Run Toward Death

Briar

Lucas dipped his head close, sweeping his mouth along my jaw to whisper in my ear, “Don’t say a word.” He pulled away then, answering his ringing phone and putting it on speaker. He placed his hand on the small of my back, leading me deeper into the living area of the top floor. “David.”

Seconds passed in silence, and Lucas’s eyes narrowed, triggering the most incredible change . . .

The wrath in his eyes since the knocking began burned darker until Lucas transformed into someone I’d never seen before.

He wasn’t the man our driver feared. He wasn’t the man who’d enjoyed torturing the hitman in the garage. This man was truly what nightmares were made of. This was him, whoever he was, and he was beautiful.

As I studied the fury that swirled with his darkness, I realized I had been right all those months ago. He was an avenging angel, even more lethal because he had fallen . . .

That was who this man was, and he loved me.

“I didn’t send that message lightly,” Lucas said darkly, his voice rumbling deep within his chest. “Speak.”

“What happened?” the man on the phone asked immediately, a tremor of panic woven throughout his words.

“William just sent men to kill Briar because he failed at taking her from me last week.”

“What do you mean failed at taking her?” the man demanded, his voice rising with each word. “What happened, and why didn’t you contact me?”

Lucas didn’t answer him, only continued. “I’m done; we’re done. We’re leaving today, and you’re providing that.”

Silence greeted us for nearly a minute before the man said “No,” in a dull, reserved tone.

Lucas slammed his hand down onto the table the phone was now on, and bent to lean close to the phone as he yelled, “Did you hear me? He tried to take her from me. He sent men to kill her. I need to get her out of here, so tell me how we do this.”

“We don’t. You can’t leave. You will stay there and finish—”

“If I stay, they won’t stop until she’s dead.”

A chill so cold it couldn’t be described spread through my body, and I swayed on my feet. The day—the last few days—were catching up with me. My fear was becoming a living, breathing thing as I listened to my devil’s voice twist in agony.

His head snapped in my direction, and he quickly pushed away from the table to wrap me up in his strong arms, steadying me as he pulled out a chair and sat in it, keeping me in his lap.

The adrenaline had faded from me, leaving an exhaustion so deep, I couldn’t fight it. I let my head fall onto Lucas’s shoulder and my body go limp as he held me close—trying to protect me from things I couldn’t push from my mind.

“My hands are tied. We can’t jeopardize everything, all these years, for one girl.”

Lucas went still as stone. After a few seconds, his chest expanded with a deep, shuddering breath. Without moving my head, I looked up to find his jaw clenched and eyes murderous.

“You can’t,” he said calmly, but no less terrifying. “I will.”

There was a crashing sound that came through the phone before the man yelled, “Two months. We have spent years preparing for this, and we’re two months away. You can’t ruin this.”

I felt Lucas’s shock, but his voice didn’t give it away. “Two months. It’s happening in two months? Didn’t you think I should kno—?” He cut off with a hiss, then said through clenched teeth, “The celebration. Were you going to warn me?” More silence. “Were you going to warn me?” he roared, the loud boom of his voice causing me to flinch.

He flexed his arms, tightening them around me for a second before relaxing so he could look down at me. His dark eyes searched mine as one of his hands released me to cradle my face, his thumb making soft, sweeping motions along my cheekbone.

The man on the phone cleared his throat. “It would’ve been better for you not to know, that way nothing could have been compromised. We worried that if you knew, you would do what you’re trying to do now. You would try to get Briar out before we came in—”

“Of course I would,” Lucas whispered, and made another sweep.

“—or you would tell her what was happening to prepare her, and we couldn’t risk that. We can’t risk other people knowing what’s happening—especially one of the women. They could ruin everything. She could ruin everything.”

I opened my mouth to try to assure Lucas that I wouldn’t, but the thumb that had been lazily brushing against my cheek rested on my lips in a silent reminder not to speak.

“She won’t,” Lucas said gently as his eyes searched mine. “She knows the risks, David, but I still need to get her out of here.”

