Page 101 of The Villain

“A stupid fucking plan,” I scowled. “What were you thinking going into Bianchi’s territory? Anything and everything could have gone wrong.”

“I wasthinking,” he said through gritted teeth as he passed a slow driver on the right with a jerk of the wheel, “that this was my chance to get in front of Bianchi and make him pay for ordering the hit on you. I wasn’t about to run home knowing he was still out there.” He glanced at me, eyes bright. “No one tries to kill my man and live.”

A shiver ran down my spine. “Dev.”

“We’re a team.” He slammed the heel of his palm on the steering wheel. “We protect each other.”

I reached for his hand and linked our fingers together. I didn’t want to feel this moved by his declaration, but fuck, I loved this man. “You’re right. A team.”

He squeezed my fingers. “And it all worked out anyway. Because I’m good at being evil.”

“I saw you put that knife in your sneaker, and I still didn’t see that coming.”

“Like I was going to kneel for that bozo.”

“Bozo,” I repeated with a laugh. “I don’t know the last time I heard that word.”

He grinned. “It’s a good one, right?”

“Cretin.”

“Twerp.”

“Nincompoop.”

I laughed harder, and pain shot through my side, so I choked off a gasp. “Shit, stop. Don’t make me laugh.”

He made a zipping motion across his lips, and I had to look away so I didn’t laugh again.

I dozed off at some point and woke to a hand squeezing my thigh.

“We’re close,” Devlin said.

As we drove down our road, I pulled down the sun visor to get a look at myself in the mirror. I needed to know what kind of reaction we’d get. I immediately grimaced as I got a look at myself. Fuck, I looked terrible. Sallow skin, split lip, bruising all over the left side of my face, and dark circles below my eyes. This was going to be hell.

I rubbed my eyes and saw the blurry form of our front gates. I mumbled the code to Devlin, who typed it in. As soon as the gate began to slide open, the front door of Frank burst open and a figure sprinted toward our car.

It felt like years ago that I’d had a similar view, when Jace had burst out of the doors armed with a knife, ready to kill Devlin. Now he hauled ass, sans knife, but with the same angry determination. Rhys followed at a much slower pace, and behind him more of the crew spilled out of the house to greet us.

Jace reached our car in record time, because he was a fast little shit, and Devlin had to slam on the brakes just as Jace smacked his palms on the hood of the car.

“Where have you been?” he roared. But when he caught sight of me through the windshield, his anger morphed into horror. “What the fuck happened to you?” He straightened and looked at Devlin. “You too! What the hell?”

Devlin looked better than me, but still not great. He was pale, and his neck was bruised from that fucker nearly choking him to death.

I heaved a sigh and reached for the door. “Let’s deal with this. Then I want food, sleep, and a fuck. In that order.”

As I stepped out of the car, Jace was on me immediately. I stumbled, remembering too late that my one leg didn’t want to cooperate. He gasped and slipped his shoulder under my arm to keep me upright.

Rhys’s jaw worked as he stopped in front of me. “You could have called.”

“My phone is probably in a ditch somewhere,” I grunted as I tried to take a step using Jace as a crutch. “Trust me, I would have loved to tell you all about how I was bound in a basement about to be handed over to Paolo Bianchi like a piece of meat.”

Devlin came around the hood of the car to prop me up on the other side. “We need Dr. Bev.”

“Already texted her as soon as I got a look at Cian,” Rhys said.

“It’s all superficial,” I muttered.