Chapter 90 Good Girl – Briar
GOOD GIRL
brIAR
I pace the cage. Trying and failing to formulate a plan to save us. The cage feels smaller without Lily in it.
It starts to feel like I can’t breathe.
I scream—begging, pleading—for them to let me out. I fall down to the ground, wrapping my arms around my knees where I hyperventilate, panic taking over.
The door opens, and I hear Seamus’ voice from outside the cage, but I don’t look up; just continue to cry, keeping my head buried in my knees.
“Pathetic. She’ll be lucky if she lasts a day with Volkov.” He pauses and then speaks again, “Get her bagged for transport. The auction is about to start, and her whining is going to disturb the other clients.”
The door closes, opening again a short while later, and I steal a peek, seeing a single guard enter, prepping a needle.
He unlocks the cage and steps closer, taking his time given my current state, and just when he leans down to jab the needle into my neck, I move.
Snatching the needle right out of his hand.
We stare at each other, shock on both of our faces, before I drive the needle full force into his neck.
“Fuck!” he curses, shoving me off of him, succeeding in flinging me against the bars. The back of my head slams hard against the metal, but he stumbles, and in another breath, he goes down entirely.
Keeping one eye on the door, I quickly search him. He’s got a gun, a knife, and a set of keys. I’m still only dressed in my underwear, so I grab the gun and the ring of keys and stand up.
“Yeah, how do you like it?” I say to the guard passed out on the floor before I kick him. My feet are bare, so it hardly suffices. I kick him one more time— this time in the balls. He’ll feel that when he wakes up.
Taking a few steadying breaths, I open the door to the hallway and peek out. There’s no one standing immediately outside, which is reassuring, so I peer out further.
The sound of male voices down the hall draws my attention, and I duck my head back in, listening carefully before ever so slowly peeking out again.
Seamus stands at the end of the hall, addressing a couple of guards. Shaking his head in irritation, he heads back down the hallway toward me.
Panicking, I draw back, my heart pounding in my chest. Looking around the room, there’s nowhere to hide, and while there is a window, we’re on the second floor and it’s a straight shot down to the stone patio below.
I don’t even know if he’s coming in here, but at the last second, I dart behind the door, just before it opens.
Seamus steps inside. The door closes fully behind him before he notices the guard’s body in the cage.
I point the gun at the back of his head. He must see the movement out of the corner of his eye because he turns to look at me, giving me a quick once-over, a slimy smile creeping up his face.
“Get in the cage,” I warn him, trying to hold the gun steady.
“Briar, darling…” he starts, but I pull back the hammer.
“I said… Get. In. The. Cage.” I jerk my chin toward the metal cage next to him, lifting the gun higher, training it on his forehead. He’s not far from me, so even if I’m a bad shot, it would be really hard to miss.
His jaw flexes, reminding me of Koen, before he starts to do what I’ve told him to, backing up toward the cage, while lifting his hands in front of him. “Listen, your friend—”
“Where is she?” I demand, my voice shaky, but it’s making me appear more unhinged. Seamus' gaze turns wary as he finally backs fully into the cage. I follow him, quickly slamming the door shut once he’s inside.
“She’s downstairs. Now listen here, I can help you—”
“Give me your gun,” I demand, and he narrows his eyes.
“Throw it out,” I say, my voice a little steadier this time.
I catch a glimpse of the glint in Seamus’ eye as he pulls the gun from his waistband.
I lift the barrel of the gun, firing a warning round into the ceiling.
I flinch from how fucking loud it is but bring it back to Seamus, holding it steady while staring him in the eye. “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.”
He considers me seriously for, perhaps, the first time all night, holding one hand high while the other takes his gun and tosses it through the cage bars.
“Now get on your knees.”
Seamus glowers at me, holding his hands up a little higher before slowly sinking down to the floor. “You’re out of your damn mind,” he hisses at me.
“Maybe,” I admit—I don’t have much of a plan put together. I’ll never make it to the basement on my own. I know that. But one thing’s for certain… Seamus needs to die.
Before I can say anything else, the door slams open violently at my back. I sidestep quickly to the right, keeping the gun on Seamus, while shifting so I can see the door as well.
