“W-what?”
“Blackbird,” I said in a soothing voice, even though I felt anything but, “trust me. Close your eyes and try not to listen.” As soon as her hands were over her ears and her eyes were squeezed shut, I walked up to the man and shot him one more time just to be sure.
Even with the suppressor, Briar still flinched.
I grabbed the gun from his lifeless hand and tucked it between my arm and ribs with the barrel facing behind me as I took slow steps toward my blackbird.
“Lesson one,” I said softly as I bent to pick up the gun she’d dropped and slid it into the waistband of my pants. “Never keep your finger on the trigger. Lesson two, if someone is trying to kill you, kill them first. Then shoot them one more time to be sure. I’ve seen a lot of people die because they didn’t make sure. Lesson three, stop looking at the man on the floor, Blackbird.”
Her head shook slowly at first and then faster and harder until a sharp sob burst from her chest. “Tell me why this keeps happening, Lucas, please.”
I took her chin between my fingers and tilted her head back so I could brush my mouth over hers, trying to pass a different kind of calm to her. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but we have to get the rest of the story from the man in the garage. Walk with me, and keep your eyes off the floor.” I released her chin but placed my free hand on the small of her back as I led her out of my bedroom.
As we walked, I told her everything about Friday—from my entire conversation with William, to what I’d done at his house. When she began shaking, I pulled my hand away from her, trying to give her the space she might need after getting a glimpse of how evil her devil really could be.
“William,” she said on a breath, but the softness of the word didn’t cover the shock or the horror of her tone. She stood with her back pressed to the wall just outside of the garage, her head shaking slowly as everything I’d told her sunk in. “And he sent these men?”
I nodded when she looked up at me for confirmation. “I don’t know what they were supposed to do though. William wouldn’t try to have you taken again, he would want to send a message to me.” I forced down that paralyzing fear that tried to resurface and tried to tell myself that Briar was there, standing in front of me, whole and unharmed. “He’s either retaliating because of his leg, or he’s trying to do to me what happened to him.”
“Which part?”
“The only woman he ever loved was killed because he loved her, and he knows I love you. I’ll keep you safe,” I added when raw terror filled her eyes.
She only nodded.
“When I go into that garage, I’m going to be someone I never wanted you to see—all of this is a part of me I never wanted you to see. If you don’t think you can handle it, please don’t walk through that door with me.”
Briar’s body began trembling harder. “Like what you did to William?”
I cocked my head to the side hesitantly. “I had to find out who sent them.”
Her full lips parted and a shuddering breath rushed from her when she realized what I was saying—that I’d already done something similar to the man in the garage.
Seconds passed in weighted, pressing silence before she asked, “You’ll be Lucas Holt?” When I dipped my head, she continued. “Will you feel anything?”
“In there? No. When it’s over . . .” I trailed off but held her stare. “Every one of them haunts me. I would destroy every last man in the world to keep you safe, Briar, but they would all still haunt me.”
She closed the distance between us in the small hallway and placed her shaking hands on my cheeks, tilting my head down to hers. “Your soul is beautiful, Devil. Please don’t forget that,” she whispered, her lips brushing against mine. “I’ll stand by you—you, whoever you have to be—and I’ll wait for my devil to come back to me. Finish this.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist and caught her mouth with mine, deepening it for only a moment before saying, “You brave, brave girl.” After another pass across her lips, I pulled away, forced that calm to pour over me, and stepped toward the door. In a low, cold tone, I gestured for her to go first. “Blackbird . . .”
The look of shock on the man’s face when he saw Briar only lasted for a second before terror took over as he focused on me.
I looked over at the driver and noticed his relief when he saw Briar.
“Look at the driver,” I said in that same detached tone to Briar, but I spoke loud enough that the men could hear me. “Look how he’s standing. How he’s holding his gun.”
He was a handful of feet away from the man lying on the floor, feet shoulder-width apart, both hands on his gun . . .
“Finger off the trigger.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” she murmured back, making her response sound like a question.
“Because it’s important.” I let a savage smile pull at my mouth. “Ask the man on the floor how I helped him shoot himself.” I ignored Briar’s sharp inhale and walked over to the hitman, passing off his partner’s gun to my driver as I did. “Why did William send you?”
The man’s fear-filled stare darted between Briar and me over and over, and I noted that my driver was slowly backing away from me.
Smart.
But I knew what his face would look like, what Briar would see when he went to go stand near her: a grown man who was intimidating in his own right, who had saved her, unable to stand near me when I turned into this. And for a second, I almost lost my hold on who I needed to be.
“The body’s in my room,” I said as I forced myself to remain in control, knowing my driver would be relieved for the distraction.
I heard him try to get Briar to leave, but I knew without having to turn around that my brave blackbird wouldn’t go anywhere.
“I thought you would’ve learned earlier that I don’t like repeating myself,” I stated darkly and stepped onto the man’s destroyed knee with all my weight.
His screams filled the garage immediately, mixing with his stuttering of William’s name over and over again. Before I could tell him he was answering the wrong question, he yelled, “S-s-send a m-message. H-he wanted us t-to send a message. That’s all.”
“Is that so?” False amusement slid through my voice, and without taking my eyes from him, I reached behind me and shot his uninjured foot. When the new screams began, I kept my voice calm, steady, dark. “You think I hadn’t figured that out the second you announced yourself?”
The door to the house opened, and my driver came shuffling in with the body of the other man slung over his shoulder.
I waited until he dropped the body next to the man I was still standing on before asking, “What was the message?”
But the man was now shaking so hard I wondered if he would go into shock from the pain before he could answer me.
“Last time,” I growled. “What was—?”