My lip curled and my tone darkened. “Not as bad as some, apparently, considering my house hasn’t been raided, and my girl is still alive.”
His eyes narrowed, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth so quickly that it sounded like a hiss. “You cannot keep her,” he barked when I began walking away, and hurried to catch up with me. Grabbing my shoulder, he flung me back and stood in my way. “Do you see what they will do to her, and in turn, to you?”
Fear of something happening to my blackbird swirled with my anger, but I didn’t know how to live without her—didn’t know how to let her go.
Ice-cold fear had gripped my spine the day someone had messaged her, and I knew that wasn’t the worst we could face . . . not by a fraction. But all that day had done was force me to keep her closer rather than push her back like it should have.
Holding William’s glare, I stated, “It’s not your decision to make at this point. Briar isn’t going anywhere.”
And like his pain had never been there, suddenly his blank, indifferent stare was back. “Well, I’m not so sure about that.”
My heart skipped painful beats, and when I spoke again my tone was lethal. “Care to explain?”
“Curious to find she uses your computer,” he said casually. “That shouldn’t be allowed in the first year, maybe not even in the second or third.”
I stilled with my hands in my pockets as my mind raced. Briar knew not to respond to the e-mails to William’s women, and I knew she hadn’t before today. I had the urge to grab my phone to see if the conversation with them had continued but didn’t move as I thought of the last time Briar had been around the women and what she might have said, and then the man who had found Briar . . .
Suspicion and rage made my chest rise and fall roughly while my heart took off in a dead sprint as I studied William’s knowing look.
“I’ll give it to you that she is loyal, Lucas, but we both know it isn’t for the right reasons. That girl fell in love with you and would have eventually been used against you. Best to end things this way before it went too far with a certain miss Briar Rose Chapman.”
My blood ran cold as those words—her name—left the man before me. A full name he shouldn’t—couldn’t—know.
“How do . . . wait, would have . . .” My stomach dropped. “William, what did you do?”
“You will thank my one day,” he assured me.
“What have you done?” I roared, my voice echoing back at us in the long hallway. Gripping the collar of his shirt, I slammed him back against the wall. “What have you done. Tell me now!”
“Once you’ve had time to think—”
I punched him with every ounce of anger and fear and anguish swirling through me, letting him drop to the floor because I was already running, my fingers already grabbing for my phone and dialing the landline at the house. But no one picked up. I let out a roar of frustration when my driver didn’t answer his phone either, but I answered on the first ring when he called back less than a minute later.
“Where is Briar?” I yelled into the phone, my calm completely gone.
Sirens and too many voices filled the other side of the phone. I slowed, unable to continue moving, and then staggered back before falling to my knees when I heard his worried voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. Holt, I’m so sorry. It was my fault.”
Chapter 34
Kiss of Fire
Briar
My breath whooshed from my lungs as I was ripped away from the driver, and it only took me a second to realize it wasn’t Lucas coming to meet us and surprising me. The person pulling me was pulling too fast and wasn’t stopping. And when his other hand clamped down over my mouth immediately after and he started whispering my full name, I realized this had to have been the person responsible for my anxiety.
I screamed against his hand and thrashed; people stopped to look with dumbfounded expressions as he pulled me through a small gap between the two stores.
No, no, no! This isn’t happening!
“I’m going to get you out of here, Briar Chapman,” he whispered again on a rush. “It’s going to be o—” He cut off with a grunt and stumbled when I snapped my head back against his face.
I regretted it instantly. Black spots danced across my vision and the cramped alleyway tilted although he was still holding me straight up. I struggled to get out of his hold, but my pathetic attempt at an escape had only caused him to tighten his arms.
People began screaming and running away from the storefront sidewalk seconds before gunshots tore through the air.
The man started running backward again, and I screamed against his hand and doubled my efforts. I dug my nails into the man’s arm and tore as hard as I could and bit down on the meaty part of his palm covering my mouth.
A growl sounded in my ear, and he dropped the hand from my mouth.
I screamed as loud as I could for help, but my voice was lost in the chaos on the street. Turning in the arm still holding me tightly, I shoved against the man’s chest and clawed at his face as I yelled for him to let me go.
But he was large with thickly muscled arms, and every few seconds his arm constricted tighter around me.
He grabbed my waist and lifted me off the ground as he started running again, but before he could get me over his shoulder I shoved my knee into his groin and scrambled to my feet when he dropped me.
“Bitch!”
“Someone help me!” I shouted as I ran past him toward the storefronts. I’d only made it halfway up the alleyway when I was yanked backward by my hair, forcing a cry to rip from my chest. I screamed for help over and over as he gathered my fists into one hand across my chest to restrain me from another attack, then slammed his other hand over my mouth again.
Another gunshot rang out, this one deafening as it echoed through the alley. The man holding me whirled around and forced me higher up on his body to use me as a shield for his chest and face, and I cried with relief against his hand when I saw the driver walking toward us with his gun raised.
He didn’t say anything, just walked quickly as his eyes darted over me. When the man began matching the driver’s steps with his own, the driver’s eyes found mine and locked. After a few steps the driver’s eyes flickered down to the gun and then back up . . . a few steps more and his eyes settled on something near my feet.
I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me and I was shouting against the man’s hand for the driver to just do or say something. The man holding me laughed.
We were nearing the other end of the alleyway, and the driver finally barked, “Lift your feet!”
I lifted at the same second the man holding me turned to run, but the driver fired, and the man holding me stumbled and roared in pain. His knee buckled, and we started falling, the ground coming up fast when another deafening shot filled the alley.
“Miss Holt!” The driver was suddenly there, yelling, but his voice sounded off with how loud my ears were ringing.