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The men in this world ensured their houses were. It was a necessity for those first weeks after buying a woman since they tended to scream and beg for someone to save them.
This man should’ve thought of that.
Should’ve known that even if I hadn’t been here, I would’ve brought him back and made him scream, and no one would’ve heard him or come to save him.
I watched where he lay, crumpled on the ground and yelling as he tried to grab at his unnaturally bent leg, and forced myself to hold on to that calm. I had to feel nothing.
He’d come for Briar.
“Last time. Who?”
“W-wuh—” He broke off on another sharp cry and gritted his teeth against the pain for a few seconds before he bit out, “William.”
A rage unlike anything I’d ever felt—even last week’s horror when William had tried to have my blackbird taken from me—built in my chest until it felt like that was all I was, and all I would ever be.
He isn’t going to stop, I realized.
And knowing William’s mind . . . Fuck.
William’s threats came in twos. Always. This man wouldn’t be the only one here.
I looked over at my enraged driver, and horror coated my voice as her name left me. “Briar.”
The man on the floor started laughing manically between his hisses of pain, and I ran for the house, barking at my driver to stay with him.
I vaguely registered someone telling Briar it was over as I tore down the hallway to my bedroom. Vaguely registered that he sounded like me as he coaxed her to open the door.
But my rage and my fear were choking me, and making it hard to focus on anything other than Briar, Briar, Briar . . .
“That’s my girl,” I heard the man say, and my heart sank, my feet stumbled, as I thought about Briar—my world—about to face whatever William had sent for her.
I ran into the bedroom in time to see the man take a step away from the closet . . .
In time to see him raise a gun identical to the one in my hand at its door that was opening . . .
In time for him to repeat, “That’s my—”
“Briar, stop!” I yelled.
The man began turning toward me, but I fired before he could react, adding his face to all the others that haunted me as his body fell limply to the floor.
I slid my gaze up to see Briar standing just out of the doorway of the closet with one shaking hand covering her mouth, another gripping the doorjamb, supporting her. The gun I’d given her lay at her feet, as if she’d dropped it.
“I didn’t realize . . .” I began as I looked back at the man, my borrowed gun still aimed at him. “I didn’t know who had sent the other man. I’d thought it was just him. When he said who—” I broke off and shook my head, trying to shake off the lingering fear. “I knew there would be another.” I glanced back at Briar, took in her trembling body, and said, “Stop looking at him, Briar.”
She tore her eyes from the man lying on my bedroom floor and gave quick jerks of her head. “I don’t—I don’t und—why does this keep happening? What is happening? Why are they coming for me?” she asked, each question louder than the previous as panic gripped her.
“I’ll explain once
we leave this room. For now, close your eyes and try not to listen,” I said gently.
“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.
