I can still feel it—the way those steel bands locked me in place and kept me from killing the eejit.
And I feel like that now.
There's a metaphorical band of steel wrapped around me, holding me back from running after Bianca and dragging her back to safety.
But I did that once, and it didn't fucking work.
I told her who Crowning was and what he'd do to her. But she was too wedded to her own sense of propriety, and maybe too scared of me, to trust a word I said.
I understand now that that method won't work a second time.
So I wait. And I watch.
I wonder if she'll tell Crowning that I took her. If she'll spin some story about being kidnapped, giving him a reason to retaliate.
When there's no blowback—no message to Seamus, no bombs at the warehouse, no attacks in the middle of the night—I realize she didn't.
She stuck to her story. Whatever lie she told him, it held. And now I wonder if the bastard's giving her shite about where she's been.
I pace the cabin and pull up my footage of her—only to realize the screen's gone black.
Why can't I see into her room anymore?
Panic slices through me, sharp and instant. I stab at the buttons, rewind the feed, and then I see her—glaring directly at the camera before yanking the damn thing down and pointing it at the empty room.
Goddamn it.
She's too smart for her own fucking good.
I narrow my eyes at the dead screen and shake my head. Clever lass thinks she's won, but that’s not the only way I have to watch her. And I don't give up that easily.
I look back at my last text to her. She read it but didn’t respond. She didn’t block me, and she didn’t tell Crowning what happened to her.
Does she need to see for herself, then? Does she need to watch him show his true colors before she'll believe me?
I blow out a breath and drag a hand over my shaved head. Fine. I know the ins and outs of her neighborhood like the back of my hand—I've been there so many times I could walk it blindfolded. And I happen to know there's an apartment available, half a block from where she lives.
I pack up my things, and I book it.
Chapter Eighteen
Bianca
“You've hardly touchedyour food, Bianca,” Marcus says, frowning at me.
He's been cold and distant since I came home. I'm not sure what I expected. Part of me wonders—how would he react if I told him where I really was? What would he do?
Was he this cold and distantbeforeI left, and I’m only seeing it now?
I told him I needed at least a day or two before I went through with my plan to move in with him, and he agreed… quickly.Tooquickly.
“I didn't spend a hundred pounds on a meal for you only to have you pick at it.”
“Well, then maybe you shouldn't question every calorie Iput between my lips,” I snap back, and his brows rise before his eyes narrow on me.
“Is that the tone of voice you take with your future husband?” he says in a low drawl, reserved as always, cold and angry.
I swallow hard.
