THE CONTROL: An Arranged Marriage Romance by Elena Monroe (best big ereader txt) 📗

Eve brushed past me, her round belly brushing mine, with a suitcase handle in her grasp. “I told you I would carry your stuff in.”

“It’s on wheels, Bowey. Let me just bask in the fact that we’re home together.” Placing my hand on her belly, I felt our daughter kick against it. She only kicked for me and it pissed off Eve to no end.

I offered to buy a new house instead of the one where Elias died but she refused. She told me she was done running from the bad shit in her life. That she was stronger than that and I believed her.

I was eternally grateful for Grace and Khaos looking after her while I was doing therapy, group therapy, seminars, meditating, and just learning how to cope without my normal vices from day to day.

None of us knew how things would change or if they would at all. All we knew was that we could handle it a lot better as our best selves instead of worsts.

Closing the front door, I let my body drop onto the couch realizing Eve worked out my bank account by shopping while I was gone.

Retail therapy was a vice I could handle.

I wasn’t even home ten minutes before the doorbell echoed through the house and had me snapping upright. I was already too exhausted and sober to deal with all the guys at once.

Dragging myself to the door, I realized no one ever rings the doorbell like a normal person unless Eve orders In-N-Out, but Grace had been teaching her to drive.

Pretty sure the guilt of teaching Khaos to drive resulting in a near death accident drove her to try again. We all knew she wasn’t to blame but she was just as stubborn as Eve.

Yelling to Eve, wherever she was, “Did you order food?” Pregnancy cravings were a bitch but at least her appetite was back.

I waited for a response before yanking the door open. It was a guy with his back turned and I couldn’t see his face when I shifted my eyes to my gun sitting on the table next to the door, where it stayed since Elias. Even chopped up and disposed of, I didn’t trust he was dead.

Twisting around, I felt like this was some kind of joke when all his features mirrored my own. My chest tightened, my heart folded in on itself and gripped the door with so much force I expected it to break.

Braeden.

My dead twin.

There was a misplaced smirk across his mouth. “It’s done, right? Avenging my death and our demons,” his voice was just like I remembered. Husky and full of anger like the world owed him a lot more than a trust fund.

I was too stunned and in disbelief to actually form any words. I felt like I was dreaming or having a nightmare, my body couldn’t even decide right now.

Whatever it was felt like a way to heal for real this time when I wrapped my arms around his stiff body and took in how real he was for being a ghost.

We were never going to be free of the monster, the machine, the animal, the demons… or even the ghost standing in front of me. No, that shit was embedded in our soul and our souls were promised to hell.

There was nothing we could ever do; not even burning down an island was going to clean off the stains the Clave left behind.

We would always be theirs.

We would always be cult-like even if we changed the rules.

And I didn’t just match with Eve anymore...

BOWEN

It was hard to not wake up at the break of dawn when my rehab stay still lingered around my sleep habits. I was up before everyone, making coffee and reminding myself how to stay clean for everyone around me.

When I left rehab, finally taking what they said to heart, I believed them when they said it was a daily fight to keep your sobriety. It was, not because I didn’t love my family, but because I did and parts of me still never felt deserving of their love.

Juniper thought she was tiptoeing into the kitchen while she held the plastic case that would house whatever stray animal she saved today. Constantly saving everyone from everything like the world was dangerous and only she was considered safety.

Slipping below the island, I waited patiently for her to round it, put her case down, and dawn her gardening gloves she kept under the kitchen sink before braving our backyard. As soon as she rounded the island to open the bottom cabinet, I wrapped my arms around her small body and picked her up into the air while she squealed.

Juniper was special—quiet and easy to love when she’s precious in ways we never got to be.

Finally setting her down on her feet, I waited for it, the second you let her go she comes right back. Hugging my legs tightly, she squeezed every ounce of doubt I had about deserving this life from me.

Watching her run into our backyard from the window in her teal gardening gloves with her enclosure ready to make a wild animal her pet, I smiled picking up my coffee mug with only coffee. It was weird, and I didn’t love the flavor of coffee without Henny.

Not liking coffee was just one symptom of being sober.

My phone violently rattled against the countertop when I saw the number was blocked, electing my brows to sink and debate not answering it. After it proceeded to ring under my glare a few more times, I finally decided to pick it up, letting the person hear me breath as their cue to speak.

A voice I recognized hit my eardrum with so much conviction I almost rolled my eyes