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Julian’s staring at the two of us, listening to every word.
“Dax, please.”
He glances at me, then back to Julian. A vein throbs in his temple and his jaw is set solid.
“I can’t share this asshole’s blood, Rose.” He sucks in a breath, his eyes growing wide as he trains them on Julian. They’re dark, darker than I’ve ever seen them. Intent on target. Like a killer. “I can’t be anything like him.”
“You’re not!” I cry, twisting my wrists in the tie until warm stickiness drips into my palms. I need to hold him. I need to show him that I know he’s nothing like Julian, blood or not.
“Jessica?”
“Don’t fucking say her name!” Dax roars at Julian as he stares at Dax like he’s seeing him for the first time.
“The Jessica I knew was never pregnant. And she wasn’t Jessica Silver,” Julian says.
But the narrowing of Julian’s eyes as he studies Dax’s face gives away his uncertainty. Despite all the blood, it’s there. The blond hair. The height. The strong jawline.
Dax looks like his father.
The man he hates.
He looks like Julian Young.
“She would use my grandmother’s maiden name when she went out. She said she only attracted pricks after her money if she told them she was a Silver,” Dax spits.
Julian’s eyes bug in his head before he recovers. Then slowly he begins to laugh. And it’s a sound that will haunt me. Worse than any crazed laugh of any horror movie I’ve watched. The sound of true evil. “That money… thatanonymousfucking money. She was a fucking Silver?” Julian continues to laugh, distorting his bloody face further. “I would have left her for nothing. If only they’d waited.”
“You won’t be laughing when your brains are on the bottom of my shoes.” Dax keeps the gun perfectly aimed.
“Put the gun down.”
I glance at the stranger who appeared earlier. The one who knew my name. The one Dax seemed to recognise. The one whose gun was aimed at Julian but is now pointed at Dax.
“Listen to him,” I plead, pressing my lips to Dax’s throat, and squeezing my eyes shut as I kiss his skin. “Please, Dax. We can talk about everything. Don’t make me go home alone.” His neck relaxes a little with my contact, and he swallows, setting the movement flowing past my lips as I kiss him again.
“Step back, Rose,” the stranger says.
I shake my head, my eyes burning. “Why? So you can shoot him?” I move closer to Dax, pressing myself against his chest, my lungs burning as I suck in the night air. “You’ll have to shoot me too.”
I turn my attention back to Dax, my lips grazing his cheek as I speak to him. “Put the gun down. You’re nothing like him. You willneverbe anything like him.” I move back to study Dax’s face. He’s still staring at Julian, his nostrils flaring as Julian continues to laugh.
“You’re no son of mine,” Julian finally snorts, his laughter ending abruptly. “I’ve already got one son who can’t shoot a gun to save his ass. I wouldn’t be cursed enough to have two. If you were mine, you’d have pulled that trigger by now.”
Dax stiffens.
“Never were able to finish a job, were you? Not when you almost had me three years ago. And not now, either.” Julian spits a globule of blood and what looks like a tooth out onto the ground. “Tell you what. I’ll let her live.” He looks at me. “I’ll let her and your sister live. Myactualson seems to like her. Idiot thinks he kept it a secret, but I know what goes on. Kind of poetic, really. He falls for her. I take your business. She won’t be able to handle it all once you’re locked up again. She’ll sign it over to me faster than your mom could spread her legs.”
“You bastard! I’ll kill you!”
I use my body to hold Dax back as fury erupts from him like a fireball.
“Dax.” I struggle, forcing myself in front of his eyeline so he can’t aim the gun. “Dax.”
He finally focuses on me.
Light blue meets deep brown.
Time stalls as I soak up the pain in his eyes. If I take away as much as I can, pull it away, like a magnet. Draw it to me. Then maybe he won’t look so broken.
