I don’t respond.I can’t.My pulse is hammering.“I’m going to break your fucking ribs.”
Travis lowers his voice.“I doubt she’s made of glass.You’re not the same without her.If you think keeping her locked in this house is protecting her, you’re lying to yourself.”
I push Lindy off me as gently as I can before I lose it.I rush Travis, pinning his back to my fridge.He doesn’t struggle.“She isn’t locked anywhere.She can walk out the fucking door any time she wants.”Lindy’s breath is on my neck, but I don’t turn around.
“I’ve got girls in holding who won’t talk until I show them a photo of this piece of shit’s dead body,” he grits.“I wouldn’t ask if there was another way.”
“Cassius,” she touches my forearm, pulling me around to face her.“Sit back down.”She tugs me to the couch and I slump down.“I’m going to make Travis that espresso.”She heads back into the kitchen.Twenty minutes later, after my wife caffeinates him, my anger is right where she left it.Travis walks past me to the door, leaving the folder behind.
“Let me know by tomorrow.”
He’s turning the handle when Lindy’s voice breaks the quiet.“I’ll do it.”
Travis turns, but I don’t.
“You will not be a pawn,” I say to her without looking away from the door.
“She already said yes, Cassius.Maybe you should trust her to know what she can handle.”
The next second, Travis is slammed against the wall, my forearm pressing into his throat, folder fluttering to the floor.This fucker never learns.I understand the agreement.I understand my role.What I think he’s forgotten is, I don’t answer to him.Uncle Leven, Adrian, the other Accord members, they can get me targets from anywhere.Travis is replaceable, and will be replaced if he doesn’t stop acting like I’m an attack dog he can unleash whenever he wants.
“Don’t.You.Fucking.Speak to her, speak about her.”He doesn’t fight me.He knew exactly what he was risking the second he opened his dumbass mouth.Especially after already provoking me before.
Lindy’s voice again, “Cassius?—”
I push off him hard enough to make the wall groan and round on her.
Her eyes are wide but unflinching.“You can trust me?—”
“This isn’t about trust,” I say.“I willnotbring you around a man like him.”
Travis straightens, rubbing his neck, still catching his breath.“It’s not madness if it works.”
Lindy turns to him now, a fire in her eyes that I’ve only seen a handful of times during training sessions.“You,” she stabs his chest with her index finger.“Need to shut the fuck up.”
He does.
“I will not survive losing you,” I say to her, stroking her cheek with the back of my hand.And then I fixate on him again, “The world won’t survive it, Travis.”
Travis lifts his hands in mock surrender, backing toward the door.“I’ll wait to hear from you,” he says carefully, eyes still on me.“And if you pass, I’ll take it on.”His gaze flicks to her.“Melinda, thank you for that delicious espresso.I see why he’s so tightly wound.”
I should let him.Make him carry what I carry.Instead, muscle memory stands up.I was built to take the cuts so my brothers didn’t have to; apparently it extends to Travis.
The door clicks shut behind him.Silence stretches, thick and humming.She disappears upstairs for a while and I disappear to the basement and punch the living shit out of my bag making a mental note to print a picture of Travis’ stupid face and tape it to it.She’s by the kitchen when I return, barefoot, hair half-damp, wearing one of my shirts.
“I wasn’t agreeing tobebait,” she says quietly.
“I know.”
“If I can help, I want to.”
My throat is tight.I rake a hand through my hair, then cross to the counter where the folder fell.I don’t touch it.“I’ve been shot,” I say, voice low.“Stabbed.Burned.I’ve been hung upside down from chains in a rat-infested warehouse.And that doesn’t even cover a third of my scars.None of it scares me like the idea of you in a room with me while I track a mark.”
She doesn’t speak, doesn’t interrupt.
“This man isn’t just any target.He’s one of the top legs in the whole damn web.If he so much assuspectsyou’re not who you say you are, he will kill you just to prove he can.If he suspects that I’m theMachine, he will kill you for no other reason than you matter to me.”
“And if he doesn’t suspect?”
