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When my stomach knotted, my head nodded. The moment my eyes fell to the room, Tristan seemed to panic. The sink had recently been used and the kettle still warming as I walked by it. I crossed over to the other side of the kitchen. Shutting her cutlery drawer, I stole a glance back at the blonde.
“She thinks someone did it,” I drawled. His body tensed, and my gaze scanned lazily over him. “Did she tell you that while you were helping out?”
His lips parted, and then Tristan hardened all over again. Watching him now, maybe I saw what Bridget saw in him. The little prick was still newly minted, never damaged by the world but still wearing a chip on his shoulder. When you were that young, that naïve, ignorance was your excuse for everything— for women like Birdie, at least. Watching him struggle for a reasonable response when there was none, I saw Tristan in the light Bridget refused to acknowledge.
The kid was dangerous.
Tristan shifted his footing. “She hit her head.”
“Cops think someone else was there as well.” The quick quip stiffened him again. Cocking my head to the side, I dared a step forward. “They questioned you, didn’t they?”
“What did you say your name was?”
“They must have had something to drive all the way across town for some shit like you.”
There was no mistaking the anger that flashed over him. The kid wanted a fight, wanted the snarl in my chest. He wanted a chance to finish what he had intended to start at the café, wanted to tell me the real reason he had followed her date into the bathroom, but clenched teeth kept his fists to his side.
He wouldn’t give the truth up— not that easily.
They never do.
“It’s time for you to go.” My chuckle darkened his skin, pushed the kid forward. “You want me to call the cops?”
When that thing ran through me, I was sure he could see it. This beast wanted to peel its way out of my chest at the first sign of a threat. It wanted me to tear forward, to show Tristan the same truth I showed Josh that night. Bridget wasmyresponsibility. The pain, the pleasure, the protection— I was meant to be the source of all of it. But the urge to remind him of the consequences of battle only reminded me of my own.
Another fight only gave Birdie another reason to hate me.
Another fight would mean another lie, and I wasn’t ready to do that to her.
She deserved something better, didn’t she? Wasn’t that the whole point of being here?
Frustration hissed through my teeth, and I took one last look at the kitchen. If I was the man she deserved to be with, the one she should have been with, I wouldn’t break this fuck’s nose. I wouldn’t leave her friend bleeding and broken on her floor, and for once, I was going to try to give Birdie the thing she needed most. I’d get back in my car and I’d wait for her— all fucking night if I had to.
“Wouldn’t want that.” The snarl snapped him upright, but as I approached, even that faltered. The kid was tensed, scared of something, but when pride didn’t soothe this thing, the hairs on my neck rose. Pausing by the door, I gave the kid one last glance. “Tell her I stopped by.”
Hindsight would make that awful night painfully clear. I wasn’t strong enough to place the look of fear in Tristan’s eyes, wasn’t able to recognize the roses set out for her on the counter, or the blade missing from her cutlery drawer. I wasn’t able to identify any of it, but when that sound came, there was no mistaking it.
Not when I’d heard it before.
Not when it haunted every piece of me.
I was still wrapped in the dark as I made my way through the hallway and towards the front door. The only plan I had was to wait for her out on the street, but as I made my way past the bedroom door, everything changed. I heard the same muffled cry that had been playing in my head on repeat since that night at the party and everything froze.
She was here.
And she was in danger.
I wouldn’t pause to look behind me. Once panic took over my system, I didn’t bother to watch the boy take the second path into her bedroom. My shoulder slammed against the closed door with such force that the fucking thing nearly splintered beneath me, but when I finally saw her, even that didn’t matter. Pressed against the far wall, Birdie sat in the chair her grandmother gave her, arms taped behind her as she clawed to lean forward. Someone had bound her legs, her arms, her flawless lips, and the dark marks had returned. The only reason she’d been able to cry out for me was because she’d managed to sneak an arm free, had torn the tape from her mouth, but before another cry could come, my attention drifted to the man who had entered from her en suite.
The one I should have put a fucking bullet through when I had a chance.
The one who I should have known better than to ignore.
“Michael, don’t—”
Tristan jerked forward, tugging her into his body as his eyes locked on me. “Don’t fucking move!”
“Tristan, this isn’t—”
