanor's eyes move to me, assessing, the way they assess everything. "Good. Will she be ready, to some degree, by the day of the handover?""Why does gun training factor into the handover at all?" I ask, keeping my own voice low, Thea's laughter covering most of it from the rest of the room."Boundaries get tested," Mason says simply, buttering a piece of bread like we're discussing something as ordinary as the weather. "You'l
After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back 230
ARIANAThe coldness in his eyes is not cruel exactly, it’s just entirely without the warmth he usually keeps wrapped around every word he gives me.I don't look away, though something in me wants to."Syndicate business isn't Cox business," he says. "It isn't the Wolves. Half the men and women who smile at you in Eleanor's drawing room have already tested you in small ways you probably haven't noticed. You need to be able to protect yourself. And what's yours.""Meaning.""The twins."Something sharpens inside me instantly, a mother's attention locking onto a threat the way nothing else quite manages to, faster and sharper than fear for myself ever could. Mason sees it happen and something in his expression eases slightly, like he expected exactly that reaction and is quietly pleased it arrived right on schedule."I know you intend to let me handle the Syndicate side of things once this is yours," he says, gentler now, the coldness receding back under whatever warmth he usually wears
After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back 229
ARIANAMason's knock comes earlier than usual, pulling me out of sleep before the sun's fully committed to the sky."Dress warm," he says when I open the door, still blinking against the light. "Comfortable shoes.""What's this about?""You'll see."I don't argue, mostly because I've learned by now that arguing with Mason before coffee is a losing proposition. I dress quickly, something plain and practical, and follow him down through the estate, past wings I've walked a dozen times, until he stops at a section of wall near the old wine cellar that I've genuinely never once questioned.He presses something I don't see clearly, and a section of paneling slides open onto a staircase descending into the dark."There's a part of this estate," he says, "that very few people ever learn exists."We go down, and the air changes almost immediately. It becomes cooler and drier, carrying a faint mineral smell I can't place. The staircase gives way to a long corridor lined with doors, some open
After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back 228
ARIANAVictor and Selene settle into their new estate sometime in the spring, and life, somehow, keeps moving forward whether I'm ready for it or not.Linda calls me occasionally now, sometimes, intentionally through Selene, a strange secondhand warmth that's she has forced between us since that dinner, and the latest news is that her sister, Susan is pregnant.She finally settled with Daniel's, Linda gushes in a happy tone. I've never met the man properly. I don't need to. It's enough to know someone in this sprawling, complicated family is building something simple and good.My own months have been anything but simple.Mason's taken me deeper into Bindy-Syndicate territory than I ever expected, trips out to neighboring towns across Bridge Country, two or three days at a time, rooms full of men and women who nod at me now instead of assessing me, meetings where my name carries actual weight instead of curiosity. He's kept everything scrupulously platonic since that night on the roof
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