Page 56 of Temporary Vows

I hold back those parts.

It hasn’t escaped me that she could have gotten more money in that auction. Fuck, she could have gotten the full amount for the loan easily. But the problem is, what would have become of her if someone else had bought her?

I sound like I’m a better man than the self-righteous bastards who frequent the Dark Odyssey. I’m not.

And I can’t quite decide if I bought her to save her or if I bought her because I didn’t want anyone else to have her. Either way, it would mean I care.

“Interesting,” Knox says with reflection.

“Which part?”

“All of it. For this girl, you…left a meeting with your most important clients, sent her to yourhome, and summoned the family doctor while you rushed down here to fight her loan sharks with one of the heads of the Italian mafia. Then you paid out a hundred and twenty thousand dollars,” Knox points out. As if I didn’t know.

“Yeah.”

“What does this mean?”

“It means she owes me now.”

Those brows go up again. “You know she can’t pay that money, Dorian.”

“I know.”

“Dorian—”

“Another time, Knox. Not now. I’m tired as fuck, and there’s blood on my shirt.”

He holds up his hands and smirks. “Alright. Another time, then.”

Knox is like me. Insightful. But that sometimes means he sees too much.

Thankfully, he doesn’t bring Elodie up again. I drop him off at his place, then head back to mine.

By the time I reach my house, the doctor has already left, but Levi and Locke update me.

Elodie has no broken bones. It’s just the bruising on her face, which should go down in a few days.

They also put her to sleep. Inmybed.

Bastards.

I can’t even be upset with them.

They head out, and I don’t miss their silent exchange of curious glances.

I stand there in the hallway for a long moment, thinking, before I head upstairs to my room.

My steps slow when I see Elodie’s tiny, helpless frame curled up in my bed.

She looks out of place among my things. In my world.

In the sense that she doesn’t belong.

It’s like I captured some hallowed being and brought her into my unholy lair of corruption.

I move closer to the bedside and gaze down at her.

A week ago, I was going about my business, not even thinking about Jack and his family or the past.