by Anna Argent
“Won’t work,” Garrick said. “If you take Holt’s shards, Viggo won’t stop until you’re dead. Do you really want that kind of target on your back?”
Holt finally joined the conversation. “Garrick, don’t. He’s going to kill you.”
“He’s going to kill me anyway. The question is, will he be smart enough to let free the only man on the planet capable of stopping Viggo before he gets too powerful to defeat?” Garrick looked right into the big man’s eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather Holt here be out hunting Viggo than him hunting you?”
“If he loses, Viggo will still come after me.”
“What if he wins? What if he takes out your enemy so you don’t have to?” Garrick asked. “All you have to do is set Holt free before Viggo gets back and makes the decision for you. These few moments of warning are my gift to you for an easy death.”
He seemed to hesitate, as if thinking it over.
“You’re running out of time. It can’t take that long to pick up food. What’s it going to be? Are you going to be smart, or are you going to die today?”
“I kill you first,” the man said. “Then I’ll let him go.”
If that was the best deal Garrick could get, then so be it. “Fine. Holt, I want your word that you won’t hurt our friend here when he frees you.”
Holt shook his head and clamped his lips shut.
“Holt,” Garrick said, his tone one of warning. “I’m ordering you to stand down. Live to fight another day.”
The big man stared at Holt, waiting for his reply.
Finally, Holt gave the slightest nod, but that was all.
Garrick knew it was enough. The man’s word was as binding as these fucking ropes. He’d never break it.
“Fine,” said the man. He pulled a wickedly sharp knife from a sheathe on the back of his belt and clapped Garrick on the shoulder. “The heart or the throat. Where do you want it?”
“The heart,” Garrick said. “Don’t miss.”
The big man grinned. “I never do.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Stygian flung himself backward, scrambling to put distance between him and Echo.
He’d been strangling her. Killing her.
Hazel’s laugh twisted through his thoughts, so loud he couldn’t even hear his own pounding heart. I told you, you would pay. If you will not give me a child to make me whole, then I will find another way. She will be ours, one way or another.
“No,” he said, his voice faint and powerless.
Echo held her throat. She was gasping for air. The sickly, wheezing sounds she made raked across him more painfully than her fingernails ever could.
He’d hurt her. He’d nearly killed her. If not for her fighting back the way she had, he would have finished the job.
Then her shards would become part of him. Hazel’s shards would join the rest of her.
If she had enough control over him now to get him to strangle Echo without even knowing it, what would she be able to do with even more power?
Echo was still breathing hard when she looked at him. Her eyes were red. There were bruises forming around her neck. The look of betrayal in her eyes broke his heart.
“Echo,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
She held up her hand to stop him. When she spoke, her voice was raspy and weak. “Why?” She coughed hard enough he thought she might vomit.
He started to move toward her to help, but as soon as she saw that, she bolted to her feet to get away from him.
He went still.
What could he say? He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but that didn’t change anything. He had hurt her.
Still, he couldn’t sit there in silence, watching her stare at him with accusation shining in her eyes.
“Hazel,” he said, and even that limited excuse sounded pitiful to his ears. “This was her. I’m so sorry.”
Echo continued to cough as she peeled off the blankets clinging to her clothes. “Gun,” she said, pointing to the now empty floorboards between them.
Stygian pulled his gun from the back of his jeans and slid it toward her.
She picked it up with shaking hands, watching him the whole time like he might attack. As soon as the warm metal was in her hand, she stumbled to the bathroom and locked herself inside.
He sat on the floor for a long time, replaying everything that had happened. The one thing that kept coming back to him over and over was the look on her face.
He’d known that once he told her about killing her mother that she’d hate him, but until now, he hadn’t realized just how horrible that was going to be.
He couldn’t leave her alone. It wasn’t safe. He couldn’t stay with her. He wasn’t safe.
There was only one thing he could think to do.
He went to the Mustang and found one of the pairs of handcuffs he kept there to incapacitate the Vires he captured. He set the key to both the handcuffs and his car on the table by a lamp and then walked across the room to the stairwell.
The rail was metal, screwed into the wood with thick hardware. This home had been built at a time when quality still mattered, when men took pride in the work they did, rather than cutting corners on their way to a buck.
He gave the rail an experimental tug. It didn’t even wobble.
Stygian grabbed a couple bottles of water and found a bucket to piss in, then cuffed his wrist to the metal and sat down on a floor to wait for Echo. He didn’t know how long it would take her to get herself together or what he’d say to her when she finally did come out.
Hazel made me do it, seemed ridiculous, even if it was true.
I’m sorry, was better, but not nearly good enough.
In the end, he settled on the only thing that made any sense at all.
Echo came out of the bathroom gun first. As soon as he saw that, he knew he wasn’t going to have any trouble convincing her.
She found him cuffed to the stairs. She stood silently, a few feet outside of the bathroom.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “And if I could take it back, I would. But I can’t.”
She said nothing, simply stared.
