Bad Little Bride

I’m on all fours, Katana folded across my back as she begins chopping at my arms and bumping my ass with her knee until I drop flat onto my stomach.

“Good, now get your hooks in.”

Her arm comes around, curling over my neck, and she grunts and groans as she uses all her might in attempt to roll me over. I stiffen up, using nothing but muscle to deter her, but she keeps pushing and manages to flip me.

She heaves herself on top, gripping my wrists and trying to shove them back to pin me beneath her, the point she always gives up. Twenty seconds into the struggle, her hold starts to ease and I know she’s about to sit back and let me go completely.

“Drive your chin into my shoulder, press down hard.”

She does, and the momentary shock to my nerve there has my arm muscles loosening the slightest bit, just enough for her to shove them to the mat. She digs her chin in harder, trying to pin me, but that’s enough.

I bridge my back, lifting her with me and spin, sliding out and slamming her to the mat before hopping up.

She pants up at me, eyes wide as if she can’t figure out how we got here, and I grin down at her, blowing my hair from my face.

“Better.” I nod.

Katana beams, pushing up on her hands. “Did I almost have you?”

“You didn’t give up.”

She deflates at that, falling back all over again and closing her eyes. “I’m useless.”

The word draws a frown, and I turn away, wiping the sweat from my face and taking a drink of water.

Useless is a word I am all too familiar with, and the emotions that come along with it are no joke.

I’ve starved myself. Beat myself into the ground routine after routine. Hour after hour.

Year after year.

I look back at the dark-haired girl on the floor, the air of innocence around her obvious, even when her past is as dark and as tragic as mine, albeit in a completely different way.

The past three weeks have gone pretty much the same as far as my daily routine goes, and every single day I give her four hours of my time. Honestly, I prefer to have no connection to her at all, but I’m beginning to realize that is an unrealistic notion.

At this very moment, she is my sister-in-law, or to-be, according to those who have yet to learn Enzo and I are already married. But after that, she will be Katana Henley, daughter of Salvador Henley, Greyson girl of the east. In some capacity, she will always be in…here.

Right now, though, she’s just a girl who’s been alone all her life, eager to please. Desperate not to be forgotten. Some of her spirit died after Enzo put her in her place, outing all the truths she tried to muddle.

Again, all her snapbacks and word play were born of desperation.

Who was she if not his wife? In her mind, absolutely no one.

Oh, how I can relate.

I don’t…want that for her.

This whole she can’t disgrace us all thing my working with her started with faded at some point. Or maybe it was never fully that, but I only recently realized it.

No, it was definitely that to start but things are different now.

I want to help her the way I wish someone would have helped me, and who better to do that than the girl who knows what it feels like to be the lesser person in a crowd because make no mistake, that is what everyone will see her as. She won’t be as strong or as smart, at least not right away, but in time, who knows. She’s learned a lot already, and she’s more intuitive than I would have given her credit for when it comes to grappling and defensive combat. She could find her niche and excel at it.

But even if she doesn’t, even if she remains inferior in every single way, I’ll be damned if she starts to hate herself for it. I might not know her all that well yet, but I know she’s uncorrupted by the idea of status, and I’d like to try and help her hold on to that.

Nothing will ruin you faster in our world than chasing the path to power.

Turning toward Katana, I pour a half glass of freezing cold water over her head, and she shoots up with a gasp, glaring at me as she spits and swipes at her face.

Instead of snapping at her or talking shit, I offer her my hand.

She eyes it warily, slowly looking back up at me, but I wait, leaving it outstretched, and eventually she slides hers in mine.

I tug her to her feet, frowning at the curious way she’s watching me, and spin the first second I get. I peel my shorts and top off, tossing them into the bin beside the bench, and she follows my lead, silently doing the same. “Fifty laps and then we’re done for the day.”

“Only fifty today?” she asks. “I can do a hundred. I made it to ninety yesterday. Give me a chance and I’ll show you.”

I look over at her as I pull my hair free, tossing the hair tie onto the seat. “I know you can, but it’s already past noon.”

“Right. You can’t waste your entire day on me.” She nods, eyes dropping from mine as she faces the pool and dives in. I watch her reach the end before following, finishing my fifty and heading for the showers before she’s even done.

Once I’m changed, my hair woven in a middle part, bun tight and tidy, sitting low on my head, I sit and wait, adding some basic makeup from the supply set up here in the gym locker room.

Katana appears thirty minutes later, jerking to a stop when she sees me sitting in the plush chair in the corner. “I thought you’d be back upstairs by now,” she mutters, stepping up to the mirror, and begins messing with her short dark hair. She runs the brush through it raggedly, tearing at the tangles as she brushes straight back over her scalp as if no one ever taught her the proper way to comb her hair, and I cringe, pushing to my feet.

