• King and Savannah: Nero’s second in command who kidnaps Savannah (a successful  artist) and forces her to marry him
• Savannah showed up to a friend’s dinner party with a date, Lee, who she was planning on dumping (they’d only been on two dates); Aspen, the hosts friend was there, accompanied by her brother King bc her husband was working
• Turns out Lee was actually Leland, Aspen’s husband - hell breaks loose
• Savannah needs her keys so she goes to Lee’s house to get them and hears King shot Lee; King then kidnaps her
• King makes Nero marry them
• …..
• Savannah befriends some of household staff and gets high with them; King thinks she’s adorable
• King creates a studio for her with all of her supplies and paintings she’d been working on 🥹
• Savannah gets away and scared; King finds her and she realizes she feels safe with him and tells him she won’t leave him again (he is freaked out!)
• They start having sex and
  King fucks her in front of a man he’s about to kill bc she gets off on being watched but he said he’d have to kill anyone who saw her naked…so compromise
• When Savannah has an art exhibit, king invites her friends on the staff, Payton and Nero and Val 💖
• Someone sets Savannah’s studio on fire and
  King thinks he knows who it is -Donnie O’Reilly, a dude from the Irish mafia that the Alliance took down and who is supposed to be in prison
• Donnie gets into King’s house and tries to kill Savannah (bc King killed his entire family); she escapes and falls down the stairs; when King finally gets to her, she flinches (he thinks it’s bc she’s scared of him when it was really that she was in pain)
• King doesn’t think he deserves Savannah after not being there so he starts avoiding her, watching her sleep and drinking during the day
• She realizes this and holed up in her studio creating painting after painting of crowns that tell their story and, when he asks her why, she replies, “I fell in love with you.”
  😭😭

“Honey.” He cups my chin, keeping my eyes on his. “I’ll tell everyone about your art because I’m fucking proud of you.”

Because with all of this?” He turns his head, taking in my paintings. “The world doesn’t feel quite so awful. So, yeah, Baby, I’m proud of you. And if no one has ever said that to you before, it’s not because you weren’t good enough. It’s because they weren’t.”

Me inviting the people close to me to my wife’s art show shouldn’t be life-changing. It shouldn’t have been enough to put that look in her eyes. The look that said she was grateful to me. For me. I don’t deserve her adoration. Hell, I don’t deserve a single fucking piece of her happiness. But I think she’s going to give it to me anyway.

Together, we get me on my feet, and with a hand around my waist holding me steady, King pulls the sweatpants up the rest of the way. It’s so close to an embrace that I close my eyes and pretend it is.

I’ve loved her for a while. I think I started falling in love with her when she kicked me in the balls while I was kidnapping her.

“I won’t ever let you get hurt again.” 

“You’re hurting me now.” My voice finally cracks, all the pain and love and anguish breaking through. 

“You took me. And made me yours. I got used to your warmth. But then you took it away.” 

A tear escapes down my cheek. “I don’t want to be cold anymore.” 

“You made me love you,” I accuse him. “You told me you were proud of me.” 

 “You’ve always saved me when I needed you most.” 

“Please stop pushing me away. It’s okay if you don’t love me yet. Just don’t—” King closes the distance, his big palms cupping my face. 

“There is no yet, Savannah Baby.” His thumbs brush across my cheeks. “Please stop crying. I love you too fucking much to watch you cry.”

And I love you with my entire disgusting heart.” He brushes away more tears. “I don’t deserve you. Or…” I watch his throat work as he nods toward the paintings around us. “I don’t deserve your art. Or your smiles. Or your joy. After everything I’ve done to you… Baby, the last thing I deserve is your love. But if you mean it. If you’ve found a way to let me inside your beautiful soul, then I’m going to stay there.”