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I hear my heartbeat in my ears as I stare at him. Alec slows and blows out a loud, exaggerated breath.
“You brought toys, Scowls,” he praises.
Noah ignores him. The moonlight gleams off his knuckles. Off the brass that now wraps around them. I quickly close the distance between us and fold my fingers over the brass knuckles, drawing a hiss from his throat when our skin touches. His muscles are bunched, preparing to strike. I won’t tell him to back off, but this plan has never been more important than him.
“I’m right here, Noah. And I’m not afraid of you,” I whisper. His expression shudders. “Take your power back.”
He searches my eyes for something, seeming to find it a beat later. My confidence in him? My love? Regardless of what it is, it seems to solidify something inside of him.
“I love you,” I murmur.
His brown eyes flare, ablaze with unwavering devotion to me. When he speaks, his words steal my every thought.
“I love you, Golden Girl.”
Frozen with disbelief, I go limp as he lifts our hands to his mouth. He presses a ragged, rough kiss to my fingers before dropping them. With a lingering look at the marks on my chin, he curls his lip and turns to Cole.
Subconsciously, I give him space, drifting back into the shadows. I’m not scared of him or what he’s about to do. He’s still inside of himself somewhere. I accept that he needs this moment. For him, for me, for my parents, and what could have been our future if we hadn’t succeeded tonight.
I’m ready to watch his darkness chew Cole up with venomous fangs and spit him out on the ground. Then, when it’s done, I’ll beg it to play with me. To coax mine from the shadows and have him repeat those three words to me over and over again until I no longer fear they were just a figment of my imagination.
The air chills when Cole sobs for mercy. He broke so easily that it feels unjust. Less satisfying. His wide-eyed gaze locks onto Noah’s dark, menacing stare, searching for a sliver of mercy that doesn’t exist. Seemingly accepting what’s coming, Cole closes his eyes and drops his chin to his chest.
He still screams when Noah drives the brass knuckles into his jaw, one swing after the other. His head snaps side to side with the blows. Every punch is a testament to Noah’s anger and pain. The fear that he was shackled with the past few weeks. Looking over his shoulder, second-guessing everyone everywhere.
The crunch of bone turns my stomach, and I look away when Cole’s nose contorts, no longer resembling a nose at all. Alec steps beside me as blood sprays across the dirt, shimmering in the moonlight. Cole’s cries become softer with each strike of Noah’s fist until they’re broken whispers.
“You asked for this, Cole. Every time you thought about her. Every time you stepped outside in search of her. When you hurt her. This is what was coming for you the entire time. Me and you. An inescapable end,” Noah snarls. His arm falls to his side. Blood drips from the knuckles, soaking into the dirt. The brass hits the ground a beat later.
Cole’s left eye is swollen shut, the corner of it bleeding. When I lower my gaze, I sway at the gruesome state of his face. His lips are split, broken, and when he tries to speak, his words are garbled.
Noah’s chuckle is dark, ruthless. Despite the scene around us, my belly swoops at the sound of it. God, my head is fucked up.
“I should kill you.”
“Should but won’t,” Alec interrupts. He begins to clap, turning this into a bigger spectacle than it already is. “Are you satisfied? Because I’m not. Not even close.”
Noah looks at him over his shoulder, the storm breaking in his eyes. “Do you plan to kill him?”
“It’s time for you to go.”
I tense. Noah senses my discomfort and flicks his stare to me but speaks to Alec. “You’re dismissing us?”
“It’s been a pleasure, but we don’t particularly like witnesses.”
“We?” I echo.
“Don’t look so offended, sweetheart,” Alec says with a quirk of his lips. His gaze remains icy. “Our time together has been a highlight in my life, but you had to know you weren’t going to be here much longer than this. We both held up our ends of the deal. You brought him to me, and I helped you get your revenge.”
Noah’s face is drawn taut, like a rubber band stretched to its limits. A dangerous edge hovers around him. “Just make sure he never gets near us again.”
Alec lifts his pinky, extending it toward us. “Want me to pinky promise?”
“We don’t exist to you once we leave here,” Noah warns. He comes to my side and hovers there, guarding me. I step into him, resting my hand on his chest. “And you don’t exist to us.”
“You say the prettiest things, Noah. But you wouldn’t be allowed to walk out of here right now if I didn’t plan on forgetting about your existence in the next ten seconds. So, please.” He waves toward the barn door and stares down at Cole. “Iwouldlike to play with him a little before he passes out from blood loss. So . . .”
I shake my head, my emotions so jumbled from today that I almost laugh from the nonchalance with which Alec regards this entire situation. It’s as if this is normal for him, and that makes him that much more dangerous.
