“Oh my God, Lucas! What—?”
I slammed my mouth down onto hers to quiet her, then said, “That’s not just someone at the door, Briar, it’s a warning and a goddamn trap. And I can’t go out there if I’m worried about you.” When it looked like she was about to argue, I begged, “Please.” I took one of her hands, placed the gun in it, and held her stare. “If it isn’t me or the driver, don’t wait . . . just shoot. Now go.”
I only waited long enough to make sure she was running toward my bedroom before I took off for the backyard. I rounded the house and slipped silently through the side gate, and only slowed as I neared the front of the house.
The adrenaline and the rage and the fear melted away, and I found my calm was all too easy to reclaim, knowing someone had come for Briar.
And I knew it was her they had come for.
It was a Monday. I was supposed to be at work. Briar wouldn’t have understood the warning in the knock.
I stuck to the side of the house as I searched the empty driveway and the street. A bubble of rage started to form, but I was quick to push it away when I saw the empty car sitting in front of my house.
I stayed silent as I moved closer and closer to the front door. My eyes swept along the street for any other cars or people who might be outside—people who might be watching—but it was quiet, save for the man waiting expectantly at my door with a gun in his hand.
Suppressor screwed on. Finger already on the trigger.
Whoever gave this trigger-happy bastard a gun needed a bullet with their name on it . . . right after I thanked them for making this so easy for me.
I stepped up behind the man without him ever realizing I was there, and in a deadly calm tone, asked, “Planning your funeral?”
Chapter 38
Day 119 with Blackbird
Lucas
Before the man could turn, I slammed one hand over his mouth and, with the other, grabbed his hand holding the gun and squeezed.
He bucked and roared against my hand when the bullet lodged in his foot, but I held tight to him as I pried the gun from his hand.
“That’s why you never leave your finger on the trigger,” I said in the same tone as he continued screaming against my hand. “Now I’m going to give you three seconds to stop yelling, or I’ll do it again. Three, two . . .” I let another beat pass as a few cries left him before he controlled it enough so they were only whimpers. “If you try to run, I’ll aim for your head.”
I released him so suddenly that he rocked backward, crying out in pain when he tried to balance himself with both feet.
“Do you really want to see if I was just making empty threats?” I asked as I glanced behind us for anything and anyone that shouldn’t be there, then gripped his arm. “Walk.”
He hissed and cried out in pain with every step, but was smart enough not to try to run or yell as we walked to the garage. I entered the code to open the door, spared one last look at the street and the houses around mine, then shoved him inside.
“Who?” I demanded to the pathetic man next to me once we were halfway into the garage, but he only kept crying. “Who?” I asked again, my voice dropping lower, taking on a more lethal edge.
I heard a car racing up the street not long before my driver flew onto the driveway, but I only spared him a glimpse as he ran from the car into the garage. I focused on the man in front of me again. “I asked you a question, and it wasn’t rhetorical.”
I slammed my foot down on his injured one. As soon as the pain registered and he screamed, I lifted my foot and shoved it into his knee as hard as I could.
The roar that tore through the garage would’ve had my neighbors calling the cops if my driver hadn’t already shut the door. My house was as soundproofed as they came.
The men in this world ensured their houses were. It was a necessity for those first weeks after buying a woman since they tended to scream and beg for someone to save them.
This man should’ve thought of that.
Should’ve known that even if I hadn’t been here, I would’ve brought him back and made him scream, and no one would’ve heard him or come to save him.
I watched where he lay, crumpled on the ground and yelling as he tried to grab at his unnaturally bent leg, and forced myself to hold on to that calm. I had to feel nothing.
He’d come for Briar.
“Last time. Who?”
“W-wuh—” He broke off on another sharp cry and gritted his teeth against the pain for a few seconds before he bit out, “William.”
A rage unlike anything I’d ever felt—even last week’s horror when William had tried to have my blackbird taken from me—built in my chest until it felt like that was all I was, and all I would ever be.
He isn’t going to stop, I realized.
And knowing William’s mind . . . Fuck.
William’s threats came in twos. Always. This man wouldn’t be the only one here.
I looked over at my enraged driver, and horror coated my voice as her name left me. “Briar.”
The man on the floor started laughing manically between his hisses of pain, and I ran for the house, barking at my driver to stay with him.
I vaguely registered someone telling Briar it was over as I tore down the hallway to my bedroom. Vaguely registered that he sounded like me as he coaxed her to open the door.
But my rage and my fear were choking me, and making it hard to focus on anything other than Briar, Briar, Briar . . .
“That’s my girl,” I heard the man say, and my heart sank, my feet stumbled, as I thought about Briar—my world—about to face whatever William had sent for her.
I ran into the bedroom in time to see the man take a step away from the closet . . .
In time to see him raise a gun identical to the one in my hand at its door that was opening . . .
In time for him to repeat, “That’s my—”
“Briar, stop!” I yelled.
The man began turning toward me, but I fired before he could react, adding his face to all the others that haunted me as his body fell limply to the floor.
I slid my gaze up to see Briar standing just out of the doorway of the closet with one shaking hand covering her mouth, another gripping the doorjamb, supporting her. The gun I’d given her lay at her feet, as if she’d dropped it.
“I didn’t realize . . .” I began as I looked back at the man, my borrowed gun still aimed at him. “I didn’t know who had sent the other man. I’d thought it was just him. When he said who—” I broke off and shook my head, trying to shake off the lingering fear. “I knew there would be another.” I glanced back at Briar, took in her trembling body, and said, “Stop looking at him, Briar.”
She tore her eyes from the man lying on my bedroom floor and gave quick jerks of her head. “I don’t—I don’t und—why does this keep happening? What is happening? Why are they coming for me?” she asked, each question louder than the previous as panic gripped her.
“I’ll explain once we leave this room. For now, close your eyes and try not to listen,” I said gently.