She startles when I approach, gesturing toward the brush. Her lips press together tightly and slowly, she lowers into the chair.

I throw the brush in the trash, taking the comb I used on my own hair, and start at the tips, slowly working my way up the length until I can run from root to tip with no tangles stopping the path.

“That feels nice,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “Did your mom used to do this for you?”

I still, my hand freezing halfway through her length before I catch myself, though I manage to keep a blank expression. I don’t talk about my mom. Ever.

Hell, I didn’t even tell Enzo what I learned that night we first went out, Katana as the unwanted accessory.

Yet for some reason, my mouth starts moving before I realize it. “Yes.” Every morning and every night until she died.

Her eyes pop up, seeking mine in the mirror, but I don’t look, instead tossing the comb and filling my hands with a good amount of gel. I weave it into the front pieces of her hair, then tightly twist the right side until the length won’t twist any more, pinning it in place.

“When did she die?”

My chest expands. Of course she knows. She’s completely unaware of most of the shit in the world she was meant for, but she knows all about my family. I imagine the moment she learned my name, she dug as deep as she could manage. Keep your enemies close and all that.

Not that we’re enemies per se, but we very well could have been. Maybe even started out as much.

I think about that a moment, nodding internally.

Yeah, we definitely were. Wait…when did it turn into “were”?

I repeat the action on the left side of her hair, her eyes on me the entire time, waiting to see if I’ll answer and asking a second question when I don’t.

“She was murdered, wasn’t she?”

My eyes snap up at that, narrowing, but all I see is a sleek sadness on her face. My brow furrows, and she drops her gaze, staring off to the side.

“Enzo said my mom was, too,” she says, not necessarily sad, but thoughtful.

A knot forms in my throat, but I swallow past it, pushing to my feet and grabbing some mousse, gently sliding my fingers through her short length and giving it a little shake, before stepping in front of her.

I grab some brown liner and turn back, and she closes her eyes when she realizes what I’m trying to do, allowing me to add a steep swoop to the corner of her eyes. After that I give her a little blush, mascara, and a color of lipstick that only makes her neutral shade pop.

She really is effortlessly pretty.

When I step away, she looks in the mirror with a smile, her eyes meeting mine a moment later through the glass.

“Thanks.” She glances at herself again, her eyes moving over her own features, and a small scowl builds. “I’ll get out of your face now.”

She turns and starts to walk out, and I should let her. Hell, I should be pushing her ass out the door or giving her my back as I hurry out of it.

I’m not sure why, instead of either of those options, I open my big-ass mouth. “I was eight.”

Katana freezes in the doorway, looking at me over her shoulder.

I don’t have to give more; she knows what I’m talking about.

I was eight when I found my mother dead in her bed.

She smiles softly and I glare, this time my feet do move when I wish for them to, but apparently my mouth doesn’t understand we’re looking for an exit.

“Enzo finally agreed on a driver for me, so long as we take his choice of guards.” I meet her eyes over my shoulder, raising a brow. “Lunch?”

Her eyes widen at the invitation, but she goes back to the girl I met when I first got here, a shadow of confidence slipping over her as a full-blown smirk covers her lips. “On one condition…”

I scoff at her audacity, but for some reason, I smile back, rolling my eyes as I lead us out. “As if I could endure your company any other way.”

The girl squeals. Literally, and strangely, a small flash of excitement washes over me too.

I’m sure she’ll find a way to ruin it by⁠—

“Maybe we should ask Enzo to join us? Have a nice little threesome – ah!” she screams, ducking as my knife flies toward her, dropping to a full squat in a split second.

The blade jabs through the wall, burying all the way to the hilt.

Katana snaps her head from it to me, jumping to her feet with a grin. “Holy shit, did you see that?!” She grins wildly. “I dodged it!”

My lips press together. “That’s too bad.”

“Bitch, please!” Her smile is impossibly wide, and I turn to stone when she throws herself at me, arms locking around my body. “Deny you’re proud, I dare you!”

Katana laughs in my ear, and as hard as I try to swallow my own, a small chuckle slips free.

Maybe she’ll stand half a chance after all.

For her, for me, and especially for Enzo. He didn’t have to save her the way he did, but knowing he didn’t hesitate, that he risked himself and the loss of his men to save a young girl he didn’t even know, gives me insight to the man I married that I didn’t have before.

I don’t know a single man who would do what he did, and I’m not just talking about saving and marrying her or killing her father to offer her further safety. But for ending the marriage and protecting her identity. He could have kept her as his bride and rightly claimed the head seat of the east.

It would be he who sat across from the other Greyson girls’ families and he who the rest of the underground world would have to go to for any and all things that required permission. He could be the one vote against the others, changing the entire dynamic until it all rolled in his favor.

