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I dig my teeth into my tongue and let warm blood fill my mouth. He’s not Alec’s to finish off. He’s mine.
Braden bends in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “Who is this ‘we’?”
“Again, it’s none of your concern,” Alec deadpans.
I swallow the pool of blood in my mouth and then clear my throat. “That’s not going to work. Give us the information we want, or this conversation ends here. You can fuck off and try to find him on your own. Haven’t done a great job of that so far, have you?”
“You’re feisty, Scowls,” he muses, a predatory smile spreading his lips. “You won’t get anything out of me. But you’re more than welcome to try. It would be a waste of our time, however.”
A waste of time, but entertaining, nonetheless.
“How do you plan for us to help you find him? He seems to be the one finding us,” Tinsley says, trying to help guide the conversation. My sweet girl, always working to protect us all.
Dipping my head, I press my mouth to the warm skin behind her ear and inhale. She relaxes into my embrace, her head lolling to the side, exposing more of her throat. I nip at the shell of her ear before forcing my attention back to Alec.
The look he’s giving my golden girl has a vicious snarl escaping me. “Fuck. No.”
He feigns ignorance. “What?”
“You’re not using her to get to him. Over my dead body,” I spit.
Braden jumps out of his seat, the lines of his body brutally hard. “You want to use my daughter as bait? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Alec blinks slowly, calmly. Braden bares his teeth. “Get out. We’ll be fine without you.”
Tinsley shifts in my arms, pulling away slightly. It’s too fucking far. I curl my fingers into my palms to keep from yanking her right back.
“What do you need me to do?” she asks on an exhale.
No. My hand uncurls, reaching out, the tips of my fingers turning her face toward me. I feel the violence swimming in my eyes, but she bats it away as if it doesn’t mean anything to her.
“You are not getting involved in this,” I snap.
Her stare tightens, lips flattening. “I’malreadyinvolved. This is my decision. Not yours.”
“You’re wrong. I’ll do everything I can to keep you away from this.”
She leans in, close enough our noses touch, and growls, “Try it.”
“Tinsley, you know better than this,” Braden cuts in.
Her gaze lingers on mine for a few more seconds before she turns harshly in my arms, facing her father with a spine of steel. “I’ve never let others make my decisions for me, and I’m not starting now. I don’t need either of you to give me permission to do this. I’m going to do it anyway, and you’re either going to accept that or continue to be stubborn assholes about it. Either way, you’renottelling me what to do.”
Is it wrong that my cock is hard right now? Fucking hell, I’ve always liked her fire. But this isn’t a simple fire. This is an inferno raging inside of her with nowhere to go but out, aimed at me and her father and anyone daring to tell her no. I welcome the burn with open arms, knowing she’ll be the one healing me afterward.
It goes against everything inside of me to let her do this. To sit back and watch as she willingly puts herself into danger. But it’s either give her what she wants or lock her up so she has no choice but to let the idea go. I would never cage her, so that leaves me with no choice but to agree. To risk her well-being with the hope of putting an end to this sick fuck’s attempts at taking what’s mine.
I’m naturally a selfish prick, and I can’t pretend letting her have her way doesn’t benefit me, even slightly. If only the risk wasn’t so steep.
I look past her at Alec. “Tell me what you want her to do.”
* * *
The police lingerin the hallway an hour later.
Alec is gone, having disappeared after laying out his picture-perfect plan for us. It’s well thought out for him but leaves too much room for error in regard to Tinsley. If everything goes the way he wants it to, she will be in danger for minutes before we intervene and get her out of harm’s way. My head throbs, a million negative outcomes tearing at my mind.
My father stands alone at the edge of my bed, worry creasing his forehead as he waits for me to speak. He wants answers. Ones I won’t give him. He refuses to let me speak with the police on my own, and that complicates things. Forces me to involve him even slightly.
Where Braden has a more curved moral code, my father’s is pin straight. He’s clean where Braden’s dirty and I’m filthy. I can’t involve him in what we have planned. Not even Braden has been pulled as deeply into the plan as I have. Despite everything that’s happened between us, I won’t risk either my father’s honour or Tinsley’s over this. Mine would never forgive himself, nor me, for what I want to do. What I’ve already promised my beast we’ll do.