“What do you mean, she knows the risks?”

“I hadn’t been able to continue doing my job with her,” he began, and David swore. “That’s why William tried to have her taken from me. He knew she meant too much to me and would be used against me. So I made sure William would never forget the day he tried to take her from me, and that night, I told Briar everything. Everything except my name.”

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” David yelled, and another crash sounded through the phone.

“For the last four months, I’ve thought she would be smart enough to leave. But even after finding out all of it, she’s still here,” he said with an amused grin. “So . . . yeah, I do.”

“You haven’t just put Briar’s life at risk, every woman’s life in one of those houses is now threatened. When those men find out who you are—and they will—they will take Briar from you. She will be tortured just to ruin you.”

Lucas’s head snapped up so he was looking at the phone. “You think I don’t know that? You think they haven’t already tried? Didn’t you hear me? They tried to take her. They tried to come to the house and kill her. Bodies are piling up because William wants to send me a message, and I can’t let Briar stay here when there’s a chance that someone else will come for her. I need to get her out.”

“And what about the other women?” David asked. “Who’s going to protect them when the men send their rats to dig deeper, and they finally work out who you are? Because those men will kill their women just to keep them from being able to talk—just to destroy evidence.”

Lucas’s face fell, and his tanned skin suddenly looked pale.

“Did you not think of any of these things before you told Briar who you are? Before you forgot your job because of the way a girl makes you feel, and declared war on William for—”

“I declared war?” Lucas repeated in a dangerously low tone, cutting the man off. “He tried to steal what was mine. In William’s world, that is a declaration of war. I retaliated exactly as any of the men would’ve. If it weren’t for their rules and your goddamn need to keep him alive, I would’ve ripped his heart out of his chest that day he touched Briar. I may not have kept to the rules with Briar, that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped doing my job.”

“If you’ve sent me a distress message, you have. If you have people trying to kill Briar, you have. You have threatened everything when we are so close. We went in looking for William, and now what if he starts backing off because of what you’ve done? What if that entire ring starts dispersing because of your actions?”

“Stop trying to give me so much credit,” Lucas said dryly.

“What if he has you taken out for it?”

Despite everything from the day, from the conversation, Lucas smirked. “He’s going to have to get in line.”

“This isn’t a joking situation; you have possibly ruined hundreds of women’s lives.”

“You’ve ruined mine,” Lucas sneered, all traces of amusement now gone from his face. “We’ve ruined hers. This isn’t what I signed up for. None of this was supposed to ever be my life—my reality. I was never supposed to become this. I did all of this for them on your orders. I have sacrificed my life, destroyed something good, and torn out my goddamn heart for every one of those women. So don’t fucking tell me what I have ruined.”

Seconds passed without a response, but when David spoke again his voice was placating. “If you get Briar out, those women are as good as dead. If you leave, all of this will have been for nothing.”

Lucas looked back down at me then, jaw clenched like he wanted to keep fighting, but he sounded resigned when he said, “If something happens to this girl, I suggest you run . . . and pray I never find you.” He reached out and ended the call before David could respond, and then his hand curled around my neck, gentle and soothing. “Tomorrow I’m going to start teaching you how to shoot and start working with you until you’re comfortable holding a gun,” he said quickly, quietly. “I’m going to teach you how to defend yourself if you’re unarmed . . . because I won’t have you defenseless if anyone dares to come after you again.”

But with each second that passed, and with each promise he made, an invisible weight seemed to press down on him, heavier and heavier until he couldn’t continue fighting against it. His head bowed low, pressing against my chest, and the hand gripping my waist tightened—as if he was trying to hold on to me.

An ache so great pierced my chest, seeing this man so vulnerable; it stole my next breath. I wove one hand through his dark hair, placing the other on his shuddering back, and silently struggled as I tried to think of a way to help him.

“If anything happens to you . . .” he trailed off, his voice tight. His body tensed, then began vibrating. “I just keep seeing that closet door opening,” he admitted softly. “I was sure I was going to watch him kill you because I hadn’t been there to keep you safe.”