He did none of those things.

He saved a young girl who had no idea what she was to our world and he did it for no other reason than she deserved to be saved.

I’m proud to call Enzo Fikile my husband.

And it has nothing to do with his name.

“You must be the infamous Katana Fikile?” Nicholas smiles, sweeping his blond hair back in a way that makes me roll my eyes.

She opens her mouth, but I cut her off, stepping up to the door he holds open and turning to face him, my new guard promptly placing his massive shoulder between us, his bandana-covered face pointed in Nicholas’s direction. “Don’t even think about it, Galley. You’re already breaking Enzo’s number one rule.”

“How am I supposed to drive you but not talk to you?”

“You can talk to me.” I smirk, popping a brow. “When he’s around.”

He scoffs, shaking his head as he moves toward the driver’s door, leaving our guards to close us inside. Nicholas climbs in, mumbling his complaint when the guard, who was randomly assigned from an approved list that will forever rotate so that there is never a pattern that anyone can pick up on, as Mino broke it down to me, rolls up the privacy screen.

Katana stares at Nicholas, a goofy smile on her face, until he disappears behind the glass.

“Girl. No.” I settle in the seat. “That’s the fastest way to get you, and me, back on house arrest.”

“Why would Enzo give you such an attractive driver?”

“One,” I scrunch my nose, “look at the man I chose. Dark hair, tan skin, stormy, marble eyes. You really think I’d go for a blond? And two,” I shrug, “Nicholas and Enzo already have an understanding when it comes to me—one where Nicholas gets his balls chopped off if he makes one wrong move—so he doesn’t have to do the whole if you so much as look at my fiancée bit. It made the most sense and after a three-day conversation, he agreed.”

Katana laughs, attention moving right back to the mirrored glass as if she can see him through it. “He goes to Greyson Elite, right?”

“He does. A rare transfer the girls let in because of his promise and family ties. He’s been there for three semesters now, I believe. Maybe two.”

“Maybe he can be my driver, too.” Her smile widens, but she quickly forgets about Nicholas when the guard passes over her one condition. She dances in her seat, taking the massive blunt and lighting the end. She spins it between two fingers, letting the flame kiss over the tip before puffing a few times, finally going in for a long lungful she manages not to choke over.

A long sigh leaves her, and I shake my head, snatching it from her hand and taking a small hit.

We pass it between each other in silence for a few minutes, and I fight a smirk when the guards, who are sitting right across from us, try hard to fight their coughs as the car becomes more and more hotboxed.

Katana drops back in her seat, eyes half closed and a small smile on her lips.

“How did you become such a pothead, anyway?” I ask. “Weren’t you locked in a tower all your life?”

Her head rolls toward me, a shadow falling over her, my interpretation likely hitting harder than intended.

Katana nods. “Yeah, I was, but the fortress I lived in wasn’t built to keep me in; it was built to keep people out because it was a giant pot farm. Most days I couldn’t leave my room, so I would just stare out the window for hours watching people plant, pull, prune…you name it. I could probably grow the best shit you’ve ever had without a single hand to help with all the visual studying I did, simply because there was literally nothing else to do.”

“And because you had unlimited access, you started smoking the supply?”

She shrugs one shoulder. “There was one guy there who was pretty cool. He felt bad for me, I think, so one day he put his fingers to his lips, and I glared at him, thinking he was being a weirdo, but then a single knock sounded at my door—no one ever knocked, and I never had visitors during the day—and when I opened it, there was a small box on the floor. Weed, a pipe, and a lighter.” Her tone was absent, but what’s worse is the way her next words draw a tenderness to them. “It was all uphill from there.”

It’s almost as if that was all she had in her life that made her happy.

A fucking plant that serves as either a laughing gas or Xanax, depending on the strain and the person.

I don’t want to feel bad for her. It’s like I said, I hardly know her, and I’ve hated her for more than half that time, but I know what it’s like having only one thing in your life that makes you happy. I know what it’s like to have no one.

Yes, I had my mother until I was eight, but I lost both her and my sister that year when Rocklin was forced to move into the Greyson Manor to begin her Greyson girl training—something Katana would have had to hold on to if she wasn’t kidnapped by her own father and hidden away. After that, though, I was alone with the guards and the maids and my father when he would pop in, only to pop out just as fast—the life of the daughter of a Don. When I was invited into the Greyson Elite’s scholar program two years ago, things sucked a little less, but it wasn’t until the idea of Enzo was put into my head that I felt like I might one day have a place I could belong.

Somehow, all that feels like a lifetime ago now. Maybe that’s because over the last few months, Enzo has made me not only want to be here, but did all he could to ensure I felt it was where I belonged.

Katana still doesn’t have that, and if she doesn’t learn the ways of this world in record time?

She never will.