“Another word for crazy?”
I took a sip from the floral teacup, pondering Thomas’s question. “Mental.”
He hummed. “Not right.”
I turned the page of my book. “Batty.”
He made a huffing noise.
I looked over at him, a smile teasing my lips. “Unhinged.”
His eyes blazed. “Perfect.”
Watching as he scrawled the word in his journal, then bit the end of his pen, I took another sip of tea and returned my attention to the book in my lap.
It’d been two weeks since I’d moved into Thomas’s room. Two weeks of sleepless nights followed by lazy days spent with him and Lou. Some days, like today, spent with only him. We slept in late and without fail, every morning, he’d tighten his arms around me and whisper the same sleep coated words, “My Dove.”
I’d never felt more cherished, more loved without any whisper of the word, and more at peace. As though life had tossed and turned me into this woman who was prepared to take on the task of loving a man most would run screaming from.
Yet it didn’t feel like a task at all. It felt as natural as breathing.
Thomas was a paradox.
Benevolent tenderness oozed from his heart even as blood and violence tainted his soul.
Never would I have thought the combination could mix. Or that it’d make any sense.
But it did.
He did.
Thomas Verrone made perfect sense to me.
His phone broke the spell of my thoughts, and he fumbled blindly for it in his jeans pocket while trying to finish whatever it was he’d been writing that morning.
“What is it?” The widening of his eyes had my hand pausing as it carried the tea cup back to the side table.
“How the hell can someone steal a six-year-old from a party?”
With a crash I barely heard, the tea fell from my hands, splashing onto the rug and pooling around the shattered porcelain.
Thomas didn’t seem to notice, and instead, he was pacing the room, his journal and pen discarded on the floor. “No, just get back here. Now.”
He hung up and went to leave the room, and with my heart stuck on pause, I choked out, “Lou?”
Murry, wanting to give Thomas and me time alone, had taken her to Rosie’s birthday party. Murry couldn’t be seen in public, not with a price tag on his head, but he’d dropped her off and said he’d watch her walk in and wait out front.
“Taken,” Thomas clipped, then disappeared down the hall.
Wanting to go after him, to reassure him she’d be okay, I tried to force my limbs to move.
Then a bang sounded downstairs, and I knew my presence wasn’t what he needed right now. Right now, he needed a plan.
I stared out the window, silent tears tracing my cheeks until finally, Murry, driving Thomas’s car, raced down the drive, and I raced downstairs.
“Did you see who took her?”
“He walked right in front of me, smiled, and I got out, ready to chase after him, but then he was gone. Put her in the back of some blue truck.” He wiped a hand down his face, distraught. “I chased them but lost them once we hit the outskirts of the city.”
Thomas cursed up a storm, his hand repeatedly diving into his hair, tugging as he paced the rug in the parlor. He looked like a caged animal, and if I wasn’t so distracted by the description of the truck, I’d want to wrap my arms around him.
“Miles, I mean, Milo took her?”
They both spun around—Thomas’s eyes filled with cold, hard rage, and Murry’s remorse. It tugged at his scars and flattened his lips as he nodded.
The front doors boomed closed, and a second later, Beau appeared, his hair wet and his eyes hungry as they skated over the room. He rubbed his tattooed hands together. “Right, what’s the game plan?”
“We don’t have one,” Murry said.
Beau frowned, hands dropping. “What?”
Before I could even open my mouth, Thomas was in front of me, pressing a gun beneath my chin. I swallowed, the cold metal biting into my skin, but it was the searing of his betrayed blues that hurt the worst. “What did you do?”
“W-what?” I tried to talk, but the pressure of the gun trapped my jaw shut.
“Tom, fuck. Put it away,” Murry growled.
“Shut up.” I heard the safety unlock, and Thomas’s voice became so cold, his breath singed the skin of my lower face. “You’ve been waiting, haven’t you? Biding your time.”
His head cocked to the side. “Tell me, Dove. Was this your plan? Fool me into believing you were comfortable, that you wanted to be here, that you cared too much about us to betray us”—his nostrils flared, eyes narrowing to slits—“only to give him enough proof, and my kid, as leverage to end me?”
“T-Tom,” I tried again to talk.
He pressed harder, and I winced as pain lanced through my jaw. “Because if I find out that’s true, regardless of whatever you two might think you can do to me, I’ll kill him …”
“Tom.” Beau appeared behind him, tone filled with warning. “Come on, enough.”
“I’ll kill him,” he continued, “over the course of a week, and I’ll make sure this bullet, in this very gun, only enters your beautiful, traitorous brain after you’ve seen me remove every piece of skin from his body. Every. Fucking. Piece.”
Beau pulled him back, and Thomas shrugged him off, eyes never leaving mine as I struggled to draw air into my lungs and gingerly shifted my jaw.
“They can’t just snatch a child from a birthday party, Thomas. Fed or not, kidnapping doesn’t fucking fly,” Beau said.
Thomas rubbed at his brow, the gun hanging from his other hand. “In case it’s not obvious, he’s not playing good cop anymore.” His chest rose sharply as he dragged his eyes from me. “Get her out of here. Murry, take her downstairs.”
Murry rounded on Thomas. “Tom, think about this a minute.”
“Too late for that. Thinking is something I should’ve done weeks ago.”
Beau took my arm, his hold surprisingly gentle as he steered me out of the room and toward the front doors.
My wet eyes and pounding heart made it hard to see. Made it hard to shake my thoughts together. “Wait.”
Beau stopped, talking low. “Don’t even try it. You need to go unless you want to end up back in that basement. If you think he was joking—”
My hand swept through my hair. “No, I know. But Milo … he wants me.”
Beau frowned and let go of my arm. “Explain.”
My words were rushed, my hand stuck in my hair. “I was his pawn. I was his way in. And Thomas is right, I am the proof he needs. And I know you might not believe me, but that doesn’t mean I conspired against him, or that I plan to tell anyone anything. Just …” I let out a shaky breath. “Take me to him. Please. I’ll get Lou back.”
Beau leaned forward. “And how the hell would you know where he’s keeping her?”
“I know where he’d be. If this was his plan, he’d make it easy for me.”
Beau sucked his teeth, staring at me a long moment. It was a stare that made me take an unbalanced step back as blame lurked in his eyes, further lighting my burning heart ablaze. I knew he didn’t believe me, not entirely, but his shoulders sagged. “Fine. Lead the way.”
“But …” I glanced back down the hall.
“Forget it. He’s too much of anything right now to think clearly. Let’s go.”
My knees threatened to buckle as I stepped through the front doors.
I knew Thomas was scared, that he was hurt and angry, and deep down, I couldn’t even blame him for accusing me of betraying him.
Deep down.
For on the surface, all I could feel was his ice layered threats, and the cool metal of his gun against my trembling skin. Skin he’d promised to cherish and to worship with penned words and warm whispers.
He wasn’t my monster anymore; he was now the monster he needed to be to get his little girl back.
Even if that meant ruining me.