Page 13 of Bound

He pulled away at once.

So now they were even on the bombs.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said past tight lips. “Sometimes it’s just good to open the curtains and let the light in.”

The analogy fit. Jayd was speared by emotions that might as well be blinding lights. Frustration and fury. Sadness and helplessness. Weirdly, not even losing her father to Trystan’s bullet had felt this desolate. But in reality, she had only known Louis LaBarre for a few moments. No matter what, she would carry Maximillian Brickham in her soul for a lifetime.

But she refused to let Brick see all that. What good would it do him now? She had better information for him. More useful truths.

“All right, then. Here is more light.” She leaned over, leaving her abandoned hand right where it was. “All three of my brothers believe your side of the story.”

He grunted. “How magnanimous of them.”

“You could say that,” Jayd volleyed, “since they are not men of idle commitments.” She paused, letting her censure set in. It was petty, but he was not giving her much to be magnanimous about. Still, she wanted to pierce something helpful into his stubborn gray matter. “Shiraz has a technical team tearing apart the incident video from the bar, as well as every inch of footage from surveillance cameras across Montmartre. Evrest has already reached out to the Prime Minister of France, proposing a special forces alliance in tracking down Trystan and his soldasks.”

That sparked at least one bolt in his Frankenstein brood. “And that worked?”

She nodded. “Samsyn is also working on some things. He has connections working the Paris underbelly. A number of them have confirmed Trystan was, and still is, allied with some key factions of Le Milieu.”

“The French mob,” Brickham interpreted with a brutal scowl. “Who are comprised of some dangerous motherfuckers. Do they all really know what they’re up against here?”

“Enough to be excited about an alliance to take some of them down.”

“That’s not enough,” he snapped. “These are career criminals. They steal rare jewelry and artwork, not slushies at the Shop-n-Gulp. They’re into extortion and human trafficking. They recruit kids—”

“Brickham.” She matched her command to his, not giving him a choice about the hand clasp anymore. “They are not proposing a cut-and-paste operation on the bonsuns. And Samsyn may have all the polish of a battering ram sometimes, but he knows the subtleties of criminal minds.” She paused and reared back her head. “And why am I bragging about that?”

“Goddammit.” Brick’s expression only got bleaker. “It’d just be easier for him to just turn me back over to the Gendarmerie.”

And exactly why did she think her update would cheer him? Instead, rage swirled up like a fire funnel, singeing every canyon of Jayd’s psyche. She sensed the pressure building, ready to explode all the way out.

And it did.

Two seconds after unhitching her hand from his, she flung it hard across his face.

Her palm stung worse than the backs of her eyes. But her tear ducts caught up as soon as Brickham rendered his reaction. Well, lack of one. Her tears, full of guilt and embarrassment, spilled forth. Dire conflict had her choking on them.

The man had saved her life. Taken three bullets for her. But did that give him the right to give up now? To be so morose and mad and flippant, discounting his very existence?

“I stood my ground for you.” Every word of it came out as a low, thick accusation. “I ordered Samsyn to accept your presence here, damn it. I told him you were worth the chance. Worth his trust.”

“I know.” It was a rasp on his lips, defying the new determination in his hold. “And I’m grateful for that, Jayd, but—”

“I stood up to my own brother for you,” she bit out. “For you, Brickham. Not Jag and Oz’s soldier friend who got Emme and me away from those bonsuns in that alley. Not the man who became my friend too, who came with me to meet my father, only to be set up by a lunatic and misaligned by the media. I was standing up for both those men, but most of all for the man I truly believed in. The man who, in the space of a few hours, had made me believe in myself, in so many new ways. Who made me see myself from different eyes.”

“Different eyes.”

Brickham’s repetition was stripped of her earnest inflection. But his gruffness did not alter his hold in hers. Maybe he had heard her now. Maybe he really understood!

“What if those eyes were looking through mottled glass, Princess?”

Her hope dissolved. Fizzled away in a fresh vat of fury.

Princess. The nickname he had used on her right after they met, painting her in the same derisive colors the rest of the world did. But he had soon re-ordained her as Pixie. Yes, because circumstances had given him no choice—but by the time they ran across the tarmac at Bourget, it was all different. The designation had become his own choice.

Or so she had thought.

So damn stupidly.