Blackbird

  His jaw was clenched so tightly I thought it might shatter. In one quick movement he stepped forward and grabbed the back of my head to press his mouth roughly to mine, and then he was gone.

  “This way, Miss Holt,” the driver said once Lucas was gone.

  I pointed down to the gun in his hand and asked warily, “Do you know how to use that?”

  His face was all business when he responded, “Yes, ma’am. I wouldn’t be Mr. Holt’s driver if I didn’t.”

  “Of course not.” I let out a shaky sigh as I followed the driver into Lucas’s room and then into the closet, locking all the doors behind us on the way.

  The messages led to a dead end.

  People had come over to help Lucas just minutes after he’d arrived—people who didn’t exactly care about doing things legally, which had been one of the reasons Lucas had wanted me locked in the closet with the armed driver—and they had started investigating immediately.

  Thankfully, it hadn’t taken long before their investigations led the other men out of the house, and soon they were calling Lucas with updates.

  The chat messages had been sent from an abandoned, dilapidated Internet café, and they had nothing else to go on.

  A look had snapped into Lucas’s eyes that had left me feeling cold for hours. He’d left immediately after, leaving his driver with me, and hadn’t said anything about where he’d gone or what he’d done when he came home. Only that I needed to let him know if I was contacted again, and he didn’t want me in the backyard unless I had someone else with me.

  He also wouldn’t leave my side or work away from home for two weeks because of it.

  As much as I loved every second with him, those weeks had been uncomfortable because he’d been on edge the entire time, and it had left me unable to prepare for tonight.

  Thank God there had been things at the office that needed to be taken care of in person today so he’d had to leave, but now I was running around Houston with the driver, trying to find the perfect gift for the man who had more money than he knew what to do with.

  “What’s this place up here on the right?” I asked the driver, who still refused to give me his name.

  “Clothing.”

  I sighed and sank into the seat. I’d already been into seven stores—two had been clothing stores—and nothing had stood out to me. At least I’d finished Lucas’s caramel banana cake before we left so I wouldn’t need to worry about it once we got back to the house. I’d considered making a devil’s food cake to be funny, but I’d paid enough attention to what he liked over the last months that I was sure he’d be happy with what I’d made.

  “This one on the right?”

  “Jewelry, Miss Holt.”

  I groaned in frustration. Lucas and jewelry did not mix. “What does he like?” I asked out loud, even though I didn’t expect the driver to answer since he rarely answered any personal questions about anyone.

  “Guns.”

  I glared at his reflection through the rearview mirror. “What about all of those coming up on the left?”

  “There is a—”

  “You know what, it’s okay. Why don’t we park and I can make my way through this strip? Maybe walking through these stores will help me think of something.”

  He nodded and slowed to find parking. “I pick up lunch just over there for you quite often. Would you like me to get you something to eat? You haven’t eaten all day.”

  “I’ve been busy all day,” I mumbled. “Thank you, but no, I just want to find something and get back to the house. But if you’re hungry you can go.”

  “I’m not hungry,” he responded easily.

  “Of course not.”

  We were in the second shop on that strip of stores when it all got to be too much. I felt restless and anxious, and like I was going to scream if someone didn’t give me some space soon. It had been like this ever since our first store that afternoon and had only gotten worse as the day had dragged on. Having someone by my side twenty-four/seven for two weeks, after months of mostly being alone, left me feeling suffocated.

  “I will be okay if I walk to the other side of the store without you,” I snapped, and immediately regretted it. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just—I just want some space. You two are always hovering, and it’s exhausting me and stressing me out, and now today . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I’m sorry.”

  The driver smiled patiently, understanding covering his face. “It’s okay, Miss Holt, but I can’t leave your side.”

  “Nothing is going to happen. Please? Just for five minutes even, would that be so bad?” When stress caused the driver’s eyes to crease and his lips to thin, I thought about Lucas’s threats to him simply because he wasn’t driving fast enough and realized it might be that bad.

  “Five minutes. I’ll meet you out front.” He swallowed roughly, and I knew he wished he could take back what he’d just said.

  “Thank you. Thank you. Just—thank you.” I immediately turned from him and walked through the store. I wasn’t even looking for a gift for Lucas anymore. I was just relishing in the feel of not having a shadow for the first time in weeks.

  It was amazing.

  After the first few minutes, I finally paid enough attention to know I wasn’t going to find anything in that store anyway and headed toward the front. The driver visibly relaxed when he saw me headed toward him, and I sent him a small grin. “How’d you do?”

