Chapter Twenty-Four
Violet had no idea where she was, but that did not stop her from going.
Her skirts were twisted about her legs, breath tearing from her chest, pulse roaring in her ears, but she pressed on all the same.
She’d just kicked Percival in the nether regions and left him doubled over with a strangled sound as she’d raced through the door and down the stairs, and she did not know if he had recovered yet or not, or whether Rook had managed to hold the guards back. They were behind her. Drake was ahead.
However, a shot from a pistol had set everything in chaos.
Drake’s brothers, perhaps?
She forced herself forward, eyes sweeping desperately through the confusion. She searched for one thing only, one man among the madness. She did not know how she would reach him. She did not know if she even could. But she would not stop until she did.
A man stepped into her path, and she barreled straight into his rock-solid chest.
Violet gasped, hands flying up instinctively, and then she looked up. Dark hair. Sharp eyes. A familiar face. Dagger. Relief hit her so fast her knees nearly buckled.
“Where is your brother?” she demanded, fingers fisting in his shirt.
Dagger’s gaze flicked past her. “The others,” he said shortly. “Get behind me.”
Get behind him? She glanced over her shoulder, eyes flying wide as she spotted two of the three guards that had been stationed in the gallery. She stepped aside, gaze widening even further when Dagger flicked open his coat and she caught a glimpse of daggers lining the inside.
Blazes.
“Give me one of those,” she demanded.
The Fury sent her a flat look. “No. Get behind me.”
Hah. All these brothers were the same! Stubborn to a fault. “Arm me and I’ll get behind you!”
His jaw ticked, but he still pulled a dagger from his pocket and offered it to her. Just how many daggers did he have on him?
She snatched the thing from him and moved behind him, her eyes narrowing on the “dagger” when it felt odd to the touch.
She turned the thing over in her hand, running her thumb along the edge.
The edge that was, notably, not an edge at all.
“What’s this thing? Did you give me . . .
” her voice pitched in belated disbelief at the man, “a wooden dagger?”
“Drake would kill me if you got hurt.”
“Drake can’t kill you! You have a no killing code!”
She sensed him pause.
“Well,” she pressed.
“He would make it so I’d wish death would come,” he corrected.
Violet opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked down at the wooden dagger.
She supposed that was, in its own way, begrudgingly sweet, and something warm and unexpected stirred in her chest at this fierce, unquestioned protection.
This was the loyalty of these brothers, and what she had always believed brothers were meant to offer and always yearned for from her own brother.
True family. And this man guarded her as though she belonged among them.
She turned her back to him without thinking, thrusting the ridiculous wooden dagger outward, guarding his back.
Violet held her position, every nerve alight, the disarray of the warehouse rushing around her in disjointed bursts.
Shouts swallowed by the hollow place, the pounding of boots, the crash of something through glass.
She did not look back, but she did sense a scuffle.
A few seconds later, something struck the floor with a dull, final thud.
“Come,” Dagger said close behind her, stepping around her. “Let’s go.”
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, not surprised to see the men unconscious on the floor. “Where are we going? To your lair?”
“Lair?” He cast her a quick glance. “Yes.”
“Will Drake be there yet?” she couldn’t help asking.
“That depends.”
“On what?” Violet asked.
“Whether they got out safely.”
Reginald.
She hadn’t seen her brother in the crowd, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there.
Her eyes were on Drake at the time. His brother did not slow.
He cut through the passages without hesitation, turning corners before she thought to question them, as if the route were etched into his bones.
They weren’t heading to the front of the warehouse.
Violet was pretty sure this was the back.
Or perhaps they had been at the back but were advancing toward the front.
Everything appeared skewed to her.
She kept close, skirts gathered in one hand, the ridiculous wooden dagger still clutched in the other, her pulse only just beginning to slow.
They arrived at a door at the back of the corridor, its hinges protesting softly as he wrenched it open.
Cold air rushed in at once, carrying the salty bite of the sea.
Violet stumbled over the threshold and into the drizzling night, darkness enclosing them, so relieved she nearly fell to the ground and gave it a grateful kiss. All that was missing was her brute.
She lifted her face up to the sky, welcoming the prickling drops.
“Come.”
Violet glanced at Drake’s brother and nodded.
They had gone no more than a few paces when a voice cut through the night.
“Evangeline.”
Violet cringed.
