Her mouth doesn’t tremble. Her lips set in a line and her eyes are hard, though I can still see the darkness there. “Since I was thirteen. Apparently, it’s a skill every kid who’s on the run and doesn’t know it has in their arsenal.”
I raise a brow at the bite in her voice.
“My uncle-you remember him from when you shot him? He taught me.”
I narrow my eyes but ignore the snap and cold-edged taunt. “Bracelet on?”
Her eyes narrow. “Yes.”
“Let’s get this show on the fucking road.”
I lead her down the stairs, ignoring the expression on my cousin’s face when he sees us in the foyer. He’s aware what was happening. I’m pretty fucking sure everyone in a ten-mile radius knows what was happening. His face, however, is saying he didn’t expect it to be like that.
“You thought we were having fucking tea, Rush?” I mutter as we pass him.
In the yard, three cars are ready to go. There’s the one with a small team of my guys, a basic black car Rose will ‘steal’ from me, and the one with Rush. I don’t particularly want him on this, but apart from Tony, he’s my most trusted, and Tony is already tucked away near the compound, ready to roll.
Opening the driver’s door of the basic black car, I gesture her in. There’s a twinge of something uneasy deep in my guts as I round to the passenger seat. After the first car peels away, I hand Rose the keys. She takes them in a snatch of a movement that makes me want to haul her back inside and spank her.
Or maybe, I just want to drag her into the house once more.
The plan is risky, but I keep that to myself. “I’ll give you directions, Rose, and we’ll go over what you’ll say. Something like you can’t do this with me. You feel used. Whatever works. Point is, you call him again because you stole a phone from me when you dropped me off. I’m giving you some freedom and you’re taking it and running. To him because you think he’ll keep you safe from me.”
She nods, breathes, then shifts and looks at me. “If I keep running?”
There it is. The spike. The surge of unease. She’s thinking it, of course she is. It wouldn’t be Rose. Newly minted, thorny Rose is experimenting with shattering boundaries, with testing her own limits. My limits.
She wants to fucking run. I’m placing my bets that she wants her father punished more.
Still… I coil a strand of her thick, soft hair in my fingers as I murmur the directions to her. We drive to the place I told her to, and when she parks, I make her go to Finnegan’s. I have them on a piece of paper I made her write out, too. For my part? There’s a small meeting in the townhouse across the street I’m ‘attending,’ and Rush is no doubt waiting for me out back.
“If you run,” I say, “I’ll find you. I’ll make you pay, and you will not like the consequences. This is not a threat. This is not sexual. This is a promise. I’m a man who keeps his word. Remember that. Good words. Bad words. I keep them. You’ll suffer.”
She stiffens, her chin jutting slightly as her fingers tighten on the wheel. “So much,” she mutters, “for choice.”
“This isn’t a fucking democracy. I’m the fucking ruler and you do what I fucking say if you want to live.”
“And then?”
And then I take you home and fuck you senseless over and over until I reach the point that I no longer want you. “Stick to the plan, and then it’ll be all over.”
“You won’t want me anymore.” Her voice is tight and small and I make a noncommittal noise. She can take that as she wants, run with it, anything to make her do what I need her to do.
“Rose,” I say softly as she sits, hands still on the wheel. She doesn’t look at me. She’s angry, lonely, lost, scared, and… “My Rose, I’ll be there, watching. We do our parts and he’s gone. I’ll let you pull the trigger, wield the knife, whatever you want to do to bring him pain before he dies.”
She nods, and then looks at me. Rose looks like what she is: a little too young, a little too sweet, a woman born of this life who hates it. The fire isn’t in her gaze like I thought. It’s cold and angry, yet there’s a distance, too.
I fucking hate that. It’s like she smells of me, is what she is, freshly fucked by me, and yet I’ve never felt further from her. I hate it.
I want to hate her, but I don’t. We’ve come too far for that. What I feel is complicated. Desire. Savage need. Obsession. Maybe a strange urge to protect.
I pull her close and for a moment, she resists, but then she flows into me. I take her mouth in a deep kiss that turns desperate, heated, tinged with bitterness and regret. When I come up for air, we’re both panting, and I hand her the burner.
“Call. Smash it. Follow the directions and go in. You won’t see me, but I’ll watch, keep you safe.” Then, I get out of the car and don’t look back.
The roar of the engine tears at something in me, and I cross the street into the townhouse. I head out to the back where Rush waits in an alley. He looks at me as his hands squeeze and release the wheel. Yeah, my cousin looks at me like I’m trying to torture a kitten.
“She’ll be fine,” I say, the words not sounding right.
Rush nods. “So we wait until we know she’s there-”
“Get out.” My words come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Rush stops talking and faces me in the dark interior of the car. “What?”
“Get. Out.” I open the passenger door and round the car, pulling him out from the driver’s seat. “Have you gone mad?”
“No. I’m going after her.”
“Niko-”
“Now. Tell the other team to hold off, position a little further out.” I slide into the car, check my gun. “I’m not doing anything stupid, but I don’t want her alone. Too many people draw the wrong attention. I’m going after her.”
“Nikolai.”
“I’ll call.” I slam the door and turn the key in the ignition, taking off after Rose. I’m not being stupid, not being rash, but I need to have eyes on her, be close in case of trouble.
Besides, I might have a better chance without my army with me. Rose is going to live through this. I’m bringing Finnegan down. I’m taking everything and Rose is going to survive.
After all, I gave her my word.