Everything she said is right, but…we’re not whole. Not yet.
Something unbreakable.
My Daddy was right all along.
There’s no out of this life. It’s who we are. Empires rise and empires fall…
Dec is a pawn. Malek’s a knight. Daddy…obviously. But…Seven’s right. I did survive. The queen is still standing on the board.
…and the Queen will stand at the end of it all…
CHAPTER 20
The Pawn
The last three days have been harder on me than I’ve put off. I did it for a reason. I don’t want her to think about anything other than what it’s gonna take to stand on her own two feet again. Only problem with that, is that after a couple days of it, I felt like my ever-supportive presence wasn’t gonna be enough to bring her back from the dark place she’s found herself in. So…I called in backup. And I think it worked. She’s got a relationship with Seven that none of us men will ever understand. We’re not lassies. And we’re not as sensitive to what the good Lord blessed women with. It’s a necessary separateness inside of us that can’t be substituted. I get that. I really do.
So, before I summoned the cavalry, I spent my time in the bat cave whenever it was obvious that Bridget wanted to be left alone. She has a need to feel safe. Dan said he’d put the right people away…but I’m not so convinced. I’ve been digging through everything we have, trying to find anything I might have missed while I’d been sleuthing her extracurricular activities, and then trying to find her when things went to shite.
She’s right to feel unsafe.Because the threat is still out there.
Ace and Jonas had shook hands to push deals far beyond Irish soil, and most of it was squashed before we made moves to literally blow everything to the sky last year…but aside from collapsing trade lines and paying off any houses that supported those two traitorous fucks…the real threat remained solid. Gunsand blow aren’t the bigger moneymakers anymore. The skin trade was pushed just as far.
No wonder they were so quick to let the other deals go with smiles on their faces.They all had their hands in this from the jump. And we didn’t realize it because Callum Byrne would have never lowered himself to selling human beings for pleasure.
Bridget had finally decided to sleep inourbed after Seven got her cleaned up and talked her into eating real food. It’s almost four in the morning, and I wish I could say it was easy…pressing myself close and holding her all night. I’m having trouble understanding my boundaries right now, and that’s something being a nerd can’t fix. So…I’m making myself useful and digging a little deeper to connect anything I can find to get us all back on track.
I rubbed my eyes, slipping my fingers under my glasses while I leaned back in my chair and sighed. I didn’t notice I wasn’t alone.
“Well…you don’t have the excuse that it’s because my impressive B.O. was too tough to handle. I don’t think I can get any cleaner without scrubbing off layers of skin.” Bridget stood in the doorway, wearing nothing but one of my oversized t-shirts. I smirked at her.
“Malek was just givin’ you shit. You smelled fine.”
“I’m gonna put a gold star on your boyfriend card. I most certainly didnotsmell fine. I’m sorry.”
She could honestly smell like hot garbage juice, and I’d still eat her with a rusty spoon. Especially now. I swiveled my chair and smiled softly, opening my arms for her. Her pale legs were glowing in the computer light while she padded over and eased onto my knee. I dunno how to ask permission without actually asking it…I wanna bury my face into her neck and exist there until she gets sick of me…but I’m not sure what’s okay.
“Don’t ever apologize for bein’human, Bridge.I’msorry…for callin’ them. Maybe it was too soon.”
“No. It’s exactly what I needed.” I guess she sensed my unease. She cradled my head into her arms and lowered it to her chest, tugging my hair tie out and weaving her long fingers through my waves. “It’s alright. I’m not gonna break.”
Thank fuck.
My arms tightened around her, and I breathed long and slow, closing my eyes while my forehead rested on her sternum. “You know how hard it is, love? Tryin’ not to go find people to hack apart just because I have to see you like this?”
“Oh, I wasn’t aware we needed a reason. Don’t the psycho card cover all that?”
I snorted into her chest. “Murderer’s insurance?”
“Exactly.”
We both snickered, but it got quiet and…sometimes quiet is all I’ve got. I don’t know what to say. What todohere. “You know I’ll never rush you, right?”
“I know. I don’t think that’s what you’re doing. I didn’t know how much I needed to talk to her. To hear Malek’s regularly-scheduled bullshit. You did it right, Dec.”
“Okay,” I breathed, turning my head to listen to her heartbeat.
“What’s all this?”
