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“She’s safe,” Trace said, eyeing his brother. For once, the flicker of pain I noticed flash through his features wasn’t due to physical violence. “Butcher, however, is not.”
“That’s who the bullet was for,” I surmised.
“I had to give her time to run,” Trace murmured, so quietly I didn’t think Theo caught it.
“You are one fucked up individual,” I seethed. “To maim a girl you care about so badly.”
At last, Trace met my stare. “She’s no substitute for you.”
Theo rumbled with a growl.
“Let’s leave,” I said. I grabbed Theo’s elbow, tried to pull the tree-trunk that was my ex-boyfriend. “Trace is useless to us. We don’t know where your father is. We’ve got to get out of here before the police find us, beforeGordon—”
“Hands off my son, dear.”
“Fuck,” I whispered, a visceral sound in my throat.
Theo didn’t flinch.
“Who are you right now?” I asked him quietly before I backed away, knowing without having to look that Gordon would be holding another bigger, badder weapon on us. A semi-automatic. An automatic handgun. One of those guns that shoots bullets that shatter on impact and eviscerate organs. All of the above.
“Don’t become them, please.” I was staring at him, but Theo wasn’t paying any attention. His focus was on his brother, but he wasn’tseeinghim. It was a beast hovering over its prey. A dragon circling its kill.
It was not Theo Saxon.
Or was it? My hands clenched at my sides as I retreated. Was this the new man, the person Theo had been trying to hide from me since boarding theHatari, pretending to be a prince in the darkness, when really, he was a demon in sunlight?
He was only showing me what had always been there, if I’d only thought to see clearly.
“Turn around. There’s a good girl,” Gordon said behind me.
Closing my eyes with a sigh, I did.
“Well, you came out of that house a lot better than me,” Gordon said.
Although I didn’t want to, I blinked Gordon into focus.
His face was red, burned, a few flakes of skin marring his cheeks, his hair askew, his suit ripped and dirtied. Gordon favored his right side, using his left hand to aim the gun instead of his dominant one.
“I had a head start,” I replied.
Gordon inclined his head. It was like watching a vulture size up the nearby wounded to estimate who would die first. “I’ll admit, the mini-bomb was unexpected.”
“How did you get here?” I asked. Stalling.Come back, Theo. Turn on that humanity switch. Come back to me.
“Oh, my dear, think that one through.” Gordon chuckled, coughed, then winced. His left arm came closer into his torso, and instinctual maneuver to protect and soothe.
“We have more than one way out of that basement,” Trace supplied from the ground. “Several, actually.”
“Get up,” Theo said, and when Trace didn’t, Theo hooked him under one arm and hurled him into a stand, then tossed him over, stumbling, to their father.
“You have him just like you wanted him,” Theo said to Gordon. My heart broke over how deadened his gaze had become. “It’s over. The FBI is around the corner. Give up, Father.”
“You’re involved in this crime, too,” Gordon said, then eyed his middle son carefully. “But you know that.”
“I’m ready to accept the consequences.” Unexpectedly, Theo’s shoulders sagged. “I’m so damned tired.”
“No,” I said, automatically moving toward him.
