Concerned and perplexed as the last time I’d seen her this morning she’d been screaming my name in orgasm, I cautiously approached her. “Savvie? Who said that to you?”
Cupping her elbows, she swallowed. “No one said it to me.” Okay, so I didn’t need to dispatch Eoghan. Yet. “It’s being shared on social media. Haven’t you seen it?”
“No. ‘Your body, my choice?’ Someone said that? Out goddamn loud?”
She licked her quivering lips. “Yes.”
“That’s not how we work, little one. Even if we play… You know that, don’t you?” It was suddenly imperative we spell that out and I found myself releasing a breath when she jerkily nodded in agreement.
Still, her hands balled into fists. “This is 2024. My rights are supposed to matter, Aidan.”
“That goes without saying.”
No wonder she stared at me with distrust.
The nation had let her down. And my wife was in a position of privilege. The same couldn’t be said for the average woman.
But God, her distrust hurt.
Not all men? I might not have voted for this insanity but the majority had so it was no wonder she looked at me like she was wounded. She WAS. Her sisters were. We’d stepped back a thousand paces.
On. My. Watch.
“I don’t like this world anymore, Aidan,” my ebullient, cocky Savannah whispered. “I’m scared.”
Those two words lit a fire under my ass.
I headed into her space, held out my arms and released a second relieved breath when she stepped into them and let me embrace her. The fact my ’mob’ wife was scared of nothing when it came to my business but the state of the country terrified her agitated me like little else could.
Pressing a kiss to her temple, I held her tight. “I’m sorry, little one. I’m so fcuking sorry.”
Relieved when she nuzzled into me, I strained to hear her whisper, “Star is doxxing anyone who shared that hashtag as we speak.”
I stroked a hand along her back. “I knew I liked my sister-in-law.”
Silence settled between us but I was thankful when she didn’t pull away.
I’d never felt this much distance between us before but I understood. It wasn’t my rights being torn to shreds. I had to show her that I was her safe space though.
Forever and always.
“We need Shay in the Oval Office.”
At first, I couldn’t hear her soft murmur, then I picked up on it and gave her the truth:
“Working on it.”
When she sagged into me, resolve filled me. Doubling down when I felt her tears soaking through my shirt.
Shay becoming President was a nebulous goal for the future, one the Five Points was actively working toward but not directing all our energy to.
But now my wife was shivering in my arms?
Now she was scared of the world outside these doors?
Now she was weeping against my chest in fear for herself and her sisters, from those who shared her DNA to BIPOC women as well as the people who sat under the LGBTQIA umbrella?
Shay was going to be sitting his ass behind the Resolute desk the second he hit 35.
My wife’s body?
HER fucking choice.
Every. Goddamn. Minute.
Of every damn day.
And Seamus O’Donnelly was going to make that the standard as well as the norm.
That was this Filthy King’s promise to his Queen.
Copyright Serena Akeroyd 2024
