“We’ll help ‘em out a bit, but I’m sure Collins will make sure word spreads.” He eyes me a minute. “You good with that?”

I nod.

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t ask me that, Captain. I’m here.” I glare. “I’m sure.”

His eyes snap over my shoulder and hold, so I look and Victoria’s staring at us.

She takes the hint, silently stepping onto the balcony.

I turn back to Captain.

His eyes soften. “I don’t wanna push you. Everything may have changed as far as the next steps, but nothing has changed apart from that yet, if it ever even does. I need you to tell me when it’s too much.”

“I wouldn’t hesitate,” I admit. “So you shouldn’t either if it’s ever not enough. This world is fast-paced and we have to keep up.”

“I agree.” His eyes move to the balcony.

“Why did she seem like she expected Maddoc to walk out of the bathroom?”

“Because I asked Maybell to send her here with clothes for you.” He shrugs. “She had no reason to assume different.”

Right.

He looks to the food. “You didn’t eat.”

“I have no appetite.”

“You need to eat.”

“So do you.”

With a shake of his head, he stands. “We should head out.” He grabs the keys, pulling his phone to his ear right as the door clicks shut after him.

I stand and look to Victoria.

Her eyes cut from the bed to me. “Where’s Maddoc?”

“I don’t know. On his way to school?” My eyes harden.

Come on, Vee. Don’t be weak.

She frowns, her lips thinning a moment, but she starts past me.

My shoulders fall, but then she whips around and finally asks what she wants to know.

“Why are you two here alone?”

I step up to her. “Don’t make me be that girl and do the whole shoulder to cry on shit. You want answers, and I need you to ask me for them.”

She glares a minute, but it fades the longer I stare.

“All right,” she agrees.

I jerk my head. “Come on, I’ll tell you everything on the way.”

Victoria didn’t say much when I broke down what I could on the way to school, but she’s deep in her thoughts now.

She confirms it when she says, point blank, “You wouldn’t agree to this. Captain, yes, but not you.”

My eyes slice to Captain.

He doesn’t take his from the road, but his hands wrap tighter around the wheel.

“There is no fucking way.” She’s adamant. “I know you well enough to know that.”

“I said no, at first,” I admit.

She doesn’t say anything, so I meet her stare with mine.

Victoria’s only narrow farther, irritation and revelation seeping through. “You let him force you into this.”

“What the fuck!” Captain shouts. “I would never force anything on her! On any fucking girl!”

“I’m not talking about you,” she tells him with her eyes on me. Victoria doesn’t back down. She twists in her seat and demands, like I asked her to. “I don’t know how you got to be the way you are, but you are not the watch out for yourself type, Raven. You would never do something you thought would hurt them, especially Maddoc. Tell me right now he didn’t threaten you with something.”

“Don’t answer that, Raven,” Captain snaps.

“Why?” she sasses back. “Can’t handle the truth?”

“You stop talking.” He flicks a quick glare her way and speeds up, whipping into the parking lot and killing the engine. He glances back at the two of us before stepping out and moving toward the hood to wait.

I look back to Victoria. “He said he’d leave them. I won’t allow it.”

Her brows jump, and she simply stares. After a few seconds though her face contorts, her brows meeting in the center as her eyes flick between mine. She gives something between a head shake and a nod. “You can say no, you can run. This isn’t the fucking eighteen hundreds.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” I tell her, eyes still on Cap. “Nowadays there’re guns and greed. Better locks and stronger walls. I could go, say no, but if I leave, they make their life hell and likely find a way to take me regardless. I get locked away and only serve purpose at night. They get themselves killed trying to save me from somewhere I never had to be. Besides all that, Maddoc will leave if I do anything other than this. It’s his way of guaranteeing I’m safe, knowing I won’t allow them to hurt at my hand.”

I say no or leave they lose each other, Zoey loses her dad. This town loses its hope and the Gravens win.

No.

“He’s extorting you.”

I look to Victoria. “How could I deny him?”

Her eyes move to the front windshield. She whispers, “This is big of you.”

“No.” I look to Captain just the same. “This is big of him.” Slowly, my eyes meet hers. “You like him, don’t you?”

“You’re marrying him, aren’t you?”

Tou-fucking-ché.

We’re both quiet a minute, then we step out together, meeting him at the front of the SUV.

Cap slips his phone in his pocket, his frown focused on the school. “Royce is running late. Maddoc isn’t coming today.”

And the separation begins.

“No point in delaying,” I manage to say through the anger and pain bubbling in my stomach, threatening to spew the water sloshing around in there.

I push forward but jerk to a stop when Victoria grips my elbow and spins me around.

I yank from her grasp and she frowns.

“You need to hold his hand,” she says, and I keep in my glare, but she knows it and lets hers form. “It’ll look different than the arm around the shoulder thing they sometimes do. If this is for real, if you expect everyone here to believe it—”

“I don’t give a fuck what people believe.”

“Well, you should.” She steps closer, so others can’t overhear. “You agreed to more than a marriage, you agreed to take over this town. They’ll learn of it soon. You think Graven can’t change their mind before it’s all said and done if they decide it’s not in their interest? They get rid of the things that don’t serve a purpose. If they think people won’t buy into you two...”

“For a girl who shouldn’t know much, you sound like you know a lot.” Captain crosses his arms.

She ignores him, but her features grow taut. “You know I’m right,” she says to me.

After a second, I look to Cap, and he holds a hand out for me.

I take it, and together, the three of us walk into the school.

I lean against the SUV, looking out over the parking lot, my annoyance growing more and more with each passing second.

It’s only been three damn days since we agreed to this and everything is continuously getting worse.

Royce won’t look me in the eye, Captain can’t meet my eye without sorrow creeping over his face, and Victoria glares everywhere but me.

The whispers started the second Captain and I walked in holding hands, grew louder when he kissed my knuckles before gym the next day, and the dirty looks came out to play when his hands hesitantly found my hips this morning.