“Not a chance, a shíorghrá. Not until I know you’re safe.” He glances down at me and dips his head to brush his lips against my forehead. “Did she bring you there? Were there more of them?”
I push through the chaos in my head. “No. I came on my own, trying to find out more about the people who drew in Kenneth and Grady?—”
And my dad. That knowledge stalls my words before I can gather myself again. “She found me there. She wanted to kill me.”
That shouldn’t come as a surprise considering how many other murder attempts I’ve faced in the past several weeks, but the acknowledgment sends a shudder through me.
Salvatore’s hold tightens, but it’s Byron’s voice, steady but taut, that reaches me next. “Why did you come alone? Any of us would have helped you.”
I swallow hard, the horror in his tone wrenching at me alongside all the guilt that gripped me earlier this evening. “I just… I wanted to get it over with if I could. Get through this problem so you can all have some space from each other. Iknow how hard it’s been for you—it’s not how any of you would have wanted to start a union.”
For a moment, there’s no sound but the ominous thudding of my matches’ feet as we veer out of the lane and across a street.
Salvatore sucks in a sharp breath. “You’re the one they’re trying to murder. You’re the one who has it hard. None of us wants toloseyou, Elodie. That’s what matters the most.”
He says it so emphatically that tears prick at my eyes. As I blink them back, he comes to a halt by a plain dark gray car. His arms flex with indecision.
“Here.” Cole’s voice, even rougher than before. When Salvatore turns toward him, the professor has his arms outstretched. “We’re all going together. We need to know everything that happened, and we can’t talk here. Just drive.”
The mafia heir balks with a clench of his jaw before handing me over like I’m cargo. Delicate cargo, but still.
In the space of a heartbeat, I’m passed from his brawny embrace into Cole’s lean arms. The other guys are throwing open the car doors. The professor clambers into the back seat, bringing me with him.
His piney scent wraps around me, making it even harder to think. He hasn’t held me this close… ever, in this reality. The rapid thump of his pulse carries to my ear where my head rests against his chest.
As Salvatore guns the engine, I squirm on Cole’s lap. “I cansiton my own.”
His grip remains firm around me. “But you don’t need to.”
The rasp of emotion in his voice stills me. I force myself to relax against him, my feet bumping the door with Salvatore’s hasty jerk of the wheel.
Cole tucks my legs closer against him with a gentleness that’s as unexpected as everything else about this embrace. His hand moves to adjust my dress: drawing the skirt farthertoward my knees, tugging at the neckline to bring the blood-drenched bodice farther up, quick and careful so the motions couldn’t be mistaken for a caress.
“She’s going to need new clothes,” he says to the other guys. “She can’t?—”
His hand passes by my chest as he lowers it, and his fingers twitch alongside a break in his voice, even though he hasn’t touched me.
A skitter of alarm passes through my veins, but then he’s resting his hand on my knee again with no further sign of agitation. “She can’t go home like this.”
Salvatore grunts. “I’ll take care of that too.”
Asher speaks softly from the other side of the back seat. “Are you sure you’re okay, Elodie?”
The first thing that bursts out of me is a choked guffaw that probably only makes them allmoreworried.
I’m not okay. Not even a little.
But we can get into that once we’re having a proper conversation. He mostly wants to confirm that I’m not dying.
“My glim threw all my injuries at that woman,” I say. “Nothing’s damaged other than my dress.”
Byron shifts in the front passenger seat. “Where are we going?”
“I’ve got that place downtown,” Salvatore answers. “Faster and safer than going back to the Raiths’ house.”
Cole’s head bows over mine, his warm breath grazing my ear. As the car jostles around another bend, he hugs me a little closer.
His voice drops to a murmur that’s only for me. “I’m sorry. So fucking sorry. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