This was going to hurt, but he had no choice.
“I was the one who killed your mother,” he said.
She fell back a step as if she’d been pushed. Shock and disbelief shone in her pretty face. “What?”
He wasn’t going to sugar-coat it. He wasn’t going to make excuses. She deserved better than that.
“I found her alive, but injured and unable to move. Paralyzed. Your sister was already dead.” He tried not to get swept back to that night, but he could still taste the cold air, smell the blood as it froze on the pavement. “Your mother was frantic with worry for you. She knew the rat man would be coming for you next. She wanted you to have her shards so you could protect yourself. She asked me to kill her, so I did.”
Echo’s legs gave out. She crumpled to the floor, staring at him with so much confusion and pain he could hardly stand it. He wanted to rush to her side and hold her, but that was impossible now.
She’d never let him hold her again.
“I don’t understand. How could you…? You killed her?”
“It was quick,” he said, hoping it would make her feel better to know her mother hadn’t suffered. Only he couldn’t say that, because the last moments of that woman’s life were nothing but suffering. Tears, grief, pain, fear. So much fear.
“Quick?” the word was barely a whisper, but it carried with it a mountain of pain.
Stygian’s heart broke for her, for what she’d lost, for the loneliness and grief she’d had to bear all these years. “I’m so sorry, Echo.”
He couldn’t say he hadn’t meant to do it. The act was deliberate, intentional. He couldn’t even say he’d have done things differently if he could, because that would have been a lie. He would do anything to protect Echo, including killing an innocent woman.
If that didn’t prove what a monster he’d bec
ome, he didn’t know what would.
She lifted her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks. There was no room in her eyes for them in the face of so much rage.
Her voice shook with anger when she spoke. “You don’t get to be sorry. You killed my mother. You stole her from me.” She pulled herself to her feet, swaying there as if she could barely stand. “Was this all some kind of sick joke to you? Did you get off fucking the daughter of the woman you’d murdered?”
He flinched at her words, but didn’t respond. How could he? Nothing he said would change anything. Nothing he said would take back what he’d done or the pain he’d caused.
“What about my other sister? Did you kill Hedy, too?”
“There was only one girl there.”
“Sure, there was,” she said, clearly not believing him. Sarcasm sharpened her tone until every word cut. “Because why would you lie? You’re such a good man. You don’t choke people in their sleep or anything. You don’t kill.”
“There was no one else there, Echo.”
“I know Hedy’s dead. I waited for her for days. We always set up a meeting spot in case we got separated and she never showed. The only reason she wouldn’t is if she was dead.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He tried to tell himself that was good, even as he took her words like a punch to the gut. She shouldn’t believe him. He was dangerous to her. Hazel was dangerous to her.
I told you I would make you pay. You should have given me a child. Now we must take her shards another way. A faster way.
“You shouldn’t believe me,” he said, though it broke his heart to utter the words. “I didn’t think that Hazel had so much power over me, but I was clearly wrong.” He looked at the bruises ringing her throat and wanted to roar out his pain. Instead, he kept his voice level, calm. “You can’t trust me, Echo.”
She crossed the space toward him, but never got closer than ten feet. She surveyed the way he was cuffed, as if making sure he’d done it right.
Angry tears congregated behind her lashes, making her eyes luminous in the growing dawn. “Don’t worry,” she said. “That won’t be a problem. I’ll never trust you again.”
***
Garrick stared into the eyes of a killer, but all he saw was Eliana’s sweet face. He had no intention of dying tonight, but if he did, he wanted to do it with the memory of her fresh in his mind.
The big man held the knife in a confident grip, like he knew what he was doing.
Garrick prayed he wasn’t making a mistake. Either way, Holt was going free, and that was what mattered.
“You want to close your eyes or something?” the man asked.
“I only have one that works. I think I’ll use it while I still can.”
“Suit yourself.”
The big man’s arm pulled back to strike. Garrick sucked in a deep breath and steadied his nerves.
He was supernaturally strong, but even he had his limits.
The man’s blade shot forward, aimed right for Garrick’s heart. At the last fraction of an instant, he shoved himself sideways, chair and all.
The knife stabbed deep into his arm, but it had also sliced through one loop of the rope and halfway through another.
He fell to the floor with a bone-jarring halt. The metal arms of the chair bent beneath his weight.
Pain seared along Garrick’s skin, but he ignored it. He shoved outward with his arms, using all of his strength to loosen the now-severed rope.
Rough fibers fell away from his arms. His wrists were still bound behind him. His legs were still tied to the chair, but his body was free.
So was his head.
Before the knife could slash again, Garrick half-stood and used his body to swing the legs of the chair out at the man. The weight hit his shins and knocked him off balance. He toppled backward onto the glass end table, shattering it into wide, jagged chunks.
One of those went through the man’s neck.
He pushed to his knees. His free hand felt the broad spearhead of glass protruding from him.
“If you pull it out, you’ll bleed to death,” Holt said from across the room, voice even. “If you struggle, if you fight, you’ll die.”