  The glare he sent me was so unlike him that I barked out a laugh and turned toward the next store.

  But five minutes hadn’t been enough.

  Before we’d even reached the doors to the next store, I felt anxious again. Like I needed to get away from my own skin, and I wondered if the driver would give me another five minutes alone.

  “Excuse me,” a woman called out, trying to get our attention. “I can’t find . . . uh, this place. I’m not sure I’m even pronouncing it right,” she said with an embarrassed laugh as she pointed to her phone. “Can you help me?”

  The driver looked at the phone for a second, looked down the street, and pointed.

  That crawling feeling all over my body got worse as he started giving her directions and started over when she decided to type them into her phone. I rolled my shoulders and shook my arms out, trying to relax. But the feeling only grew until I felt so jittery that I worried there might actually be something wrong with me.

  I need space. I need—I just need to get out of here.

  I was about to tell the driver that I would meet him inside the store when an arm wrapped around my waist and pulled.

  Chapter 33

  Day 116 with Briar

  Lucas

  “You are agitated,” William stated when we finished with our meetings.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you need to discuss whatever has you acting this way?”

  My eyes darted to his. “No.”

  He seemed to accept the answer as we walked, but a minute later asked, “This couldn’t have anything to do with a certain First, could it?”

  I groaned and turned on him. “You clearly have something you want to say, so stop wasting my time and get on with it.”

  “You cannot keep her.”

  I ran my hand over my face and wasn’t able to stop another groan from sounding in my throat. “I can’t deal with your hypocritical bullshit today.”

  He continued on as if I hadn’t spoken. “What I saw the last time you brought her over was far worse than the first time, and even that was worrisome. Christ, the first two times I saw you with her at your house concerned me. I gave you time to see an error in your ways, but I cannot allow you to have more. You cannot care about a girl the way you care about that one . . . you cannot keep her.”

  “Don’t forget that whatever you think is happening between Briar and me, you have been doing for years with one of your women, and no one has tried to stop you . . . yet.”

  He casually waved his hand between us. “You
cannot threaten me, boy.”

  I could, and for Briar, I would do so much more.

  I stepped forward and dropped my voice so the warning was clear. “If you’re going to threaten my house, expect the kindness to be returned.”

  William laughed like I was amusing him. “You cannot threaten me because there is nothing to threaten. I have told you time and time again that we do not care for our girls. We can’t. It is dangerous and it shows weakness.”

  “And yet you—”

  “And my weakness died long ago,” he snapped. His eyes filled with rage and agony for half of a second before it died out.

  “You talk about her like she’s here, and you expect me to believe that?”

  “Because I have not forgotten a single thing she did.”

  I shook my head and turned to continue walking. “I don’t have time for this, William.”

  “I have had fourteen girls in all . . . she was technically the fourth, but I kept her on a pedestal as if she were my first,” he called out to my back. “From the beginning she captivated me, and I didn’t care to hide it even though I knew it was against our way. She had just told me she was expecting a child the night the house was attacked. I wasn’t home to protect her.”

  I stopped and looked at him but didn’t know what to do when he was so close to losing his grip on his calm. In the years I’d been with him, I’d never seen him like that.

  “They didn’t go after anything in the house or anyone else. Just her. They knew what she meant, and I knew it was one of our own. They announced themselves by heartbeat,” he said on a growl.

  I blinked slowly and had to force myself to ignore the pain in my chest for William . . . for an innocent girl none of us had protected.

  Knocking on a door in the rhythm of a beating heart was something I’d quickly learned the men in this world used to announce themselves to those who broke too many rules and were becoming threats to the way we lived. Whether it was torture or death—usually the latter—nothing good ever followed a heartbeat.

  “Who was she?” I asked. “What was her name?”

  “We do not speak it.”

  I nodded, knowing I should have expected that.

  “You reminded me of her—you could have easily been her son for how much you look like her. The first time I saw you, I wondered if you had been sent to torment me. But the more I saw you, the more I realized what an asset you could be to me. Then you proved to be valuable in this life and in the company, and were a reminder of the time I had with her . . .”

  “Watch your words, William, you’re sounding like you could actually care about something other than yourself, and dying isn’t something I want to do today.”

  Again, he continued like I hadn’t spoken. “I just hadn’t realized you would screw everything up so greatly with a girl.”

  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.

  The driver ripped the man’s hand off me and pulled me from his body, and I turned to see blood pooling from a hole at his temple.