Drake’s POV

Lisa walked into my office looking as put together as she always did but this time her face was solemn.

I invited her to sit on the sofa with me.

“What’s wrong, Leese? You got morning sickness?” I gave her shoulder a squeeze.

She shook her head, “No. I’ve just…” she swallowed hard, “Since finding out you know … and finding out about Felicia … I’ve just been thinking a lot. It brought stuff back to the surface for me. I guess I’ve buried a lot and now um…” She paused.

“You’re facing it?” I tried to help her along.

She shrugged, “I’m thinking about therapy maybe. I feel stressed, panicky all the time, I’m not sleeping. I don’t think it’s good for the baby.”

“Let me arrange the counseling. Due to the sensitivity of the issue it has to be someone we trust.”

She nodded, “I’ve been thinking about Tess and Luc and what they’d think if they knew…”

“Hang tight, please. Azriel and I need to talk about how to play this.”

She nodded, “Why did you wanna see me?”

“Angel and I, she’s decided it’s Angel, as you know, we’re giving things a go together and…she’s not handling things so well. I wanna help her. I was gonna ask you to talk to her. And I was gonna ask you some questions that might help me know how to be with her. Did you have trouble adjusting when you got here? Did you have panic attacks or anything like that?”

She snickered, “I’m having more trouble adjusting now, now that I’ve been thinking about it. They program you, Drake, they do it in a way where you just go on about your day, do what you’re supposed to do. If she’s showing you she’s broken it’s because the truth broke her. The truth being that she’s not a Kruna slave any longer. It’s almost easier to function on autopilot, I’m starting to figure out. You’ve gotta imagine how she feels. She probably feels like a fish out of water, not sure how to act.”

I nodded, “I figured that. If I’d been what she thought she was getting she’d have functioned as well as you did?”

Lisa nodded, “When I got here I just did what I was told. And I was so grateful for being here, so grateful at how kind your uncle was to me. I felt like I was so lucky.”

She shrugged, “Drake, if she’s having trouble she needs you to be decisive and guide her. Wean her into making her own decisions slowly.”

“That makes sense.”

“That’s how it sort of worked with us. As time went by your uncle gave me more and more freedom. Not because he seemed to be hanging onto control with me, more like he was helping me adjust slowly.

They had me in a training program to transition me from slave to wife and that helped. It was a lot being in public after all that time at Kruna. When I first got here I spent over a month in a hotel suite just seeing him when he had time. Then he started to take me out in public slowly, then he put me in culinary school, and you know the rest.”

I nodded, “I just took her right out of there. They wanted her in a wife training program but I said No. Said I’d train her. So maybe this has been too hard on her. Too much too soon. Can you see her tomorrow? Come by the condo?”

“Yeah, she’s shell-shocked for sure. She doesn’t know who I am, does she?”

“No. I should talk to her first.”

She nodded, “I think so. I don’t think you should make me blindside her. Handle her with a firm hand and that’ll help.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning she might need more direction from you. You have a lot of power, whether you want it or not, and it doesn’t have to just apply to the bedroom. Your power can help her. Your words, the way you treat her.” Lisa shrugged, “This might not make much sense but praise from a Master means a lot. She’s going to take all her cues from you.”

“I get it. Thanks, Leese.” And I did get it. The way she’d acted when she was afraid or stressed, she looked to me as her protector. She’d done that probably both because I was her “Master” and because I’d taken her from there.

Angel’s POV

Drake came back after work with a pizza. We ate on one of the sofas together while watching the news and then I hesitantly asked if he wanted to take a walk as he was coming back from putting our paper plates in the garbage.

“I need to talk to you first,” he said as he pulled me onto his lap, “My brother Azriel’s coming home tomorrow and staying for a bit. He’s got stuff to handle plus he’s gonna help me sort out some business s**t our Uncle left us with. And while he’s here we’ll strategize on what to do about our Kruna shares. They’re having a partner summit in a couple weeks and he and I have gotta talk about how to play things. See, I’d been hoping that within a few months from now I’d be totally out of most of the business my Uncle dealt in. I had plans to start fresh. Something different for a while.”

I nodded, feeling a little pang of fear. I was trying to listen to what he was saying but I was stuck on the partner summit bit. I hoped he wouldn’t go to Kruna. I hoped he wouldn’t take me back there. Before the panic had a chance to set in he continued talking, “Azriel’s new bride, Claire, I want you to know a bit about her. I also wanna tell you about something else.”

He had my attention again. I shifted on his lap and put my arm around his shoulder.

“Claire’s father was an enemy of my uncle. Claire’s mother was my Uncle’s first love. Uncle went on a revenge spree and screwed Claire’s father over a period of two decades in order to break the man because Claire’s mother chose him over Uncle.

His last ditch effort was forcing the guy to give Claire to my brother as a payment for his debts and the whole thing was crazy orchestrated. Claire and Azriel are happily married, newlyweds. It didn’t start out happy, especially not for her.