The big man went still.
Garrick used the precious seconds to free himself. He sawed the ropes around his wrist on one of the sharp, glass edges. He hit skin as often as he did the bindings, but there was no time to slow down and be careful.
Viggo could be back at any second.
“Wha—”
“Don’t speak,” Holt said, his tone calm. “Don’t move. Once Garrick is free, he’ll call for help. Your only chance to live is if the Riven save you.”
The big man’s breath went shallow. His face paled. Blood seeped from his neck, but in a slow, warning trickle, not a gush.
If he died, Garrick was going to inherit his shards—shards he did not want.
“Listen to him,” he told the man. “We really don’t want you to die. I don’t want what’s inside of you. We’re the only hope you’ve got.”
One of the loops of rope around Garrick’s wrist broke. His skin was sliced in a dozen places, but he hadn’t damaged anything vital. He could still move his fingers.
He used his free hand to pick up the knife and went to work on Holt’s wrists. Tingling pinpricks of feeling came rushing back to his fingers in a blaze of pain he struggled to ignore.
They were free in a few seconds, leaving only the bindings on their legs left.
Holt took the knife from Garrick’s bloody hands and finished the job. Once he was free, he grabbed their guns and phones, pressing the panic button that would send all nearby Riven swarming in to help.
Not that there were likely to be many of them in the neighborhood.
He and Holt were still a long way from being out of danger.
Outside, a car door slammed, followed by the beep of a security system being triggered.
Viggo was back.
Holt didn’t miss a beat. He crouched at the window, shoved the glass up two inches, and fired down into the street below.
Four smooth, rapid shots went off, followed by the caustic curse falling from Holt’s lips. “He’s bolting.”
He started toward the door, but Garrick grabbed him by the arm. “You can’t. Not now. Let him go. We’ve got to stay here.”
The big man’s russet eyes were wide with fear. He wasn’t moving, but there was still a slight tremor running through his body.
He was a killer. He had been ready to kill them. But that didn’t mean they could walk away and leave him to die.
“We’re the Riven,” Garrick said. “We have a duty to this man.”
“What about my duty to my sister?” Holt asked.
“Let him go. That’s an order.”
Holt bristled, but did as he was told.
“Eliana is the only one who can save him,” Garrick said. “She’s hours away.”
Downstairs, tires squealed as Viggo fled in the Lexus. More fleeing residents followed, though whether they were running for safety or away from any incoming authorities was unclear.
“We can’t move him,” Holt said.
Garrick nodded in agreement. “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait and make our guest here as comfortable as possible.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Echo had been betrayed before. She’d been lied to and stolen from. She’d been tricked and swindled on the streets and had kids break her heart on the playground. But never before had a betrayal hurt like it did now.
She’d trusted Stygian. She barely knew him, and she’d trusted him. All because the voices told her to.
How could she have been so stupid? Even if he hadn’t been carrying around bits of a dead, evil bitch, she never should have let him get this close. She knew better.
She’d slept next to him, letting her guard down, leaving herself vulnerable.
He’d tried to kill her. He had killed
her mother.
Mom, I’m so sorry.
Old grief swelled up again, as fresh and hot as the first day it had come to visit. It had taken her years to get over it the first time. She didn’t think she was strong enough to go through it twice.
And yet, here she was, weeping like a child, unable to regain control of her choked breathing or her racing heart.
Once she was outside, under the lightening sky, Echo let herself sob. Messy, gut-wrenching tears fell out of her in ugly waves. Each one that passed left her weaker, until she was shaking and boneless.
She couldn’t stay here, locked inside her emotions. She had to move. Get up. Find that locket. Trap Hazel and destroy any tie she had to Stygian through the dead bitch.
He couldn’t be a part of her life anymore. She wasn’t going to be one of those stupid women who fell for a violent, abusive asshole and kept running back to him whenever he apologized.
She deserved better than that.
She deserved better than loving a murderer, too, but that was where she’d ended up, her heart giving her no say in the matter.
The gash in her heart bled, sending pain vibrating out to her extremities. The streetwise woman in her mind mocked her. Stupid, little girl in love. Look where that got you.
She patted the pocket that housed his Glock. She was familiar with guns, but the bullets she used were one-hundred percent lethal, unlike his.
As angry as she was with him, as hurt as she was by him, she didn’t think she had it in her to kill him. She might never want to see his face again, but she also didn’t want to picture him in the ground, either.
She loved Stygian, as dangerous as he was. With every beat of her foolish heart, she loved him. Nothing else could have hurt this bad, but love.
She wondered how long it would take her to stop loving him, how long she’d have to endure this heartache before she’d learned the lesson her misplaced trust had taught her.
Trust him, her shards whispered, singing the same tune they had since that first night she’d met him.
“Fuck you!” she shouted back at them.
Her voice echoed in the still morning air. She hadn’t meant to speak the words aloud, but when they came back to her, they brought something with them—something she’d never heard before.
