Chapter 32 #2
She thought of the stuffed lobster on the chair upstairs. “Huh?”
“Ya know.” He nudged her. “From Friends?”
When she only blinked, he rolled his eyes.
“Phoebe Buffay?” He donned a terrible falsetto.
“It's a known fact that lobsters fall in love and mate for life. You can actually see old lobster couples walking around their tank, holding claws.” He made a circle with each thumb and forefinger, linking them to imitate joined claws.
A hard seed of longing lodged beneath her heart.
Hew was certainly her lobster. Problem was—and despite everything they’d just done together—she wasn’t sure she was his.
“What are you doing watching, and memorizing,” she emphasized, “Friends? Isn’t that show about two decades too recent for you?”
He shrugged. “The seventies were better than all others when it comes to sitcoms. And M*A*S*H was the best show of all time; I won’t be acceptin’ any arguments to the contrary.
But Seinfeld and Friends definitely rank in the top ten and therefore deserve my time and attention.
” He pointed to her nose. “And don’t think I didn’t notice ya changed the subject. I was talkin’ about you and Hew and—”
He was cut off—thank goodness—when the familiar cadence of Hew’s boots sounded on the stairs. The instant Hew appeared on the second floor, Sabrina caught her breath.
Literally.
She’d read that phrase many times in books and had always thought it was hyperbole.
Then she’d met Hew.
When he entered a room, it was like the temperature changed. Like he sucked out all the air. Like he stopped time.
It was all that dark auburn hair paired with all that height and breadth. It was those sparkling green eyes paired with that lopsided smile. It was all that tan skin paired with that easy, athletic grace.
Graham elbowed her as Hew ambled toward them. “Close your mouth, darlin’, or you’ll start drawin’ flies.”
She scowled, but then caught her breath again when Hew automatically took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers.
He glanced between Sabrina and the big SEAL and lifted a thick eyebrow. “So what did I miss?”
“Nothing,” she was quick to say. Then, just as quickly, she asked Graham. “The Avengers have now assembled. What can I do to help?”
Graham’s teasing expression pulled back like a curtain, revealing a hard-set seriousness beneath. “Come with me.” He hitched his chin toward the stairs leading to the bottom floor.
She didn’t realize the Bat Cave door was wide open until her flip-flops landed on the last tread. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the gaping black throat was waiting to swallow her whole.
“Hang on.” Her stomach high-jumped into the back of her mouth as her feet stuttered. “Why do I have to go in there?”
Graham glanced over his shoulder. “’Cause that’s where Black Widow is.”
She bit her lip. “But I don’t—”
Hew draped a heavy arm around her shoulders. His breath was warm against her cheek. His voice was a velvet growl in her ear. “Ya got this. But say the word, and we’ll stop it before it starts.”
A part of her wanted to let him do exactly that. But a bigger part of her realized he was right.
She did have this.
She wasn’t the same wounded, wide-eyed woman who’d first walked through BKI’s front gates. She’d found her footing here. Found her voice and her courage here. Found herself here.
Found Hew.
Her shoulders were square and her chin was high as she marched across the shop, nodding to the men working at the bike lifts. But the moment she stepped into the Bat Cave, her bravado seeped out of her, leaving her skin prickling and her hair standing on end.
She didn’t realize she’d reached for Hew’s hand again until his warm, wide palm kissed her own and his long, strong fingers wrapped around hers.
That’s all it took.
Just his presence, just his touch, and she could take on the world.
Careful, the little voice cautioned. Because what happens when he’s gone?
If he ever goes, she mentally argued. There’s no guarantee he will.
They’d only gone a few feet inside when the heavy metal door rumbled behind them. When it closed with a solid-sounding thunk, it sealed them in the darkness and sealed out the sounds and the safety of the shop.
She blinked. Blinked again as she willed her eyes to adjust. When they finally did, she realized the tunnel wasn’t pitch dark. It was more like a shaft of shadows.
In those shadows…him. Standing beside a chair. Silent. Looming. Broad shoulders lit by the narrow beam of a flashlight.
Boss.
Tied to that chair…her. Chin up. Eyes glinting in the gloom. Sharp jaw and cruel mouth spotlighted by the beam.
Black Widow.
Sabrina flinched like a bolt of electrical current had hit her. Even bound, even beaten, the blonde still exuded menace.
Boss turned to them when they approached. She couldn’t see his eyes but could feel his attention on her face.
“We’ve gotten all we’ll get out of her.” His voice echoed before being swallowed by the curve of the tunnel. “It’s up to you what happens next.”
“Me?” Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You’re the one who suffered at her hands,” Hew said softly. “So ya get to decide her fate.”
Her mouth opened. No sound emerged. Then, when it did, it was jerky. “I…I don’t understand. I…I’m not—” She stopped and shook her head as she stared at Hew. “You knew this was what Graham wanted?”
He looked only mildly chagrined. “It was discussed.” She remembered Boss asking him to step into his office. “I said I couldn’t speak for ya. You’d have to speak for yourself.”
“Right.” She dipped her chin, although she wasn’t sure what she was agreeing to.
“What are her options?” Hew’s grip on her hand was firm, supportive as he asked the question.
“We hold Black Widow here,” Graham said, his voice flat. “Indefinitely. Or at least until we’re confident she’s no longer a threat to us.”