My brother and I had plans to take the company legit once Uncle retired so I was biding my time. I went through the motions and tried not to overthink things. I knew we were in gray areas and Azriel and I were fully entrenched in a lot of it. I’m no choir boy. I’ve done s**t I’m not proud of.

Turned a blind eye to s**t I knew was wrong more often than I can count. But I was planning on transitioning it to something cleaner when I found out Uncle was playing way dirtier in the world than we’d ever realized. Through a series of events after a s**t storm that put the whole family in danger I decided to break away from Uncle.

His actions cost Tess her husband and my nephews their father, made Luc go into early labor and almost cost us baby Nicky, and my uncle’s actions almost cost Azriel and Claire everything. We’re talking kidnappings, shootings, a lot of bad s**t.

He pushed back because he saw our mutiny as the ultimate betrayal and it didn’t end well.”This material belongs to .

I listened without saying anything. I wasn’t sure if he was telling me he killed his uncle or his brother did it or someone else on their orders but he was, in essence, telling me that he and his brother were responsible.

Drake seemed to be studying me and the effect of his words.

“This is something that’s not talked about. Ever. There are people in my family that suspect why Uncle really died but it’s not discussed. Don’t bring it up. Don’t ask questions. It will never ever be discussed. You’re going to be around my family so you need a little of the backstory.”

My heart lifted. Maybe it should’ve dropped because of the secrets he was revealing. But it lifted because this meant he saw himself with me long term.

That’s what it had to mean.

He was telling me his secrets and hoping I could handle them. Could he handle my secrets? Could I bring myself to tell them to him? I didn’t think I could.

“You don’t want a bunch of gory details but you know my Uncle was a partner at Kruna so you can imagine the kind of man he was. Let’s just say he was dark. He was power hungry and did not hesitate to snuff enemies out. He didn’t care if you were b***d, if you were one of his children even.

If he saw you as anything but loyal you were dead to him. My sisters don’t know a whole lot about the details and they, Claire, and you don’t need them but know that our family is on the road to change.

I’m in the middle of selling off most of the family business piece by piece to get us out of being so closely tied in with organized crime, racketeering, you get the picture.”

I nodded.

“Okay, here’s where you’re gonna be a bit shaken up, I think.”

I braced. He put a hand on my cheek and didn’t let go. I leaned into his palm.

“I found out when I came to Kruna for you that Lisa, my Uncle’s widow, she was a Kruna slave. I never knew. Uncle didn’t tell us.” He stroked my cheekbone with his thumb, staring right into my eyes.

I blinked. Then I gasped as it sunk in. Monalisa. I said it out loud, “Monalisa?”

He nodded solemnly and rubbed my back with his other hand.

“I asked her to come over tomorrow. I thought you two could…you know, talk.”

I was dumbstruck. Monalisa was like a celebrity to me.

“All this, does it make you wish you never met me?”

My eyes darted from the floor to his face, “Oh god, no. No way.” I wrapped my arms tight around his neck and put my head on his chest. He leaned back and spun so he was lying on the sofa and I was on top of him. I curled up on top, my cheek to his chest, and I closed my eyes and listened to his heart beating.

I didn’t know how to feel. If he kept me I’d have someone nearby who knew what my life was like. Would that help me heal? Or would Monalisa and I just remind one another of who we really were, how dirty and tainted we were? She’d probably know some of what I’d been through in being broken. I’d know that she’d been through at least some of those same things.

I thought back to that day I met her, the way she stared at my throat, the way she didn’t smile. Now it made sense.

I’d heard about her. I’d heard a lot about her. I modeled my A to B in the hopes of becoming like the girl that was my predecessor. I was told she was beautiful, graceful, could command a room or be completely obedient, she was a favorite among the patrons and the staff and other slaves, and her reward was to get married off to a powerful, wealthy, and handsome Master who never brought her back, who never even came back after he acquired her.

And here she was in Drake’s family, living a life, a real life, out on the town with Drake’s sisters, free. She didn’t have a husband any longer and she hadn’t been sent back. Drake’s sister had said she was pregnant, too. I don’t think she even had anything on her throat when I’d seen her.

“They didn’t want her back?” I asked, in awe.

“Uncle specified Azriel and me as guardians in case of his death. Kruna bosses found that acceptable.”

“What did you specify?” I asked softly.

“I didn’t. Uncle arranged you and they never asked me. I guess I’d better find out.” He reached to the coffee table and grabbed and then started to fiddle with his phone. I went to climb off him to give him space but he gripped me tighter, “Don’t go,” he said softly. I closed my eyes and nuzzled into his chest as he thumbed away on the phone.

I didn’t want to even think about him being gone. He was amazing, thinking about making sure I didn’t go back to them if something happened to him.

“A girl whose Master died was brought back,” I said softly into his shirt, “He hadn’t made a provision so she was brought back. She committed suicide not long after returning.”