Chapter 80
The darkness outside the apartment windows was complete, the city settled into the deep silence that came in the hours before dawn when even the busiest streets of Blackridge finally grew quiet.
Elijah lay on his back with his eyes open and Lisa curled against his side, her dark hair spread across his chest and her bare skin warm beneath the sheets, and her breathing was slow and steady in the way that meant she was still deep in sleep.
He did not move because he did not want to wake her, and he let his hand rest on the curve of her hip while he stared at the ceiling and thought about everything that was coming.
The fight with Jack was scheduled for later that morning, and the fight with Daniel Blackwater was scheduled for the end of the week, and the wedding to a woman he had met twice in his life was scheduled for some time after that, assuming he survived both battles.
The clock on the nightstand read 1:00 AM when Lisa stirred against him, her body shifting and her arm tightening around his waist.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at him with the soft, unfocused gaze of someone who had just woken from a deep sleep.
"Why are you up so late," she murmured, her voice rough with sleep.
"Nothing," Elijah replied.
She smiled and pressed her face against his chest, and for a moment neither of them spoke as the silence of the night settled around them.
"Lisa," Elijah said finally, his voice quiet.
She looked up at him, her dark eyes curious.
"There's something I need to tell you," he continued. "About what's coming and about what might happen."
Her expression shifted from sleepy contentment to something more alert, and she pushed herself up on one elbow so that she could see his face clearly.
The sheet fell away from her body, but she did not seem to notice or care.
"If everything works out the way it's supposed to," Elijah said, "if the fights go the way I need them to go and the negotiations hold and the alliances stay stable, then I'm going to have to marry another woman."
Lisa stared at him for a long moment, her dark eyes searching his face for something that she seemed to be having trouble finding.
Then she laughed, the sound bright and sharp in the quiet room, and she shook her head as if he had just told her the most absurd joke she had ever heard.
"That's not funny," she said.
"I'm not joking," Elijah replied.
The laughter died in her throat, and her face went pale. She sat up fully, pulling the sheet around her body, and her eyes never left his face.
"What do you mean you're not joking?" she asked, her voice rising.
"What happened? What's going on? You can't just tell me you're going to marry someone else and expect me to be okay with it."
Elijah sat up as well, the sheet pooling around his waist, and he reached for her hand.
She let him take it, but her fingers were stiff and unyielding in his grip.
"I can't tell you everything," he said. "There are things about my life that I've kept from you because I didn't want you to be involved in them, and I still don't want you to be involved in them. But you deserve to know enough to understand what's happening."
He took a breath, steadying himself.
"I'm a gang leader in the 9th District," he said. "I have a territory, and I have people who work for me, and I have enemies who want to take what I've built. Because of some political complications between my gang and another gang, I'm being forced into a marriage that I didn't ask for and don't want."
Lisa's hand tightened around his, her nails digging into his skin. "Forced?" she repeated.
"Who is forcing you? What kind of political complications require you to marry a stranger?"
Elijah shook his head. "I can't tell you the details because it's not safe for you to know, and the less you know, the less anyone can use you to get to me. But I wanted you to hear this from me before you heard it from someone else, because you matter to me and I didn't want you to be blindsided."
Lisa pulled her hand away from his and moved to the edge of the bed, her back to him and her shoulders tense.
She sat there for a long moment with her dark hair falling across her face and her arms wrapped around her body, and Elijah did not push her to speak because he knew she needed time to process what he had just told her.
"The other woman," Lisa said finally, her voice quiet. "She's just a political tool to you, right? Someone you're going to marry because you have to, but she won't mean anything to you?"
Elijah was quiet for a moment because he wanted to answer honestly, and honesty was harder than he had expected it to be.
"No," he said. "She will mean a lot to me, even though I don't know her yet."
Lisa turned to look at him, her dark eyes wet with tears that she was trying not to shed. "What do you mean?"
Elijah met her gaze and did not look away. "There's a part of me that wants to use her to keep her brother close and to gain access to his resources and his information. But I won't treat her that way, and I won't let myself think of her as just a tool. I will show her as much love and affection as I should, and I will protect her and provide for her the way any husband should protect and provide for his wife."
Lisa's face crumpled, and she turned away from him again, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
Elijah wanted to reach for her and pull her back into his arms and tell her that everything would be okay, but he knew that would be a lie and he had promised himself that he would not lie to her about this.
"I can't believe you," Lisa said, her voice muffled by her hands. "I can't believe you're just accepting this and not fighting it."
"I am fighting it," Elijah said. "The marriage is the price of avoiding a war that would kill hundreds of people, including people I care about. I'm fighting that war by accepting this marriage, and I'm fighting for a future where you and my family and my people can be safe."
Lisa did not respond. She lay down on her side of the bed with her back to him and pulled the sheet up to her chin, and after a few minutes her breathing slowed and steadied into the rhythm of sleep.
Elijah lay beside her for a long time, staring at the ceiling and listening to her breathe.
He did not sleep because his mind was too full of everything that was coming, and when the clock on the nightstand read 2:00 AM, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
He dressed in silence, pulling on dark pants and a dark shirt and the black jacket with the golden sun and the golden trim. He strapped his weapons to his belt and checked that his phone was in his pocket, and then he stood at the edge of the bed and looked down at Lisa's sleeping form.
She was beautiful in the dim light, her dark hair spread across the pillow and her face relaxed in a way that it never was when she was awake. He wanted to kiss her goodbye, but he did not want to wake her.
Then her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.
"Don't leave me," she said, her voice thick with sleep and something else that might have been fear.
Elijah leaned down and kissed her forehead, his lips pressing against her warm skin. "Never," he said.
Then he straightened up and walked out of the apartment without looking back.