“You mean inyourbest interest.”
“If Daph comes home in the middle of a civil war, forget Karsten… Rinley and the rest of the low-tier fucks will want someone to take this shit out on. Whatever we find about Lyla stays between you and me. Okay?” I arched a brow at him until he nodded. “Until then, keep the hit alive and continue to check in with the club’s favorite severed finger.”
“Blade keeps that shit by my waffles,” Threx groaned, sweeping past me toward the kitchen.
“Hey,” I called after him, and he turned. “You okay?”
Threx’s teeth sharpened beneath the curl of his lips before growling at me over his shoulder. “What do you think?”
I think I had four days until this man lost his shit, and absolutely nothing in place to bring him back.
“Is Daphne?” That question stopped him; the vein in his throat popping with agitation.
“You know what is funny?” Threx said, attempting to take a breath. “The way she thinks you are in control. Texting you after I hung up on her as if you have some fucking power over me. But you and I both know, Wolfey, that you don’t. Why do you think Karsten told us about the picture? Was it so you would react?” His eyes locked onto the door. “Or me?”
“If you have something to say, Threx, just fucking say it. I have too much to deal with to play your head games.”
“It’s not a head game, Wolfe. It is math. You convinced Daphne you loved her and then hurt her when you did not tell her about Lyla, and she showed up in her goddamn shirt. You fucked her in public after a bad job and exposed her to our enemies. You severely underestimated your new queen’s jealousy, which may have landed a target on her life, and now you’re asking me how she is? I don’t know, Wolfe, how the fuck areyoudoing?”
I couldn’t argue his logic because everything he said was true, the way medicine has side effects, or how the price of one thing always comes at the cost of another. A bitter, somewhat small part of me wanted to point out that none of this might have happened had he not chosen to get blown by five women that night, or I don’t know, maybe loved her instead of pushing her into my arms. However, I was reasonably sure he would shoot me in the face if I pointed that out.
Fuck it. He did not get to pin all this on me.
“She came to that party for you, Threx. She always comes for you, and let’s for just one fucking second remember that this is not all my fault. Because all of this is a side effect of what it means to be in my world, but with you, it is a consequence! And you fucking know it.”
There was a pause where nothing else existed.
“Daphne is in danger because I love her too much, but she was put there because you did not fucking love her enough.”
I knew it wasn’t true. Not entirely. There was not a soul alive who ever loved anyone the way he loved her, but keeping her close without claiming that last inch was a notch on the noose that had always hung around her neck. One that I allowed because I did not want him to take parts of her from me.
Threx’s eyes sputtered into that silvery madness that plagued his very existence.
“I know,” he ground out, inching forward, ready to strike. “But not anymore.”
What did that mean? That he would finally claim her.
A hard clot of air shoved its way down my throat.
“We fucked this up, so we are going to fix it.” I found his eyes. “Together, Threx. She needs us both.”
“Yes,” he relaxed his shoulders. “Which is why you’re still breathing. But understand this: I will do anything to keep Daphne safe. Anything, Wolfe! Even from you.”
Even. From. Me.
I exhaled through my nose, lifting my eyes to meet Threx’s words with a slow nod, “I’m fucking counting on it.”
eighteen
Daphne: Bloody Kiss
“Daphne, please get into the car,” Finn pleaded, hanging halfway out of the window.
The way his golden strands caught the early morning sun reminded me of summer. Not that he would have noticed, because I remained frozen, chained to the wet sand, staring at my phone.
I didn’t know what Thay was after when he asked about the night of the naked party. He wasn’t the type to press for details, especially with Wolfe. I could still remember the very first time I slept in his bed until dawn, and the expression on Thay’s face when I opened the door and saw him sitting on the floor, staring at me. There was a dark poetry in his eyes, moving in slow circles as he drank me in under the half-light.
“Hi,” I had said, but he didn’t move. Thay just sat there as if he had been teetering on the edge of madness all night, shattering in places I rarely saw.