CHAPTER 20
The Pawn
The last three days have been harder on me than I’ve put off.
I did it for a reason. I don’t want her to think about anything other than what it’s gonna take to stand on her own two feet again.
Only problem with that, is that after a couple days of it, I felt like my ever-supportive presence wasn’t gonna be enough to bring her back from the dark place she’s found herself in.
So…I called in backup. And I think it worked.
She’s got a relationship with Seven that none of us men will ever understand.
We’re not lassies. And we’re not as sensitive to what the good Lord blessed women with.
It’s a necessary separateness inside of us that can’t be substituted. I get that. I really do.
So, before I summoned the cavalry, I spent my time in the bat cave whenever it was obvious that Bridget wanted to be left alone.
She has a need to feel safe. Dan said he’d put the right people away…
but I’m not so convinced. I’ve been digging through everything we have, trying to find anything I might have missed while I’d been sleuthing her extracurricular activities, and then trying to find her when things went to shite.
She’s right to feel unsafe. Because the threat is still out there.
Ace and Jonas had shook hands to push deals far beyond Irish soil, and most of it was squashed before we made moves to literally blow everything to the sky last year…
but aside from collapsing trade lines and paying off any houses that supported those two traitorous fucks…
the real threat remained solid. Guns and blow aren’t the bigger moneymakers anymore. The skin trade was pushed just as far.
No wonder they were so quick to let the other deals go with smiles on their faces. They all had their hands in this from the jump. And we didn’t realize it because Callum Byrne would have never lowered himself to selling human beings for pleasure.
Bridget had finally decided to sleep in our bed after Seven got her cleaned up and talked her into eating real food.
It’s almost four in the morning, and I wish I could say it was easy…
pressing myself close and holding her all night.
I’m having trouble understanding my boundaries right now, and that’s something being a nerd can’t fix.
So…I’m making myself useful and digging a little deeper to connect anything I can find to get us all back on track.
I rubbed my eyes, slipping my fingers under my glasses while I leaned back in my chair and sighed. I didn’t notice I wasn’t alone.
“Well…you don’t have the excuse that it’s because my impressive B.O. was too tough to handle. I don’t think I can get any cleaner without scrubbing off layers of skin.” Bridget stood in the doorway, wearing nothing but one of my oversized t-shirts. I smirked at her.
“Malek was just givin’ you shit. You smelled fine.”
“I’m gonna put a gold star on your boyfriend card. I most certainly did not smell fine. I’m sorry.”
She could honestly smell like hot garbage juice, and I’d still eat her with a rusty spoon.
Especially now. I swiveled my chair and smiled softly, opening my arms for her.
Her pale legs were glowing in the computer light while she padded over and eased onto my knee.
I dunno how to ask permission without actually asking it…
I wanna bury my face into her neck and exist there until she gets sick of me… but I’m not sure what’s okay.
“Don’t ever apologize for bein’ human, Bridge. I’m sorry…for callin’ them. Maybe it was too soon.”
“No. It’s exactly what I needed.” I guess she sensed my unease. She cradled my head into her arms and lowered it to her chest, tugging my hair tie out and weaving her long fingers through my waves. “It’s alright. I’m not gonna break.”
Thank fuck.
My arms tightened around her, and I breathed long and slow, closing my eyes while my forehead rested on her sternum. “You know how hard it is, love? Tryin’ not to go find people to hack apart just because I have to see you like this?”
“Oh, I wasn’t aware we needed a reason. Don’t the psycho card cover all that?”
I snorted into her chest. “Murderer’s insurance?”
“Exactly.”
We both snickered, but it got quiet and…sometimes quiet is all I’ve got. I don’t know what to say. What to do here. “You know I’ll never rush you, right?”
“I know. I don’t think that’s what you’re doing. I didn’t know how much I needed to talk to her. To hear Malek’s regularly-scheduled bullshit. You did it right, Dec.”
“Okay,” I breathed, turning my head to listen to her heartbeat.
“What’s all this?”
“Uh…just—work.”
Fuck.
I scrambled to minimize tabs, close files, and play it off…
but I forget sometimes that she’d been paying enough attention these last few months to try to write her own code and throw me off.
She’s not stupid. She batted my hand away from the mouse, snatching it and bringing back everything I tried to hide.
