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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.