Koen.
I blink, just in case I’ve truly gone mad and I am, in fact, imagining him, but when I open my eyes again, he’s still here. Standing in the threshold, gun raised, chest heaving, with nothing but dark violence dancing in his eyes.
“Koen! Koen! Thank god, you needed to see this!” Seamus cries from the floor.
“I’m so sorry you have to find out this way, son, but she’s working for them!
It appears she’s more clever than she looks.
” He frowns at me, and I glare down at him.
“She’s been playing you the whole time, got you wrapped around her little finger, that one.
” He glares up at me. “She never stopped feeding information to the Volkov.”
“He’s lying,” I say, keeping my gun on Seamus.
Koen’s face is a stone mask, and he remains in the doorway, cold eyes flickering between his uncle and me.
“What are you doing here, Seamus?” Koen’s eyes narrow on him. “Did Garrett text you?”
“Well, like the rest of you, I came to help, of course,” Seamus says, throwing up his hands like it should be obvious. “And yes, yes, Garrett texted me,” he adds nodding his head, looking up at Koen, while eyeing me as if I’m a wild animal. “Get me out of here Koen, before she kills me too.”
Koen stares at Seamus for a long second before he drops the gun he has on him; my heart dropping right alongside it. And then he turns his dark gaze on me.
“Koen…” I start, my voice cracking.
“Briar, give me the gun,” Koen says, holding out his hand and taking a step toward me.
Tears fill my eyes, but I shake my head, tightening my grip on the gun I keep steadily pointed at Seamus’ forehead.
“No.” I whip my head back to Seamus in front of me.
He’s looking awfully smug all of a sudden on his knees.
“No,” I say again, shaking my head. “No, he’s behind all of it. He created this—this nightmare.”
Images flash in my head: all the girls in cages, Lily’s clothes being torn off of her, her screams when they dragged her away.
I push the gun closer to Seamus, faintly aware of Koen entering the room, circling around behind me, closing in.
“He betrayed you.” My finger feathers the trigger, staring down at the man on his knees before me.
“She’s lying, Koen. She’s never been anything other than a lying whore.” Seamus spews more vitriol from the ground, and my eyes fill with tears. “She killed Jace.”
Kill him. Kill him now. He deserves to die. He betrayed Koen, Liam, Aidan… He killed Jace… A single tear leaks down my cheek. Do it. You can do it. Just pull the trigger.
“I can do this,” I say aloud, willing myself to pull the goddamn trigger. The hand holding the gun to Seamus’ head trembles. Even with Koen closing in behind me, my eyes stay fixed on his uncle, who’s sneer grows wider with every inch Koen closes between us.
I know the second he reaches me, feeling his warmth at my back.
Koen reaches up, his fingers slowly trailing down my arm until they reach the gun, and he gently pries it from my shaking fingers, taking it from me.
His other arm snakes around my waist, pulling me into him, and his warm lips find my neck, where he deposits a light kiss before he whispers, “I know you can baby, but you don’t have to. ”
“Look at me,” his low voice whispers in my ear again, and I turn in his arms until I’m looking up into his eyes. “Cover your ears, baby.”
I do.
“Good girl.”
I jump at the loud bang at my back as Koen fires the gun, falling forward and burrowing deep into his chest, where the tears finally fall, unbidden and soaking into his sweatshirt. Warmth floods into me when he wraps both of his arms tight around me.
“Are you okay?” he asks, running a hand down my hair. “Did he—did any of them touch you?”
The fear in his voice guts me like a knife. I shake my head. “No. No, I’m okay.”
Relief lets loose some of the tension in his body.
“How did you find me?”
Koen reaches down, picking up the silver chain around my neck, holding up the little Celtic knot on the end. “You never took this off.”
My brows furrow in confusion; he just watches me expectantly until I work it out.
“You—” I gasp in shock. “You put a tracker in it?”
The corner of his mouth ticks up.
“I said you would always be safe, so long as you kept this on.”
God, I want to hug and punch him all at the same time.
“I told you, Briar Rose, there’s no escaping me. Not this time.”