“Don’t come any closer,” she warned. “I will shoot.”
“I’m not here to hurt you.” Fi slowly held up her hands, showing that she had no weapon. “Your mama sent me to find you.”
“M-mama?” Lillian whispered. “I-I don’t understand.”
“My name is Fiona.” With her raised hand, she yanked off her cap and wig, letting her hair tumble free. “I work with a female investigative society. Mrs. O’Malley hired us to look for you. She is very worried and wants you to come home.”
Lillian’s bottom lip trembled.
The lip, Fi saw with a surge of anger, was swollen and cut. It was accompanied by a large bruise on the girl’s cheek.
“I can’t,” Lillian said, her voice cracking. “The things I’ve done—I’m too ashamed. I thought I was helping ordinary folk like me. Thought I was doing something noble. I never wanted to hurt anyone… But now it is too late.”
“It isn’t too late,” Fi said firmly. “Whatever Wilkes has done to you or made you do, you are safe now. Come with me.”
The gun wavered in Lillian’s hand.
“I will never be safe. Nor will Mama.” A tear trickled down Lillian’s cheek; she tightened her grip on the weapon. “Tell her…tell her I’m sorry. You have to go now.”
“I am not leaving without you—”
A door behind Lillian opened, and Wilkes stormed in.
“I told you to get the carriage ready, you useless bitch…”
Wilkes froze, spotting Fiona.
At the same time, a deep, familiar voice shouted, “Fiona, watch out!”
Hawk?
She pivoted and saw her husband running toward her. He tackled her to the ground just as a shot exploded. Splinters of wood rained over them. Fi had an instant to glimpse Hawk’s stormy expression before he rolled off her and onto his feet.
“Stay down,” he roared.
Before she could respond, he whipped out his pistol, aiming at the carriage as it barreled past. Lillian was handling the reins, Wilkes yelling at her to drive faster as he reloaded his weapon.
“No,” Fi gasped. “You’ll hit her.”
She jumped up, grabbing Hawk’s arm just as he fired. The shot went wide. The carriage sped through the courtyard, racing away. When her husband turned to face her, the rage on his face caused her to stumble back.
“I can explain,” she said weakly.
“It had better be a bloody good explanation,” he said with menacing calm.
Thirty-Five
Bridling his emotions, Hawk tried to focus on the meeting taking place in Swinburne’s carriage. He shared a bench with Trent, facing Swinburne and Sterling. Hawk’s famed powers of concentration were compromised by Fiona’s presence in his own carriage several yards away. His blood simmered; he had to shut down his emotions. To let numbness take over so that he would not lose his godforsaken mind.
“We finally have the bastards,” Sterling said with satisfaction.
Four members of the Sherwood gang had been captured and carted away by the police.
“Not all of them,” Hawk said grimly. “Wilkes and several of his accomplices escaped.”
The image flashed of Wilkes aiming a pistol at Fiona. Of Fiona interfering when Hawk tried to shoot the escaping villains. In the moments afterward, she’d given him a brief and crazed explanation: the Society of Angels was, in reality, a secret investigative society. She and the other Angels had been hired to find Wilkes’s light-skirt, who Fiona claimed was a “victim” of abuse.
The pressure shot up in Hawk’s veins; his temples pounded.