She spun around, glaring at the culprit. Of course he was there. Weeds were oftentimes impossible to get rid of unless you plucked them from the roots. Percival clutched the doorway, breathing heavily, his expression pinched. One might even believe he were the injured party in all this.
Dagger followed her gaze. “Who is this fool?”
“My former fiancé,” Violet answered flatly.
“You’re engaged?” His gaze darted to her. “What about my brother?”
“Former,” she snapped. And she blurted before her better judgment returned, “And what about your brother? The man rejected me.” Urgh, Vi. Sour, still?
“Drake? Rejected. You?”
She scowled at him. “Don’t sound so disbelieving.”
All right, he hadn’t rejected her. Not precisely.
He hadn’t spoken the words, hadn’t cast her aside with cruelty or finality, but that didn’t mean what happened the day she’d left hadn’t felt like rejection all the same.
Distance could wound just as cleanly as dismissal.
And honestly, at this moment, she had no idea where they stood.
But before she could untangle that mess for herself, this coxcomb had chosen to intrude.
And now that they both had been rescued, some uncertainty had returned.
“It’s not disbelieving,” Dagger replied. “I believe.”
Violet scowled at the man. Well, thank you very much for that. She pointed the wooden dagger at him. “Can you not soften the blow? Must you Furys be so blunt?”
“Evangeline!” Percival barked, stepping forward. “You dare much by ignoring me!”
Violet turned her glare to the man truly deserving of it. “Hah, is it not you who dares much? Following us without your guards present to protect you? Did my knee not make it clear enough?”
“Insolent!” His face contorted.
Dagger shifted, subtly placing himself between them.
Percival puffed up. “And who are you meant to be?”
“Dagger.”
“Well,” his gaze slid back to Violet, “you seem to get ar—” He broke off with a grunt and crumbled in an undignified heap at the door.
Knight stood behind him, sleeves rolled to his elbows, already tucking a pistol into the waistband of his trousers. He glanced over at them. “Talks too much.”
Violet stared down at Percival’s unconscious form, then back up at Knight. Then she exhaled, something in her finally unspooling.
Knight hauled the man up by the scruff.
“What are you doing?” she asked, blinking as he dragged Percival over to them.
“Drake wants him.”
No chorus of angels could have sounded sweeter than those words.
*
“Where the hell is she?” Drake growled, pacing up and down the tap room of their tavern, the bandage wrapped around his head a constant, irritating presence.
Had Dagger not been able to locate her?
The thought of Violet alone in that chaos, hemmed in by men who would not hesitate to hurt her, sent a vicious spike of heat through his chest. He crossed the length of the tavern again, fists flexing at his sides.
He should have gone after her himself. Should have ignored his brothers, ignored reason.
He pressed his fingers briefly to his brow, every muscle in his body taut with the tension of wanting to do something and having no clue what that something should be.
He could fight half of Brighton and win.
He could break bones and make men beg. But this?
This sitting and waiting and hoping for God knows what?
It peeled him back to the bone.
“Sit down, frère,” Reaper said from his stool at the bar, “before you fall down.”
“You expect me to sit while she is out there alone?” Drake demanded, pumping his fists.
“Dagger is with her.”
“I am not with her.”
Maxen sighed, his arm curved protectively along the back of his wife’s chair. “You were lucky enough to only need a few stitches.”
“I agree.” Calliope’s gaze deepened in concern.
The two had reluctantly remained here by mutual refusal. Maxen would not risk his wife, and Calliope would not allow her husband to leave her behind. Drake understood. He hovered on the verge of madness. Swaying, he grabbed the back of the nearest chair.
“Sit down or I’ll make you sit down,” Maxen commanded.
“Then bloody make me,” he growled back.
“Boys,” Calliope intervened. “Let him pace, Maxen. You wouldn’t have fared any better if it were me.”
Maxen grunted.
Reaper rolled his coin from finger to finger. “You know, for a man who owns half the bloody coast and can knock out half of England with one punch, you’re awfully squeamish about a little thing called love.”
“It’s not a little thing,” Drake growled, then cursed when he realized he’d stepped straight into his brother’s trap when he saw the fool knowingly grin.
This was no little damn thing. It was enormous. It was Violet, fire-tongued, fire-haired, fiercely clever Violet. Who looked at him and saw all the ragged edges he couldn’t hide and still didn’t shy away from them.
He loved her to death.
Drake scraped a hand down his face. “I need a bloody drink.”