I want to run. Everything in me howls to run. But this pace won’t set off any alarms for their security. We’re just two people in dark coats walking down the street.
Lucian reaches the gate first and punches in a code. The gate retracts to let us in, and we’re there.
The driveway is all that’s between me and Haley. The driveway and God knows how many locked doors. I’ll carve them open with my fucking knife if I have to.
My brother knows where to go. This, at least, is not surprising. Lucian makes it his business to get information when he needs it, and he has what we need now. He leads us to a side door with another keypad. Another code. “Elaine wanted her to bring security. She’ll have brought the men from the main house,” Lucian says to me as we pull open the door and walk in.
The smell hits me like a punch to the gut. It turns my stomach. I swallow back being sick, my head pounding. I hate the scent of Caroline’s perfume. I hate it, I fucking hate it, I need to be away from it.
But first.
I have to get to Haley.
A man in a staff uniform comes out of a door ahead of us and Lucian gets to him first, a big hand on his shoulder, twisting into the fabric of his shirt. “Hello,” says my brother. “We’re looking for a friend of ours. I could snap your neck, or you could tell me where Haley Constantine is.”
The guy breaks and runs. Lucian and I both chase him. This time, when Lucian catches him, I don’t stand back. I have the knife out before I know I’m doing it, I have it pressed to the side of his neck. The tip digs in. A bead of blood surfaces and runs down. He’s trapped, Lucian shoving, me cutting him, and it would feel so good to carve into his neck. It would feel so good to let go.
“Easy, Leo. If you slit his throat, he can’t help us,” warns Lucian, his tone light. I let up on the knife. “No more theatrics,” he says to the man. “Haley Constantine. Quickly.”
We meet one other staff member on the way to the guest wing of Caroline’s mansion. I have the first man’s collar in my fist, my knife to his throat, so Lucian’s free when the second one turns to run. My brother catches him on the shoulder, turns him around, and drives his fist into the center of his face. His nose crunches. He falls. Any more of them show up, and this is going to get complicated. The house is going to burn down with me if I don’t get to her before then.
“Here,” says the man I’m trying not to kill. “Here. Let me.”
There’s a keypad on the outside of the door.
Caroline has locked her in a prison. She’s made a fucking prison for Haley, brought Rick here for whatever the fuck a “date” means, and kept her from me. I shake the man by his collar so hard his teeth rattle. “Do it before I carve you open.”
With shaking hands, he punches in a code on the keypad and the lock clicks. Lucian reaches around and opens the door. The whole world draws down to this one moment. If there’s anything on the other side but Haley, safe and sound and whole, I will lose my mind. I will never come back. New pain layers in over the inferno of my back.
But then.
A lamp turns on, the glow soft as she is, and there’s Haley, blinking into the light. Her eyes fly open when she sees me and she scrambles out of the bed. She’s wearing a nightgown I’ve never seen and I can’t get to her because this fucking guy is in my hands. I shove him at Lucian, open my arms, and she’s there, she’s there, she’s there.
Haley tumbles into me with a raw cry that’s almost a sob and my heart bursts. I can’t hear what she’s saying, can’t separate the words from the sound of her voice and the beat of her heart under my arms. I lift her face away from my shirt and smooth back her hair because I have to see if she’s okay.
She’s not.
“Leo. Come on. Let’s go,” Lucian says behind me.
Rick is a fucking liar. Her eyes are red and swollen. She’s been crying. They did something to her.
And then she turns her head.
A bruise.
On her jawline.
A bruise.
I pull her toward the bedroom door on pure instinct, pull her out into the hall so I can get enough air, and my vision goes red.
All the rage and pain and yes, terror—all of it erupts. I can’t hold it back anymore. It’s in my skin and bones and blood. My pulse. It’s not always a show. It’s not always pretend. Sometimes, if you play a role long enough, it becomes you, and that bruise on her face has stripped away everything but a searing thirst for retribution. Someone’s going to pay for this. Someone. Now. I have her in my arms and the fury of my heartbeat is all I can hear.
Lucian’s voice is a distant whisper. “This way,” he’s saying. “This way. We have to go.”
“Leo,” Haley says.
At the end of the hall, two more Constantines step into view.
Perry and Keaton. They’re at home for the night, in comfortable clothes. “Jesus Christ,” says Perry. “Are you invading our house? What the—”
He doesn’t finish, because I’ve let go of Haley, and I’m on top of them.
You don’t throw a punch the first time and expect it to do any damage. You practice. You throw hundreds of punches. Thousands. You train the motion of a kick until it can cause exactly the harm you intend. Fighting takes restraint, and it takes skill. It takes the most skill to subdue a person without hurting them. To use restraint.
I don’t care about hurting Perry and Keaton. All of my skill has burned down into pure violence. There’s nothing left but a killing rage. Perry first. A hit to the side of the head that rattles him. Keaton next when he tries to run for help. They’re responsible for this. Haley has a bruise. They hurt her. The two of them try to work together but they weren’t born into hell. Violence is not their first language.
It’s mine.
Blow after blow. I don’t feel it, don’t bother to feel the force of the hits. Don’t bother to hold back. It doesn’t matter that they land a few of their own. Every inch of me is already in agony. It changes nothing, nothing, nothing. All of them. I’ll kill them all. Beat them to a bloody pulp and cremate them in their own house.
I haul Perry off the floor, where he’s fallen, and I’m going to hit him so hard he never gets up again. I have my fist drawn back to do it.
The softest touch on my arm.
I look down at that gentleness and find Haley’s hand there. Follow the path from her fingers all the way to her blue eyes. My pulse is outsized for my body. Every heartbeat hurts. But when I look at her, it eases enough to let me breathe. I’ve settled into the short, adrenaline-fueled breaths of a fight but now I take a full inhale.
And then, though I’m a monster, though I’m the most dangerous bastard ever to share space with her, she puts her hand on my cheek. Her thumb moves over my cheekbone. Slowly. Slowly. “Perry didn’t do anything. He’s my family, and he didn’t know what was happening. Caroline told them I was sick. He and Keaton didn’t do anything. Put him down, Leo.”
“I can’t.” It’s true. I can’t. I can’t fucking open my hand. “They hurt you.”
“No. They didn’t touch me. I don’t want you to be a murderer over this. It’s okay, Leo. You can let go.”
The red haze clears, washed away by her blue eyes. Unclenching my fist from Perry’s shirt is another exercise in torture. My grip was already committed to what I was doing.