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“Enough!” Raphael snaps. He shoves Finley toward the other thug, and she stumbles against the man, who immediately locks her into his arms and puts his gun to her head.
Raphael approaches me now. He yanks my head back by the roots of my hair, and with his other hand, he rests his blade on my throat.
The thought crosses my mind: I should’ve shot this little shit when I’d had the chance.
This is what happens when you show them a shred of mercy.
“What I want now,” Raphael says, “is to bleed you. Slowly. Painfully.”
His blade begins to pinch. I know he’s broken skin. I can feel the hot pain. I grit my teeth against it.
“Wait!” I hear Finley say, her voice pitchy, panicked. “I’ll give you what you want.”
The blade stills. I can’t breathe, afraid that the expansion of air in my throat will draw his blade in deeper.
“I’m listening,” Raphael says.
“Take me instead,” Finley says. “Please.”
Shards of ice in my chest. “No!” I shout.
Raphael retracts his blade. “Shut him up,” Raphael tells the thug, who shoves a dish towel in my mouth and nearly makes me gag on it. It tastes like soap and stale water.
Finley isn’t fighting anymore. She’s not trembling, either. Her voice sounds certain when she speaks again. “Take me with you. Let me be your wife. The way it should have been.”
Raphael balks. “You think I’m an idiot.”
“No, I think you’re kind. Kinder than all of this. This isn’t you, Raphael. This isn’t the man who gave me a heartfelt proposal.”
Raphael stares at her. I see those dumb, ice-blue eyes working. Thinking. “Release her,” he says.
The thug does. Finley stumbles forward.
“You’re only trying to save him,” Raphael accuses.
“Who, Archer?” Finley blinks at me now and then looks back at Raphael. “He’s a killer. A brute. Who took me against my will. Why would I want to be with someone like that?”
“So you wouldn’t care if I killed him?”
“I would care.” Finley goes up to Raphael now and moves her hands to either side of his face, gently coaxing him to look at her. “If you kill him, you’re no better than he is. He’s nothing but brute force. You’re better than that. You have real power.”
“Which is?”
“The capacity for mercy.”
Raphael takes her face in his hand. “And if I let your bodyguard live…you’ll be my little finch?”
“I’ll be anything you want me to be.”
“Prove it.”
Finley hesitates. Then, slowly, she inches forward and presses her lips to his.
Nothing will hurt more than this moment. Swallow this pain. Turn it to rage.
When they break, Raphael is smiling.
“Archer, you must be a cat,” he says. “Because you have nine lives.” Then he takes her by the hair and forces her to face me. “Say goodbye.”
