“What have you done?” Rafael growled, his eyes wide. He looked around, his eyes darting to his men, scattered and dead or dying. We had him. One pathetic flesh wound and he floundered.
“Die, you prick,” Violet snarled at him as I pulled her to me, my arm wrapping around her shoulders.
He was a pathetic man. Under all his blather and showmanship, he was just pathetic. Because when we stepped further away from him, uncornering the knobhead, he stumbled toward the door, bending to scoop up his gun as he did, waving it without aim as his eyes flittered about.
We watched him back his way to the door, stiff and scared. Scared. Rafael was scared. Injured and afraid.
It was a calm moment, strangely. We all just stared at each other, trying to catch our breaths, letting the events unfold and settle over our bones. Neither myself nor Violet tried to make another move on him. Rafael dropped his gun wielding arm.
My heart pounded, pulse fuzzy in my ears.
Rafe looked between us, at his dying men on the floor, and left.
He left.
He walked out of the fucking room, leaving the destruction in his wake, turning on his heel and letting the door swing shut behind him. I gaped at the open doorway for a second before dashing over and barricading it, wedging a chair under the handle so he couldn’t return. We needed a fucking second before he barreled in with more men, more weapons.
I gave myself a moment, a few deep breaths, before turning back to the room. I crashed over to Violet, my eyes only for her, and scooped her up, holding her tight as her legs wrapped around me. At fucking last, we were touching unbidden, together. We embraced like the world didn’t exist, like it was only us. I ran my hands up and down her spine; she sighed into my neck, breathing me in and laying gentle kisses wherever she could reach. Wetness landed on my skin as she cried against me.
Weeks without her. Weeks wondering if she was alive, if it was better she was dead because she might be under Rafael’s thumb. Did she have another huge chunk of trauma to unpack? Did I?
“Fuck, I love you,” I groaned into her neck, breathing her in. She did not smell fresh, but that mattered not a tiny bit. It was her. Mine. Whole enough. I squeezed, and she sighed, laying a kiss on my cheek.
Nothing was better than this, having her in my arms. My entire body relaxed; my soul fucking settled. This was what I needed. Always. Together we were unstoppable.
There wasn’t a thing in this world I wouldn’t do to spend another second with her. One more kiss. Touch. I love you. She was my Violet.
“Theo…” she sighed, stroking my cheek. Our noses brushed as we drowned in each other.
“This is probably the foulest thing I’ve ever seen,” our mother’s voice echoed out. I’d almost fucking forgotten she was here.
Violet and I looked at each other, still nose to nose, our eyes ablaze with the exact same thoughts. What was another one? It passed between us wordless and cold, determined.
Slowly, Violet slid off me, her legs settling to the floor a little jellylike. She twisted the knife in her palm and gave me a nod before turning to Mother. So fucking beautiful when she was all murderous. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again; they made a big fucking mistake in not training her in this life. She was a natural.
“Any other day and I’d probably have a speech for you about how terrible a mother you are,” she said, taking long steps around the table to where our mother had sat her ass back down, Margaret’s head discarded somewhere else. “But you just mean so absolutely little to me I don’t care to.”
Mother watched her eldest daughter arrive at her side, didn’t turn her head when Violet stepped behind her and took a deep breath.
“Nothing to say for yourself?” I asked, arousal at Violet’s vicious nature making my voice thicken.
Mother sniffed, and Violet yanked the woman’s head back and sliced through her neck, not even waiting until she gurgled and slumped forward before walking away, striding around the table to reach Connor. There, she untied his other arm and stood back, looking at our uncle as he failed to move. Since Amy had… he hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken. It had been easy to forget he was even there.
Through every fight and shout, through gunshots and knife wounds, Connor remained frozen, his void eyes on Amy’s.
There was so much damn destruction here. Margaret’s mangled corpse still lay on the table. Amaryllis was slumped back with a bullet hole through her head. Mother took her final gushing heartbeats through the slice in her neck. That fucker of a guard Gabe was hopefully dead in the corner, a puddle of dark blood around his body.
“Theo, what are we going to do?” Violet asked me, coming over and taking my hand. “Everyone…”
“Not all bad,” I said, squeezing her palm. “Not all bad. We’ll work it out. I don’t know—”
Without a word or a sound, Connor stood up and walked over, and together, the three of us surveyed it all. He was silent, but his breathing was so ragged and uneven, his shoulders slumped.
We had another one of those beats, another heavy moment when it felt like the world was stuck mid-tick, like the cogs had paused. Just a second. A flash. A turn.
“What do you think we should do no—” Violet started to ask, but yelped when Connor lunged for her and snatched her knife, shoving her back into me in the process. She stumbled as I caught her, my hands on her shoulders.
“What are you…?” I yelled in surprise, ready to defend or protect or whatever the fuck else. I may have been exhausted, but there was always more in the tank.