“I said I’m not—” Black Widow began.
“Shut up,” Boss’s voice snapped out, cold and dangerous. It reminded Sabrina of walking across a frozen lake and suddenly hearing the ice cracking beneath her feet.
Black Widow’s mouth twisted into a spiteful sneer. But she didn’t utter another word.
“She’d live here? With us?” The notion sickened Sabrina.
“She’d be kept here,” Graham corrected, and Sabrina understood what he wasn’t saying. They would feed and house and clothe the woman, but it wouldn’t be any kind of life.
“Or?” she pressed hopefully. “What else?”
“We let her go and hope she takes seriously our warnin’ to tuck tail and run,” Graham said. “Because if she so much as blinks wrong in our direction, we’ll find her and turn her into fertilizer.” He paused before delivering the coup de gr?ce. “Or we turn her into fertilizer now.”
Sabrina let loose a ragged breath.
She wasn’t an idiot. She knew the Black Knights could be ruthless. But it felt different to be presented with that truth so undeniably.
She turned to Boss, voice barely more than a whisper. “How would you do it?”
“The easy way.” His tone was purposefully devoid of emotion. But she knew him well enough to know he was a far cry from unfeeling.
This act was for Black Widow’s benefit.
“One tap to the brainstem.” He pressed two fingers to the back of his head. “Lights out before she knows what hit her.”
“Fuck you!” Black Widow shrieked, spittle catching the flashlight’s beam. “You know I told you what I told you because I thought you’d let me go!”
Sabrina’s pulse hammered as she stared hard at the blonde.
“A quick, painless shot to the brainstem is better than you were going to do to me. If I recall, you promised I would watch them all die.” She waved a hand to indicate the men gathered.
“That I would smell their blood, hear their screams, see their final, rattling breaths.”
A muscle twitched in the woman’s cheek. Her nostrils flared with feeling when she snarled, “One bad turn deserves another, I suppose. We’re all just animals scrabbling for scraps in the end.”
“You’re wrong.” Sabrina shook her head. “Some of us take no pleasure in ending a life. Some of us have a heart.”
“Spare me your self-righteous bullshit, Sabrina. You killed Hummer without a second thought.”
“I will use this knife to cut her name off your tongue if ya speak it again,” Hew snarled, having produced a short blade from…
God only knows where.
“Do it! Show her the truth about yourself! Show her you’re all just as bad as I am! You just wrap it up in the flag!” Black Widow’s rage revealed cracks around her edges. Through those cracks, Sabrina saw it.
Fear.
The assassin was afraid.
And that was enough to have her lifting her chin and staring boldly down at the woman.
“If we keep her here, she’ll poison the air,” she mused aloud. “She’ll ruin all sense of safety and security. Plus, it’s a pain in the ass to hold a hostage long term.”
Not that she knew from experience. But logic said she was correct.
“True.” Boss dipped his chin.
“Killing her would mean safety and peace for all of us,” she continued. “A guaranteed end to any danger she poses.”
Again, that chin dip. Again, that single answer, “True.”
She swallowed and felt a line appear between her eyebrows. “But it would also mean blood. Death. A life, however twisted, ended by our hands. And we’re better than that. Better than her.”
She crossed her arms and regarded the assassin. Black Widow’s eyes were gray. But in the tunnel, they looked black.
“Your team is dead,” she told the assassin coolly. “Your mission has failed. So if we let you go, what’s to stop you from trying to exact your revenge on us? On me?”
Black Widow’s throat worked. Sabrina could hear the note of hope in her tone when she said, “Grudges give you wrinkles. Besides, until you guys bring Bishop down, I’ll be too busy finding a deep hole to hide in from him.”
“And when Bishop is no longer a threat?” Sabrina pushed. “What then?”
The blonde’s eyes danced desperately around the group. Her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. “What do you care? I’ll be well and truly out of your hair by then.”
Sabrina closed her eyes, thinking of all the ways this woman had wronged her, thinking of all the ways this woman could wrong her still.
Then, she thought of Hew’s lips on hers. Of how it felt to finally live again. To finally feel whole again.
She didn’t want to sully all that with Black Widow’s blood.
“I don’t want to put any of us in danger,” she admitted quietly to the men. “But I also don’t want another life on my conscience. So, I say we cage her or free her. And I’m leaning toward the latter.”
Hew exhaled, his forehead coming to rest briefly against her temple as if he’d been right there with her, suffering the same turmoil she’d suffered in having to make her choice. Now that she had, he could breathe.
Black Widow stared hopefully up at Boss. His brow ridge cast his eyes in deep shadows, making them unreadable.
“Reckon we should flip a coin?” Graham offered, and Sabrina thought he was only half-joking.
“Just let me go,” Black Widow pleaded. “I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again.”
The only indication Boss struggled with indecision was the subtle flex of his jaw. When he finally spoke, the threat in his voice was sharp enough to make Sabrina wince.
“Remember how easily we thwarted your little operation,” Boss said.
“Remember that we have resources you could only dream about and a reach far beyond anything you could fathom. There’s no corner of the world you can go to where we can’t find you.
There’s no amount of protection you could pull around yourself that we can’t penetrate.
Don’t mistake our clemency today for an unwillingness to put a lead round between your eyes. ”