Married To My Mysterious Ex-Con Husband

The address was written on a crumpled piece of napkin that was currently dissolving in the sweat of Keira's palm. She looked at the paper. Then she looked at the steel door in front of her. It was covered in layers of peeling black paint and a fresh tag of graffiti that looked like a skull. The hallway smelled of urine and bleach, a chemical cocktail that burned the inside of her nose. Somewhere two floors down, a siren wailed, the sound vibrating through the thin soles of her white satin heels. Keira looked down at herself. The Vera Wang wedding dress, with its hand-stitched lace bodice and cascading tulle skirt, took up half the width of the narrow, filthy corridor. It was a joke. A cruel, expensive joke. Her mother was hooked up to a ventilator in a sterile room in Manhattan, her life measuring out in beeps and hisses. And Keira was here. In the Bronx. About to knock on the door of a man she had never met. A man her father had bailed out of prison specifically to marry her. Her stomach twisted violently. Acid climbed up her throat. Do it, Keira. Do it for her. She raised her hand. Her knuckles were white, the skin stretched tight over the bone. She knocked. The sound was pathetic. A soft tap that was instantly swallowed by the heavy bass of rap music thumping from the apartment next door. She waited. Nothing. Panic began to crawl up her spine. What if he wasn't here? What if he had taken the money her father paid him and vanished? If this marriage didn't happen tonight, she knew the wire transfer to the hospital wouldn't go through tomorrow morning. She sucked in a breath of the stale air and hammered her fist against the metal. Bang. Bang. Bang. "Open the door!" Her voice cracked. Silence. Then, the sound of a heavy deadbolt sliding back. The metal screech was like a gunshot in the quiet hallway. The door was ripped open. Keira didn't step back. She couldn't. Her heels were rooted to the cracked linoleum. The man standing in the doorway blocked out the flickering overhead light. He was huge. That was her first thought. Not that he was handsome, or scary, or a stranger. Just that he took up all the available space in the world. He wasn't wearing a shirt. His skin was tanned, slick with a sheen of sweat, and mapped with scars. There was a jagged, raised line running from his left shoulder down across his pectoral muscle. It looked angry. Violent. Like something that should have killed him. He wasn't wearing shoes, either. Just low-slung gray sweatpants that hung dangerously loose on his hips. He looked down at her. His eyes were dark. Not brown, but a black so deep they seemed to absorb the light around them. There was no welcome in them. No curiosity. Just a cold, flat assessment. Like a wolf deciding if the rabbit in front of him was worth the energy to kill. "Who are you?" His voice was a low rumble that Keira felt in her chest more than she heard with her ears. It sounded like gravel grinding together. Her throat went dry. Her tongue felt like sandpaper. "I'm... I'm Keira." She held out the envelope with the marriage license inside. Her hand was shaking so badly the paper rattled. "Keira Jacobson." He didn't take the envelope immediately. He just stared at her hand, then let his gaze travel up the length of her arm, over the lace bodice of the dress, to her face. A corner of his mouth ticked up. It wasn't a smile. It was a sneer. "Jacobson," he repeated. The name was flat, devoid of emotion, but Keira felt a flicker of something cold in his eyes. He made her family name sound like something he'd stepped in. He snatched the envelope from her hand. His fingers brushed hers. His skin was rough. Calloused. And burning hot. Keira flinched. He saw it. His eyes narrowed, sharpening into something dangerous. He stepped back and swung the door open wider. "Well?" he said, his voice dripping with mock politeness. "Are you coming in, Princess? Or do you prefer the hallway?" Keira gathered the heavy tulle of her skirt in both hands, lifting it away from the grime of the threshold, and stepped into the beast's lair. The door slammed shut behind her. The sound vibrated through the floorboards and straight up her legs. She was trapped. She forced herself to look around. The apartment was small. Claustrophobic. But it wasn't the pigsty she had expected. There was a worn leather sofa that looked like it had been salvaged from a dumpster, and a small wooden table with two mismatched chairs. But there was no trash. No clutter. The floor was swept clean. Dock walked past her, ignoring her presence entirely. He went to a small refrigerator in the corner kitchen area. He pulled out a plastic bottle of water and unscrewed the cap. He tipped his head back and drained half the bottle in one go. She watched the muscles in his throat work. She watched the way his back muscles shifted and bunched as he moved. He was powerful. Lethal. Her father had told her he was a brawler. A thug who had done time for assault. Looking at him now, Keira believed it. He lowered the bottle and turned around, leaning his hip against the counter. He crossed his arms over his chest, the movement making his biceps bulge. He stared at her. He stared at the dress. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Her heart was hammering against her ribs so hard she thought he must be able to see it. "So," he said. "You're the payment." Keira swallowed the bile rising in her throat. "I'm your wife," she said. He laughed. It was a dry, humorless bark. "Right. Wife." He pushed off the counter and took a step toward her. She instinctively took a step back, her heel catching on the hem of her dress. She stumbled, grabbing the back of the sofa to steady herself. He stopped. He looked at her hand gripping the leather. Then he looked at her face. He saw the fear. He had to. Keira was practically vibrating with it. "Relax," he said. The word was a command, not a comfort. He tossed the empty water bottle into a recycling bin with perfect aim. "I don't know what they told you about me, Keira." He said her name like he was tasting it and found it bitter. "But I don't touch things I don't want." He walked past her, heading toward a closed door on the right. "And I don't want a Jacobson." He grabbed a rough, gray wool blanket from the back of the sofa and threw it at her. She caught it against her chest. It smelled like him. Soap and something metallic. "You take the bedroom," he said, jerking his chin toward the door. "Lock it if it makes you feel better. I sleep out here." Keira stood there, clutching the scratchy blanket, stunned. "You... you don't want..." Keira couldn't finish the sentence. He paused, his hand on the back of his neck, rubbing the tension there. He turned to look at her one last time. His eyes were exhausted. And cold. So incredibly cold. "Go to sleep, Princess. Before I change my mind and kick you out." Keira didn't need to be told twice. She scrambled toward the bedroom door, her dress rustling loudly in the quiet apartment. She threw herself inside and slammed the door. Her fingers fumbled with the lock, sliding it home with a click. She pressed her back against the wood and slid down to the floor. She buried her face in her knees, trying to get her breathing under control. In. Out. In. Out. She was safe. For tonight. On the other side of the door, in the dark living room, a lighter flicked. Jonah Pennington sat on the ruined sofa and inhaled deeply. Dock is a pseudonym.And Jonah Pennington is his true name. The smoke filled his lungs, grounding him. He reached under the cushion and pulled out a sleek, heavily customized smartphone that looked military-grade and cost more than this entire building. He punched in a code. The screen lit up, showing a grainy green feed from the camera he had installed in the hallway. No one had followed her. "Jacobson," he whispered to the empty room, the name tasting like ash on his tongue. "You sent me trouble." He looked at the closed bedroom door. He could still smell her perfume. Vanilla and fear. It was going to be a long night.