“He did this to you?” Mr. Killough asked quietly.
I nodded.
“Don’t kill him... yet,” Mr. Killough said softly. Cillian spun toward us, but then his eyes widened as he took me in.
“Yes, sir,” he said, with an evil sort of smile I didn’t like seeing on him. I shivered.
Mr. Killough took a folding knife out of his pocket and opened it. I couldn’t help but flinch, and he gave me a sad smile. “Do you want me to do it?”
I nodded so hard I thought my head might roll off my shoulders, and he huffed out something like a laugh. He was quick as he slid the cool tip of the blade between my lips, and the line gave easily—the blade must be razor sharp.
“Thank you, Mr. Killough.” I rasped. My lips throbbed and I tried to raise my hand to touch my mouth, but he pushed it down.
“Oh, I think you can call me Sloan,” he murmured quietly. “Close your eyes.”
I did as he said and whimpered as he tugged the strands of plastic out of my skin. The pull of the line was awful and had my body confused and too hot. My dick throbbed and my stomach wanted to heave, and the room spun. Gentle hands grasped my shoulders when it was over, and after a few seconds the world stopped reeling.
“Vail. Then you can call me Vail.”
He smiled and leaned forward. I sat still as he stared at my mouth in a clinical, assessing way. Blood dribbled from my chin and distracted me. “I promise he’ll hurt.”
Unsure how I should respond to that, I stuttered out a thank-you that had my mouth throbbing with pain, and he ruffled my hair.
“That’s enough. You don’t have to talk right now.” He worked carefully to cut me free, and I was so grateful I threw my arms around him and gave him a hug when I could move again. I jittered my knees just to feel the joy of it and felt like maybe now I was going to have the breakdown that had been auspiciously absent earlier.
“I couldn’t move. I hated it. I hated it so much.”
He hugged me, and then I was being handed off. Sloan moved, and Rowen was all at once holding me. I knew they’d traded places, but to me, and with the way I was feeling as my heart raced a thousand miles an hour, it felt like magic.
Rowen buried his face against my neck, his beard tickling my skin in a pleasant, familiar way. His scent surrounded me and I moaned. There was the sound of a struggle nearby, and I was surprised to see Sloan and Cillian dragging Detective Cummins toward the door, forcing him to put weight on his injured leg. Someone had done something to his mouth because it was nothing but blood. He gargled a noise and it sounded wet. I almost gagged when my mind put together that they’d sliced him from jawbone to jawbone and his cheeks were hanging ragged. I looked away before I really did get ill.
Aspen came over and pressed a kiss to my forehead. He stared at me as if he had to assure himself I was in one piece, then nodded.
“We’ll be home late. Can I wake you when we get back?”
“I would be upset if you didn’t,” I said, wincing at how every word made my lips ache.
Then he was gone, too, and Rowen was urging me to my feet. My knees shook and it took his arm around my middle to stand steady.
“Thank you.”
“Ye’re my angel. Stop.”
“What is going on?”
Rowen let out a laugh that was more of a groan and told me about the Giordano men’s attack on Elio Folliero’s businesses as we walked out into the hall and down the stairs I vaguely recalled being dragged up quite a while ago. Apparently me getting caught up in the mess made it okay for him to speak to me about what was happening, or maybe he was just so happy to see me he’d forgotten to keep quiet, but either way, I was glad to not be in the dark. We were on the sidewalk blinking in the brightness of the late-afternoon sun before he stopped talking.
I sighed. “This is my fault.”
“Naw.” Rowen shook me around and grinned. “Ye have to walk with me faster than this. The cops will be here soon because of the ruckus we made, and we need to be gone.”
We rushed farther down the sidewalk. There weren’t many people on the street, thankfully, but one woman stared at me longer than I would have liked, and I wiped at my bloody chin with the back of my hand. There was a small red car down the block that Rowen led me to, and inside a man I didn’t know sat in the driver’s seat. When Rowen opened the door for me, I noted the driver was very young, probably still a teen, with black hair and warm brown eyes. Rowen must know the boy because he gave him a nod and put me in the back seat before he went around and got in on the other side. My body ached like I’d taken more of a beating than I had, and I let out a long breath.
“Go, go, feckin’ hell,” Rowen said, slapping the back of the driver’s seat, and the car lurched into a thin stream of traffic.
I wasn’t happy until Rowen’s arms were around me again. He buckled my seat belt, and I laughed weakly. “Thank you for coming for me. I worried that since I went off on my own, no one would want to... come find me. Everyone kept telling me to be careful.”
“I’ll always come for ye,” Rowen said with more conviction than I’d expected. I leaned against him and lost myself in his warmth. The sun gleamed on his red hair and I found myself staring, searching for the gold in the strands.
