Chapter 7 #2
I hate it.
That isn’t fair. I don’t know her at all.
I think it anyway.
Lucian’s body has gone rigid beside me. No emotion. None.
Which means too much.
He’s holding it in. Because he’s feeling something strong, and that’s dangerous.
For me. For us. For my family’s future.
For my delicate heart.
Her gaze moves over him, lingering on his mouth a beat too long.
Her voice is so smooth as she delivers her line, “You still stand like you’re waiting for the flames to start again.”
Something passes through him like electricity. Is it grief? Horror? Anger?
Regret?
Her hand moves to her waist, passing over her stomach. Not dramatically. Not even fully. Just a small, aborted motion, fingers pressing once against the soft fabric of her borrowed sweater before she drops them again.
Lucian’s face changes. The space between the two of us changes. I hate it more than the way she says his name.
Lucian finally finds his voice. “I’m not waiting for fire. I’m waiting for you to tell me the lies Carlos sent you here to say.”
Isobel looks at me then.
I feel it like a touch. Ice creeps over my skin. My muscles freeze.
Her gaze is pale green, I think. Or gray. Something cool and assessing. She looks at the place where I stand beside Lucian, close but not behind him. Her eyes drop to the tender spot at the nape of my neck.
Then to my left hand. And the naked fourth finger resting at my thigh.
She smiles.
Her focus goes back to Lucian. Only Lucian. And with eyes locked on his face, she waits.
Even for the men who don’t have the state of the ring finger on their left hand resting on this woman’s existence, the tension is too much.
Blaze steps forward. “You were both searched? You and your driver?”
“They both were.” Rafe nods. “No weapon. No wire. No phone. No tracker we found. The driver is now contained out back.”
Isobel’s gaze flicks to Gregory, then back to Lucian. “You keep different company now.”
Ignoring the statement, Lucian’s voice is flat. “Carlos let you go.”
Not a question.
Isobel’s mouth tightens. “Yes.”
Blaze swears.
Rafe moves closer. “Why?”
“Because he wanted me to come here,” she says. “To do what you said. To tell you lies. To make you weak. To spy on you. And report back to him.” At least she is honest. “But I’m not his pawn anymore.”
The room goes quiet for a moment while I’m being petty.
I hate her accent too. Light, polished, difficult to place. Not like mine, dragged between the dirtier parts of Northern England and New York and panic.
Her voice sounds like money and boarding schools and candlelit rooms where no one ever had to sell the last untouched part of themselves to save their family.
“Lucian,” she says, waiting.
Something in Lucian snaps.
“Since when? You pretended to die in a fire? Screaming my name all the while, me thinking you might be—” His voice breaks. His gaze briefly travels over her body.
He looks away.
And I die a little bit inside.
The room goes silent. Tension fills every corner of the library. “Since I decided to turn on Carlos. It’s been a long time that I’ve had to pretend and plan and I’ve risked everything to come here like this. To bring you the truth.”
The answer is so calm I almost admire her.
Almost.
Blaze laughs once. There is no humor in it. “Rises from the dead and she comes back a martyr. Bold.”
“I’m not that,” Isobel says. “I’m trying to right a wrong.”
Lucian’s voice cuts the air like a knife. “That wrong can never be righted.”
“You came to the wrong cabin if your goal is to make friends,” Bayne murmurs.
“No matter why you say you’ve come.”
She says, “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to help you defeat our mutual enemies.”
“The Morettis?” Gregory asks.
“Yes,” she says. “And I’m risking my life to do it. I can’t believe I’m even standing here alive. Carlos would have killed me himself if he found the real reason I was coming here. Soon, I won’t return. And he’ll know.” She looks away. “I’ve risked everything to be here.”
Rafe clears his throat. I’m starting to hate that sound. It means he’s got something to say we’re not going to want to hear.
“Like I said, no active breach,” he says. “No movement on the perimeter. No tracker on her clothes, shoes, or medical supplies. No visible tail.”
“But?” I ask.
Because there is always a but.
Rafe’s eyes shift to Lucian. “But Carlos knew where to send her. That is enough.”
The room goes still.
Lucian’s face does not change, but I feel his temperature drop.
Cold fury. The kind he aims inward before he turns it into violence.
“He knows where we are,” I whisper.
Lucian’s gaze cuts to mine. “Yes.”
My stomach dips.
