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“I’m thinking the family lied to me.”

He nodded. “That part comes with the territory. What happened?”

I looked at him. “I’m sure you heard I have to marry. Marcel wants me to marry a girl hooked on meth. You understand how crazy that sounds?”

“Sounds about right. What you gonna do about it? You know Marcel is riding on you to connect with the Laveaus.”

“I’m going to marry her. She’s my right-hand man’s sister on top of everything else. I can’t leave them hanging.”

“You know, when I was arranged with my wife, she was an alcoholic and did coke.”

I turned my head toward him.

He shrugged like he had told me what he ate for breakfast.

“She was pregnant too. Hid it from her family and hid it from me. I found out after the wedding when I fucked her for the first time.”

I stared at him. “You serious?”

He nodded. “These heiress women don’t come packaged like Disney princesses. They come flawed. Broken sometimes. The parents of these women are predators. They hide the ugly parts so the deal goes through.” I kept watching him while he continued. “I cleaned her up and helped her get it right. We had our own kids, and now she’s my wife for real. We run shit on our side of the Delacroix family. It can be life-changing.”

“So what you saying?”

He lifted his glass. “You’re doing right. Once she comes to her senses, she’ll thank you. Move her here, get her help, and pop out with your build-a-wife in a year. Take down her fucking family while you’re at it.”

I laughed under my breath. “You make it sound easy.”

“It ain’t easy, but it’s simple when you have money like us. You’re not marrying perfection. You’re marrying an empire you’ll be responsible for and change.”

That hit me because responsibility was exactly what this felt like. There wasn’t any romance or passion attached to what I was agreeing to. It was duty.

I watched the dancer move in front of me while my thoughts went back to Azaria. She didn’t even know her life was about to change. She didn’t know I was going to be part of it yet.

The dancer leaned down near my ear. “You want the room, chéri?”

I hesitated before nodding. “Yeah. Fuck it.”

Nico grinned. “See, nothing really changes.”

“Shut up,” I muttered as I stood.

She led me down the hallway into a private room with couches, a mirror across the ceiling, and music humming low enough that I could still hear myself think. I sank into the seat, loosened my tie, and let the alcohol settle while she climbed into my lap.

She moved the way she was paid to move. My hands rested on her hips, but my head wasn’t there.

When she slid down between my knees and waited for approval, I nodded. She put a condom on me and went to work while I leaned back and closed my eyes.

It felt good. Of course it did. But even with her trying to pull me into the moment, my mind kept drifting back to the reality waiting for me outside that room. Somebody expected me to build a life with a woman who probably didn’t trust men enough to let one get close to her.

By the time I finished, I sat there breathing slow and staring at the mirrored ceiling.

If I was doing this, I was doing it right. I wasn’t bringing more chaos into a situation that was already broken. I laughed to myself because even I knew that sounded like some bullshit coming from me. Now I had to be a king, a husband, and apparently somebody’s fucking savior. I didn’t know who that version of me was yet, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to move the way I had been moving for much longer. What bothered me more was that, for some reason I couldn’t explain, I already felt responsible for a woman who probably hated everything about me.

I fixed my clothes and walked back into the club already planning my next move.

CHAPTER 6

Azaria