“Shit…Paris? London? Fucking Rome?” Her eyes got wider with every click, and she absentmindedly shook her head. My eyes slowly closed. I feel fucking defeated. “They’re taking them from everywhere. We gotta stop this, Declan.”
“They’ll never come after you. Not after how we handled Romanov and his lads. That sends one hell of a message, love.”
She snapped her head back at me. “I’m not fucking worried about them coming after me. I spent a week in that place and didn’t go through half of what the others did. We might not be able to save the world, but I can at least make a dent.”
Physical trauma leaves bruises. Emotional trauma leaves deep scars we can’t see.
If she tells me to do the impossible, and slit the throat of every man involved, I’ll do it…
all for the sake of knowing she feels an ounce of this.
But how do I make her understand that this kind of demon never sleeps?
That it’ll go past the people we can access, until the world stops turning?
“How do you propose to do that?” I carefully asked, easing my palm down the side of her thigh. She didn’t stop me.
“The same way I convinced Romanov. I buy them.” I lowered my brows, letting her know I was listening…
truly listening…and waited for all the information I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing about the night she was taken.
“Jonas had made a deal to use me as a prize whore. Mikhail sacked Leviticus to get his hands on the money I’d donated to the Greys.
So, I offered him both, in exchange for the girls.
I bought them. Trained them up…or so he thought. And I also paid for his loyalty.”
“You don’t have to tell—”
“Declan, what did I tell you before? The subjects and the knights…aren’t loyal because of pie crust promises and good will. They follow the gold. Remember? I paid Romanov to turn on the McKinleys. They shot them down right in front of me. We control it through money and fear.”
A fucking queen indeed…
“Go on,” I urged, letting my hands wander.
“I buy every girl…buy some loyal dogs…and then dare the rest to test me. We can seal it in blood for good measure.”
“We’d need to set up a merge. House Byrne is—”
“Still right here.”
I know she feels how fucking hard she just made me. Hearing her talk like this makes me feel like I’m sitting in the presence of Elizabeth herself. My inner nerd is screaming, and the man inside is useless. I’m fucking ruined for her.
“Can I kiss you…”
I thought she’d say no.
Thought she’d back off if I got too heavy.
Bridget’s nails scraped over my long stubble on the sides of my face, tracing her way down to my chin…
and she leaned forward until her tongue slid past my lips.
My cock hurts. She tastes like something expensive you’d only have the luxury of having once a year.
I feel like it’s been that long without her…
and she’s been right there on that couch.
I tucked her hair behind her ear, pressing my other hand to the small of her back when she started to grind herself on me.
I wanna worship her. Fuck, I just need to make her feel everything I do, right now… but I’m almost terrified to go too far.
Fevered breaths drowned out the shitty desk fan nearby, and I held the side of her face, taking my time to savor everything she’d give me…until she started pulling back.
I knew I’d fucking blow it.
I almost apologized…until she eased off my lap and shoved my keyboard back, hoisting herself on top of my desk.
“You can kiss me…” she breathed, propping a bare foot on each arm of my chair. I swallowed, my prick downright fucking painful as she slipped the hem of her shirt up…and spread her knees open. “Right here.”
Bleedin’ fuckin’ Christ.
I went to take my glasses off, and her tiny foot slapped against my forearm.
“Uh-uh…leave ‘em. Gimme an anatomy lesson, Mr. Wizard.” There she is.
Slowly coming back to me, bit by bit. I let one side of my mouth curl up while my hair blew in and out of my face.
“You left me a present not too long ago. I thought my pussy was broken. Maybe it was operator error?”
“Definitely that.”
She poked her bottom lip out. I wanna bite it. “Aww…what did I do wrong, professor?”
I aggressively scooched my chair forward, tightening the bend in her legs, and her breath caught. “Hmm…let’s investigate.”
“Nerd,” she laughed under her breath. I pushed my glasses up.
“Lucky for you.” I ran the tip of my tongue up her inner thigh, spreading them both wider while my hands followed the trail. Bridget trembled. “Know why my car will always be better than anybody else’s?”
“Tell me.”
“‘Cause you gotta treat it like a lady if you want it to run right. That means, lettin’ her warm up to you…” Nibble. “Keepin’ everything tuned up…lubricated…” I kissed my way up to the crease of her thigh and tested my theory, sliding the pad of my thumb over Heaven’s fucking gates.
She’s dripping.