Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
ERIN
Lucian thinks I don’t notice the way everyone looks at us when we return to the library.
I notice. Of course, I notice.
My hair is probably a disaster. My lips feel swollen. My sweater is on backward, which I discovered only after we were already halfway down the hall, and Lucian looked so satisfied by this that I refused to fix it on principle.
It makes me happy. They all know, at least for now, he chooses me.
I wear my post sex glow like a crown.
Let her look. Let her know. He chooses me.
At least, for now.
We sit and wait for her. It’s almost midnight by the time she appears, coming from the doorway that leads to the back staircase.
She packed well. She wears loungewear that I’m sure is cashmere, a black hooded jacket zipped up and matching wide-leg pants. My gaze stops at her fuzzy gray slippers. They seem so out of place on her; I almost smile.
Then her words wash back up on the shore of my mind.
She’s still in love with Lucian.
She settles back into the open chair set apart, facing the rest of us.
She’s washed her face, her flawless skin glowing. She’s got her long blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, parted exactly down the middle and so neatly and carefully done I can see the lines formed by the teeth of her comb.
“I’ll start with after the fire,” she recrosses her legs. “I was kept in a house outside the city for the first year. Carlos was rarely there. I was given little information.”
She sighs, “And I very quickly realized what a fool I was. That I was nothing more to him than a win. He’d won me back and bested Lucian,” she says. “Then, I knew he meant me to be his well-kept prisoner.”
“I was moved. Often. Carlos lived with me in some places and visited others.”
Gregory writes something down. “After this, I’m going to need a list of every address, town, city, place you remember.”
“I’ll do my best,” she says. “There were many. He liked knowing his enemies searched the wrong place. He enjoyed blaming messages that arrived too late on men underneath him he no longer had use for.”
Her gaze finds Lucian. Lucian doesn’t move. She gazes around the room. “Carlos likes to watch without being seen. He gets off on stolen knowledge.”
“Moving around so much, he could spy on his own people,” Rafe offers. “They didn’t know where he was or when he’d be back.”
“And of course, he watched me. Up close, from afar, through the people he had working for him. I saw him less and less. But he was always watching.”
“And recently he was with you, in person?” Rafe asks.
Isobel nods. “I can’t remember when he started coming back more frequently. It was gradual until he was there every day. Having dinner with me. Bringing me gifts.”
“You always did like nice things,” Lucian says. There’s a bitter edge to his words.
“Lucian,” the closest she’s gotten to an apology creeps into her voice. “He lied to me, about you. He manipulated me, turned me against you.”
“I want to know,” Lucian’s voice is murderous. “What could he possibly say to make you turn against me? Kill me? Kill our men?”
“I’ll tell you.” She swallows. Hard. “Just don’t make me say it now, here. Like this.” Her eyes plead with him. “It’s only recently that I found out that you’d survived, that I found out the truth.” She shakes her head, looking away. “I’m so ashamed I believed any of it. It was all a lie.”
My eyes flick to Lucian. His face is stone.
I’m relieved.
His voice cuts. “Who told you I survived?”
“A friend. Carlos didn’t let anyone get close to me, but there was one woman, a staff member who was allowed to stay with me in the last two places we were.
She found out Lucian was alive, that he was a Bachman now, and that everything Carlos told me he was before the fire was a lie. That I had my story backward.
The entire time.”
I feel the pain that tears through her eyes. She tilts her head back, taking a breath.
“And then?” Rafe asks, not letting up on the pace while she’s offering information.
Isobel turns her gaze back to me. “A year ago, Carlos told me about the women.”
My skin tightens.
“Paid women,” Isobel says. “Nameless ones. He thought that was funny. That Lucian Bachman, who once acted like love made him noble, who had a woman like me, had become a man who bought women by the hour.”
My stomach drops.
Not because I didn’t know. I knew.
I was one of those transactions, wasn’t I?
The original rules echo through me like a cruel song.
No names. No strings. No panties.
My V-card. For his cash.
One night. One mafia billionaire boss.
A simple plan, then never see each other again.
Lucian’s face turns lethal. “Careful.”
Isobel looks at him. “I only say it because I knew it was because of me. I knew I did that to you.”
The room feels suddenly airless.
No one answers because everyone knows it’s true.
I hate her for saying it.
I hate Lucian for loving her so much he couldn’t love again.
I hate myself for sitting here desperate to crawl on his lap and mark my claim in front of this entire room.
Maybe I should have peed on him when I had the chance.
The focus shifts. The entire room follows her eyes as she turns to me.
Isobel says, “Then Carlos told me about her.”
“She has a name,” Lucian says. “Erin.”
My heart begins to hammer. I want him to make her say it. I hate that I do.
He doesn’t.
She ignores him. Her eyes hold mine. “He said she lied to you. Betrayed you.
Carried a key meant to open your throat for the Morettis. And you kept her anyway.”
Lucian stands so fast the chair scrapes backward. “Enough.” The command cracks through the room.
Isobel stops.
