“Really stupid to show your face, Amauri,” Tomas replied.
Felix resisted the urge to reach through the bars and throttle the man. “Really fucking stupid of you to take my bride.”
Tomas raised his perfect eyebrows. “She came willingly.”
“Because you threatened her husband,” he snarled, fingers curling into tight fists. “What was she supposed to do? Let you shoot me?”
The man shrugged. “If she didn’t want to be with you, sure.”
“You really thought I forced her to be with me?” Felix swallowed a bitter taste in his mouth. It didn’t matter what anyone, let alone the Bowans, thought of him. All he cared about was his bride. “You don’t know anything about me. And you know even less about Dahlia if you thought for a second she’d let that happen.”
“Has she always been so…” Tomas made an all-encompassing sort of gesture.
Felix smirked. “Yeah, she has. Now are you going to let me in or am I going to have to start screaming her name?”
Tomas looked meaningfully down at the mass of glowing red dots on Felix’s chest. “You’re not exactly in a position to make demands, Amauri.”
“Then take me as your prisoner,” he offered. “I don’t give a fuck. Just take me to my bride.”
Tomas lost some of his aloofness. Brows furrowing, he said, “You’ve lost your mind. Just let her?—”
“Go? Never.” Felix took a step closer to the fence. His nose nearly touched the bars when he hissed, “I’ll give you the same deal I gave her. If you really want me to leave her alone, then you’re gonna have to shoot me. Aim for the head, fucker, because killing me is the only way to stop me.”
“You can’t seriously?—”
Whatever inane question Tomas had been about to ask was cut off when the front door to the Bowan house swung open behind him.
Felix’s attention snapped to Dahlia instantly. His heart stopped and restarted, its speed tripled as she sauntered down the steps and across the courtyard. The lights that ringed thehigh wall around the property gave her a golden halo as soft and perfect as the blonde curls on her head. Her broken heels tapped a quick rhythm on the pavement when she walked down the driveway. Holes had been torn in her tights and one shoulder of her blazer dress was torn, but she still somehow looked completely in control.
“Dahlia,” he choked out, gripping the bars hard enough to make his knuckles bleach.
“Hi, boogeyman.” Her voice was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. And the smile she gave him as she got closer? He’d never forget it.
“Guns down. No one points a gun at my daughter. Ever,” Alastair commanded from somewhere behind her. Felix barely spared the old man a glance as she strode up to the gate, her eyes locked with his.
Breathing harshly, he rasped, “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay,” she murmured just for him. “I promise, I’m okay. And I’m coming home.”
Tomas made a sound of deep confusion. “Dahlia, you can’t go with him. You just got here. You should stay and get to know your family.”
Dahlia turned sharply to give her new cousin a vicious smile Felix was all too familiar with. “Tomas, I know we just met and you seem like a lovely guy, but if you try and tell me what to do one more time, we’re going to have a fucking problem.”
Alastair’s voice carried across the courtyard again. “Let her go, Tomas. It’s fine. We’ve reached a deal.”
He looked like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but Tomas waved at the guard station.
Felix’s heart jumped into his throat as the gate vibrated under his hands and began to pull to one side. As it slowly opened, Dahlia turned to her new cousin and gestured for him to come closer.
He saw it coming long before Tomas did, but the poor guy really didn’t know Dahlia, so he couldn’t exactly blame him.
The punch was lightning fast, mean, and deadly in its accuracy. Blood gushed from Tomas’s nose as his head snapped back. Felix grinned at the crunch of bone and cartilage, his cock twitching with keen interest behind his fly.
“Fuck!” The man wheezed, his hands immediately clutching his mangled nose as he stooped over in pain. Going by the way Dahlia flexed her fingers, it was a devastating suckerpunch.
In a terrifyingly calm voice, she told him, “Now we’re even. But if youeverpoint a gun at my husband again, I’ll cut it off instead of breaking it. Clear?”
Tomas pressed his sleeve to his nose and nodded once, a gleam of respect making it through the pain in his eyes. In a nasally, muffled voice, he said, “Welcome to the family, I guess.”