Red Shutters still looks the same. Stone walls. Warm fire. Windows looking out toward wet Scottish trees. Guards outside. Men inside. Weapons hidden in places I know not to look.
Isobel is standing under this roof because Carlos figured out where we are, then sent her here.
Lucian looks at Rafe. “Red Shutters is done.”
I swallow. “Done as in… we are changing rooms, or pack-your-things-before-breakfast done?”
Rafe glances toward Isobel. “The second one.”
Blaze’s mouth curves without humor. “Preferably before anyone with more ammo than Isobel knocks.”
Lucian’s hands curl at his sides. “I should have moved you sooner,” he says. The words are quiet.
Deadly.
And they hurt because I know him well enough now to understand what he really means.
I should have protected you better. I should have seen this coming. I should have known Carlos would find a way to touch what belongs to me.
“Lucian,” I say softly.
That does something to him. Something dangerous.
Lucian looks directly at Isobel. “And while you’re under my roof, I’ll protect you, too.”
The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. I know because I see the flash of regret that follows.
Protect her like he does for me.
My sensible side adds, like Ryan and Cass, too.
It doesn’t work. My heart gives one ugly, humiliating twist.
Isobel hears it too. Not my heart, obviously.
The promise.
Her eyes flick to me, then back to Lucian. A faint understanding settles over her face. Softly, she says, “Still doing that, then?”
Lucian’s jaw tightens. “Doing what?”
“Trying to save women after the damage is already done.”
Her words slice through him, but only he knows their meaning.
I look at Lucian. He doesn’t look at me.
Of course he doesn’t.
I step forward to make my presence known. Lucian’s hand shoots out and catches my wrist. A reflex. Isobel’s eyes drop to his hand.
Then rise to my face.
She notes everything. Does she see his action as controlling a weak woman? Or as a man staking his claim?
I pull free.
Lucian lets me, but the damage is done.
“Whatever you know,” I say, looking directly at Isobel, “say it now.”
Her brows lift slightly. “I beg your pardon?”
Her manners make me want to throw something messy.
“Whatever information you have, or lies you want to tell, if they are about Carlos, the fire, the Bachmans, or the people currently trying to kill us, tell us. Right now.”
Lucian turns to me. “Erin.”
“No.”
His eyes narrow.
Mine do too. “If she’s come all this way, why wait? Why the dramatic reveal? Spit it out and negotiate your terms.”
Then leave. Go back where you came from. And my man stays with me.
The last part goes unsaid, but everyone hears it.
Isobel watches us with the stillness of someone watching a weapon being loaded.
“I need to speak to Lucian alone,” she says.
“No,” I break. “Hell no.”
“Erin,” Lucian breathes.
Rafe coughs into his fist.
Gregory looks like he would pay to be anywhere else.
Blaze looks like he wouldn’t miss this for the world.
Lucian steps closer to me, lowering his voice. “Baby, you don’t understand what’s happening.”
Regret crosses his features, but I am already bleeding.
“No,” I say. “I understand perfectly.”
“Erin—”
“We said no one is alone with her. She wants to speak to you alone. You were about to let her.
And somehow, I’m the one who doesn’t understand?”
Silence.
I stare up at him. Lucian’s eyes burn into mine. I can feel his desire to pick me up and carry me out of the room like an inconvenient problem with legs.
Let him try.
Isobel’s gaze moves over me again, more slowly this time.
She looks at my hair, my face, my sweater, my hands. She sees too much.
The flush on my skin. The mark low on my throat that Lucian left upstairs. The way he stands angled toward me, even while she is in front of him.
For the first time, something sharp enters her expression. Not jealousy. Not exactly.
Recognition, maybe. Or resentment.
“You’re young,” she says.
“So I keep hearing.”
“Carlos told me about you,” she tells me.
My skin prickles. “What did he say?”
Lucian’s voice turns lethal. “Isobel.”
The room tightens again, but this time around me. These men would kill for me.
They’ve risked their lives to protect my family and me. And the only reason I have their devotion is his love for me.
And that’s feeling slightly fragile at the moment.
Lucian moves in front of me, telling Isobel, “It doesn’t matter. Leave her out of this.”
Isobel’s gaze flicks to him, a challenge lined with something hard. Pain? Desire?
My hands curl. “What did Carlos tell you?” I ask again.
Isobel studies me for one long moment. Then her mouth curves, barely.
She says, “Carlos said Lucian bought himself a replacement.”