“Sit down.” I turn to him. “I want to hear what she has to say.”
His eyes cut to mine. A warning.
I may have just told Lucian Bachman to sit in front of his men, his brother, the Kings, a returned dead woman, my sister, and Gregory.
Wonderful.
A stunning survival instinct, truly.
Blaze’s eyes widen with delight. Rafe suddenly looks down at his notes. Bayne’s mouth twitches.
Lucian stares at me as if deciding whether to kiss me or obey me only to drag me over his lap and spank me.
“Sit,” I say again, quieter. “Please.”
His jaw flexes once. Twice. Then he sits. Slowly. Dangerously, if that’s possible. He makes it look so.
“Continue,” I say, politely to Isobel. And a little smugly. I’m in control. And the man she loves just turned over a chair for me. “Please.”
Rafe brings us back into focus. “Isobel, what else did Carlos say?”
“Carlos said Lucian kept her anyway,” Isobel says. “And that was when he knew.”
“Knew what?” I ask.
Her expression changes.
“You weren’t like the others.” For one second, she almost looks sorry for me.
My pulse stutters.
“The others?”
“The women he bought after me meant nothing,” Isobel says. “That made them useless.”
“Okay?” I’m trying to follow, but the word ‘bought’ gets in the way.
“You meant something to Lucian. Therefore, you are valuable. Carlos uses women as leverage. To hurt others. To gain power. The ultimate pawn wrapped in silk and lace.”
“I see.” I take a deep breath.
She takes an even deeper one. “He wants to use you to hurt him as he did with me. When I heard about you—that’s when I woke up and got brave enough to plan to leave.”
My skin prickles. Lucian’s hand reaches for mine.
“I knew he would use the opportunity to finish what he started in the fire.”
“To kill Lucian,” I whisper.
“While you make him weak,” she whispers back.
It’s true. He can’t make a single decision without first considering how it will affect me. He was single, with no ties to anyone outside the Brotherhood other than Gregory, whom he kept a world away.
Now, he’s shackled to a child, a woman in a wheelchair, his younger brother, and me.
The woman who makes him weak.
That look in her eyes was sadness for me. She knows I’m Carlos’s next target.
And she wants to save me.
“Continue,” I say. Lucian’s breath changes beside me.
Now, he wants to hear what she has to say.
“Carlos thinks it’s time to strike again,” she says. “And this time, I won’t let him.”
“Would have been nice if you felt this altruistic before the Village got blown up.”
Blaze murmurs. “But thanks for coming before he killed Lucian for a second time.”
“He doesn’t want Lucian.” Ignoring Blaze, her gaze locks on me. “He wants you.
Carlos thinks you’re the easiest way to destroy him,” she says.
Isobel looks at him, and whatever thought or feeling passes between them doesn’t belong to me. I see it. I feel it. It makes a cold, creeping prickle crawl its way up the back of my neck.
Does she only want to save me to gain his favor?
It’s a gutting feeling.
I have to trust him, regardless of what she does. I squeeze his hand.
He squeezes back. It’s enough. I sense everyone in the room is waiting for me to speak. After all, she’s just told us I’m the reason she’s here.
“And what does that make you?” I ask.
She flits back and forth from genuine to biting from her pain. And now she snaps at me, “What about me?”
“What do you think?” I ask. “How can we trust you?”
She leans back. “I think Carlos underestimates women like you. Like me.”
“What do you know about the Bachman Village explosion? What about Carlos’s plans for his next attack?” Blaze leans forward. “Tell us something worth knowing for God’s sake.”
“I’ll tell you everything I know,” she says. “But I’ll only talk to her.”
All eyes in the room fall on me.
It makes me feel tired.
Lucian’s voice rumbles as he stands. “We’re done for now.”
Blaze, always the one to lighten the situation, stands. “Hell,” he says, “I’m not tied up in this emotional warfare, and even I need a break.”
“Yes,” Rafe counters. “Isobel, stay with me. I want those addresses.” He turns to Lucian. “Then let’s talk again tomorrow.”
A guard comes to escort Isobel to the back staircase. Lucian tenses as I stand beside him.
Isobel rises slowly. “I need rest. Till tomorrow.”
Rafe looks uncertain, wanting Carlos’s trail as soon as possible. I’m with him. I can tell the others are too.
Lucian signals Bayne. “Guest room. Guarded. No unsupervised contact.”
Isobel’s mouth twitches at his dismissal.
When she reaches the doorway, she pauses.
She looks back at me.
Not Lucian.
Me.
“Carlos doesn’t only hurt people by lying,” she says. “Sometimes he tells the truth in the cruelest possible way.”
“Seems like you two have that in common,” I say.
Then she leaves.
The room stays silent after she is gone.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically. Blaze snorts. Traitor.
I need air. There’s none in this room. She’s taken it all with her.
I move towards the door.
He eyes me. “Where are you going?”
I laugh softly. “Do I have to run it by you every time I go to the bathroom?”
His expression darkens. “Erin,” he says.
I leave before he can see my face break.