A dozen responses swirled through my mind. A dozen reassurances were on the tip of my tongue that would have meant nothing to Lucas in that moment.

Because even though he had done more than most men were capable of in order to keep me safe, I knew he would only see everything that happened to me as his fault.

I placed a soft kiss to the top of his head then made slow passes up and down his back as I tried to ease some of his fear and grief the only way I knew how.

Lucas’s rough breaths halted with the first melodic words that fell from my lips, and his tense shaking slowed and steadied by the time I started on the first chorus. But he didn’t move from his position. His head stayed pressed close to my chest, one hand gripping me tightly while the other cupped my neck like I was fragile.

Our position made me feel safe and cared for, and I felt his love for me pouring from him in waves. But as I sat cocooned in his arms, letting a song flow from me soft as a whisper, I realized I’d never felt more free.

When the last words of the song trailed off into nothing, silence engulfed the room and time passed without measure.

His thumb eventually moved to make lazy circles along my throat, and a few moments later, he straightened his body to look at me. His dark eyes were full of wonder, his voice low and rough when he said, “You’re not shaking, Blackbird.”

I lifted a shoulder and held his curious stare as his unspoken question lingered in the air.

I’d only ever sang in front of him if I was shaking—if I was afraid . . .

“I wasn’t singing for me.”

His mouth met mine in a gentle, but searing kiss. And without breaking contact, he stood and walked us into my bedroom and laid me on the bed. His lips moved down my neck and stopped at the base of my throat. His teeth grazed against the soft skin there, followed by a whisper of one last kiss before he curled his body around mine.

A corner of his mouth twitched in amusement when I turned in his arms and reached for him, but he stopped me.

Grabbing my hand in his, he lifted them so he could pass his mouth over my wrist then said, “After everything you’ve been through the last few days, you need to sleep. Your body is crashing.” His eyes darkened with need, and his voice dropped to a rough whisper. “When you wake up I’m going to devour every inch of you and bury myself deep inside you, because I need to taste and feel you to know you’re here—you’re safe. But for now, sleep.”

But I was afraid to. I was afraid of what I would see when I did. I’d been trying to escape the horror of it all, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to once I gave in to exhaustion.

The fear of losing the man holding me, the smell of blood and sight of dead people around me, arms that ripped me away and knocking on doors that meant horrible, horrible things. All of it would be too much, and I wouldn’t be able to get away from it.

“How did that man know where I was today?” I asked, trying to prolong the inevitable.

His grip on my hand tightened, a rumble sounded low in his chest. “William. He knows my house, and where I’d hide you. When you didn’t answer the door . . .” He lifted a shoulder in a jerk of a shrug, that fury from earlier clouding his eyes again.

I tried to wrap my mind around all that had happened and quickly shook my head. “You knew . . . that man started knocking and you immediately knew it was a warning and a trap. How?”

“It was a trap, because if I hadn’t been home, you would’ve gone to the door and answered it,” he explained, his tone laced with barely concealed rage. “In the world I grew up in, there was never any warning; we would just go in with guns raised. In this world? It’s all about games and threats and sending messages and instilling fear. The men in this world are so confident they want to terrify whoever they’re going to torture or kill before they even come into the house. Knocking in the rhythm of a heartbeat is as good as announcing death.”

My lips slowly parted, but it wasn’t from the shock of what he’d told me. I’d either experienced enough in the last few days or was too tired to be shocked by the audacity of the men in this life. All I felt was wonder and awe as I studied him. “And you ran toward death . . .”

“The Reaper doesn’t run toward death, Blackbird. He brings it.”

“Reaper? Don’t call yourself—”

“I didn’t give myself that name,” he said in a hollow tone, and I knew in the haunted look he was talking about something from a lifetime ago.

And I hated it. I hated everything that haunted my devil, this man who had continued to destroy his soul to keep himself alive and to help others—to keep me safe.

Threading my fingers through his hair, I kept my eyes locked with his and let my lips twist into a coy smile. “So . . . you’re dangerous?”