Chapter Fifteen #2
Not the very first, no. But he’d be damned if he told this beast his first concern was for his own damn dignity. “Do you want me to answer that?”
He received a fierce glare.
“Settle down, for Christ’s sake. How did I get here?” Had he been hauled over the back of a horse? That little spitfire had probably smirked all the way back at the sight. It shouldn’t matter. She was merely a woman, a tenant, shrouded in doubt.
“Without dignity.”
Drake sighed. So his worst damn nightmare, then. “You always did have a gift for understatement.”
“Be grateful I’m sparing you the details.”
“If you’re about to scold me, you may as well begin.”
Maxen’s gaze did not soften the slightest. If anything, it darkened. “Your wound was cleaned and restitched.”
Drake deduced as much. The room smelled of spirits. “Much obliged.”
“Don’t bloody give me that. You were damn stubborn tonight. What the hell happened?”
“Apparently I offended a fop in London.”
“Just a bloody fop?” His gaze deepened. “It appears to be a hell of a lot more than that, Drake.”
“What can I say? I have a habit of calling disasters by lesser names.”
Maxen’s whole face turned murderous. “They tried to kill you. Apparently, it’s not the first time.”
Damn it. “I see Reaper ran his mouth.”
Maxen scowled. “He did not.”
Bloody fabulous.
“I deduced that all on my own.”
Drake slanted an arm over his eyes. “I didn’t want to worry you, that’s all.”
“That’s all? Consider me concerned.”
He lifted his arm to raise a brow at his brother. “Would you have bothered me if you were in my shoes? Given all that we already have to deal with? You know—our wayward uncle.”
His brother sneered but said nothing.
“I should have told you.”
“But you didn’t.”
Maxen must be angrier than he thought. “About the refuge lodgings—”
“You do not have to explain yourself to me about that,” Maxen forced out. “I know why you kept it a secret. The woman must be important to you, then.”
“Not in the way you might be imagining,” Drake denied.
He could not afford attachment. Attachment was rot.
Attachment gave enemies leverage and fate a handhold.
Having experienced firsthand what loving the wrong person cost his mother, how devotion had become a weapon used against her, and how she had been abandoned and scorned, Drake had spent the better part of his life ensuring neither had a hold on him.
Whatever stirred when Violet’s eyes fell on him, whatever dangerous satisfaction that sparked, it had to be contained. Crushed, if necessary.
Men like him did not get to have desires without consequence. His brother was the only exception. But Drake knew Maxen paid for it daily. In worry. In obsession. In silence. On the other end of all this, Drake would hate to be the reason Violet suffered for believing him to be no danger to her.
He was. He always would be. The first kiss was the first crack.
Everything from there was a gross lapse of judgement, and had allowed more tiny cracks to spread.
Another could absolutely never happen. Violence did not de-escalate by itself.
The same went for desire. There was no easy returning to the fate of before.
He’d failed himself.
“You can’t imagine what I’m imagining,” Maxen said finally.
“I believe that a good thing, you know.”
“Your business is your business, Drake,” Maxen said. “But when it comes to your life and all of our lives, it becomes my business, other matters aside. We have the two who attacked you.”
“In the dungeon?” Bloody good.
Maxen nodded. “What’s the plan?”
“Since he doesn’t want to be drawn out, we hunt him down.” He chose not to voice his suspicions of Violet. “And we start with them.”
“Agreed,” Maxen said.
“Is she staying?” Knight’s voice came from the door.
Drake looked over and sighed. “She won’t abandon her shop.”
“But you’ll keep watch on her until danger has passed,” Maxen guessed. Not a question. The implication clear. Unhappiness.
“She has been assigned a chamber?”
“Calliope’s old one.” Dagger joined Knight.
A few doors down. That should be far enough away to keep from more lapses in judgement.
The floors creaked and he’d have to pass the rooms of his vigilant brothers.
So the immediate plan was to protect his family, Violet, wrench a name from their prisoners, and all would go back to normal.
Well, they could then return their attention to finding their uncle.
“Are you any closer to the true threat?”
“All threats are true threats,” Knight said.
“Agreed,” Reaper echoed, flipping a coin from finger to finger. “And no, no word on our dear uncle.”
All threats were true threats . . .
Quite right. Drake knew that better than most. Some announced themselves with knives and hired fists.
Others arrived quietly and more deadly. His uncle favored the latter.
He’d been so occupied with this Bulldog wanting him dead, his suspicions of her, he hadn’t considered what her presence might look like to others.
Damn it, he’d need to consider that.
A tightness gathered in his chest. He had already proved how poor his judgment was when it came to her. He had to be smart now. One mistake was survivable. Two could be reasoned away. A pattern was not. If his uncle ever noticed her presence, then Violet faced another danger.
His uncle might set his sights on her. The man had a particular talent for identifying what others valued and turning it into a pressure point. He had tried it with Maxen. He would not hesitate with Violet, especially if he suspected she meant something.
And that was one outcome Drake would burn the world to prevent.
Entirely as a precaution.
Absent of all feeling, naturally.
He almost convinced himself.