Being seated at the dinner table with Lucas, her father, Johannes, Saya, Marcell, and Cash was the most surreal experience for Laura. She sat next to her father, while Lucas sat opposite him on the other end of the table. Johannes was beside her father, next to her. Opposite were his three friends.Billy and a few of their wait staff brought out platters of food for them to serve themselves.“You have food prepared at home?” Lucas asked.“Yes, it has always been this way.”“And you don’t find that reckless?”Leon smiled at Billy, who was shooting dangers at Lucas. The man had just insulted her cooking.Laura wondered if Lucas had a death wish. She wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t do something awful, like not season his food.“I have found that if you have the right allies, make friends, and don’t fuck them over, they don’t want to poison you. Maybe you should try it. It beats all that crap they serve at restaurants.”“There is no way I would allow my family to eat at such … places.

He closed the distance, and Laura’s head was pressed against the wall. She seemed to try to escape through it. “So how about we have a little … experiment?” “Experiment?” she asked, frowning.“Yes, how about we see how much we don’t mesh?”“How?”“Simple. We start with a kiss. Just some kissing, nothing too… heavy. My hands will stay on the walls. Just our lips will touch.”“Why should I believe you?”“I’ve never given you a reason to doubt me before.” “And what does this experiment prove?” she asked.At least she wasn’t hitting him and telling him to get the fuck out. “We’ll see how far our … meshing abilities go. If we enjoy the kiss, then we will give it time, and we will keep enjoying kissing. If it doesn’t, then we will come to some arrangement that means this marriage can survive.”“I think this is ridiculous. We can just come to some arrangement where it can work. I agree with the latter.”“And you want a marriage that is completely cold and dead?” he asked. He didn’t have a c

Johannes looked at his father, a little taken aback. “What?”Leon wasn’t in the room, and Lucas sighed. “If his daughter dies at the hands of our enemies, then we are not responsible and you don’t have to stay married to her.”“You wanted this union,” Johannes said.“I know what is good for the family, for our side, Johannes. Do not be stupid and pretend you don’t know what that is. We all know what it is.”He wasn’t sure exactly what he was hearing. “Did you … was this … do you want to kill Laura?”“Of course not. I’m a man who sees opportunity.”Leon entered the room. The man looked like he’d aged twenty years since Johannes had last seen him. At least his fists weren’t clenched, and he wasn’t ready to take another swipe. “Any news?” Leon asked.“Nothing yet.”He was starting to have doubts about his father’s involvement in the attacks on Laura.“I will go see if we have an update,” Lucas said.Johannes watched his father go, and he didn’t like the suspicion flooding him. It suddenl

While Laura had been in the hospital, Johannes had been alerted to another call, putting a price on Laura’s head—alive. She had to be taken alive. It was why he’d kept her in the hospital. Three people had tried to get to her. All of them had failed, but as attempts had been made to hold the people intent on killing her, they’d taken some kind of poison and killed themselves.The bounty on her head wasn’t a lot, so the people making the attempts were amateurs. Whoever was trying to fuck with them was low level, or they didn’t have the appropriate funds to take them on.This brought him to another confusing part of all of this. His father was rich. Money wasn’t a problem. He could funnel money to any person, hide the actual transaction, and have a professional kill Laura.The more he thought about the restaurant, the more confused he got. If his father wanted Laura dead, he wouldn’t have it done sloppily like that. It would be clean. Their enemies would struggle to be caught.“You’re g

“That’s a pretty good picture, kid,” Johannes said. He hadn’t quite mastered the art of knowing who was called what. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure if he was any good with kids, but he had five of them around the table with him.It had been three days since he brought up adopting them completely with Laura. His dad had told him to find any means necessary to win Laura over, and this place seemed like a solid plan. There was also a tiny slim part of them that was starting to adore the kids and enjoy their company.He never thought he’d enjoy dealing with a bunch of screaming brats, but he did. They were a lot of fun to be around. Growing up, he never had the luxury of sitting there and coloring in pictures or drawing.However, at the ripe age of thirty-five, he was finally getting the chance to do that. What he wasn’t doing was drawing what he knew. The kids didn’t need to see death, blood, and destruction. All they needed to know was rainbows and houses, and well, he dr