“I suspect as much,” she agrees, and my skin prickles. “Anyway, back to my apology.” She moves until she’s directly in front of Declan. Her fingers reach out to brush his cheek, but he jerks his head away. I see the hurt flash in her eyes before she steeles herself. “The night you told me about the fire and your involvement,” she whispers softly, “I nearly had a panic-induced heart attack after I left.”
My stomach tenses at the memory of her falling apart on her bedroom floor after she realized that she almost killed three of the men she truly cared about by mistake.
“I thought you were the last people alive responsible for their deaths,” she continues quietly. “But when you told me that you had no involvement with the explosions or the fire… I immediately called everything off.”
“What do you mean the last people alive?” Silas asks slowly, his brow furrowing deeply. “There were several groups involved in that job.”
“There were,” she agrees easily with a single nod. Her green eyes darken and flash dangerously. “I hunted every single one of them down, trying to find a name for the person who hired them. No one knew and I kept coming up empty handed.”
Declan leans his head back so he can look into her eyes, his expression unreadable. “Until I gave you the name.”
Emelia places her hands on Declans thighs, right above his knees, and sinks to the floor. I blink at her in shock. Never have I seen her on her knees for any other reason than sexual pleasure. Declan’s entire body goes rigid.
“Declan, I am so sorry. I don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am. I acted on my information, but that informationwas wrong. My mind is being pulled into so many different directions with all this.”
Declan shakes his head. I watch all three of them as they sit rigid in their chairs. “Would you have done it?” he finally asks. “If your information wasn’t wrong, would you have killed us?”
I hold my breath because I, too, want to know the answer to this question. I’ve been tossing it around in my head for a while now. If they truly were involved with the death of her parents, would she have been able to handle them? Or would her emotions have prevented her from pulling the trigger.
She sighs and leans back on her heels, her cheeks turning red. The silence stretches on as she turns her answer over on her tongue. “No,” she finally says. “After I thought Silas was gone, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing anyone else. I regret every second that you suffered, Silas, and I’m sorry for it. I thought I was avenging my parents and mending my broken heart, but instead I only broke it further.”
Hayden jerks against his bindings, trying again to free his hands. “Let me out of this fucking chair, Angel.”
She looks over at him and her face softens. “I can’t do that. Not until I know that you understand. That you won’t kill me.” She pushes herself up, moves in front of Hayden, and then drops back to her knees between his open thighs. Her fingers trace along the light stubble on his jaw. I think he’s going to jerk away like Declan did, but he turns his face and places an open mouth kiss to her palm.
“I already do,” he whispers to her, and my heartbeat quickens in my chest. “I understand because I was you. I felt what you felt. My parents are long dead, but I spent several years searching for a means of revenge. I lost myself to it for a long time, and even now I’m not the same as I was before. I don’t want to kill you, Angel, I want to hold you. I want to feel you solid in my arms andknow that you’re okay. Let me mend your broken cracks with gold,” he whispers.
My throat tightens at his words and I know he means it. I can tell by the look in his eyes. He holds no ill will toward her for what she’s done. The other two might take a little more groveling, but he’s as lost to her as I am.
Emelia turns back to Declan and Silas. “I couldn’t go through with any further plans because I couldn’t bear the thought of the men I love bleeding and broken because of me.”
Silas shudders in his chair before jerking against his ropes. I can see the war raging inside him and I can’t imagine what he’s going through. He just found out that he almost died for something that he had no part in. My heart actually aches for him as I see tears gathering on his cheeks. “Do you mean it?” he asks, and his voice breaks with raw emotion.
Emelia gets up and moves over to Silas, but this time she doesn’t kneel. “With every cell in my body,” she confirms, and reaches for him. He tenses and her fingers stop right before she grazes his hair. “Can I?” Silas nods and Emelia strokes her fingers through his tousled hair. His eyes close and tears stream down his cheeks. “Please forgive me,” she whispers, and I can hear the pain in her voice. This is just as much a torture for her as it is for them.
Silas draws in a ragged breath before looking over Emelia’s shoulder at me. I nod once without breaking eye contact. He closes his eyes again and I watch his muscles relax, his body sagging into the chair. “Declan?” Silas whispers and turns to his brother.
Two down.
One to go.
Declan is completely still as Emelia drops back to her knees in front of him. His eyes are closed and I have to really focus to see if he’s even still breathing. At the sound of his nameon Silas’s lips, he opens his eyes and they are like dark storm clouds. “We’re all a little broken, aren’t we, Princess?” he asks calmly. “We took a job to kill Em, which turns out to be you.” He pauses and I can’t help but wonder if he’s doing it for dramatic affect. “It seems that we find ourselves at an impasse.” I swear his eyes smolder as he looks down at her. “Because I can’t kill the woman I love either.”
22
DECLAN
10 YEARS AGO
“You want to take this job?” Enrique Cabrera asks with an arched brow. “The hotel heist?” His tone is almost mocking, and it makes my fists clench at my sides.
“Yes. That would be the one,” I say, and tighten my jaw. The way he smiles at me makes me want to knock him square in the nose. “There a problem?”
He leans back in his chair and regards me with a curious look. “Last time I saw you and your crew,” he says slowly, “they tried to kill five of my men and cursed the very ground my family will be buried in.”
I shrug nonchalantly, and lean back in the chair I’m in, forcing my muscles to relax. “They got over it,” I lie smoothly. In reality, they have not gotten over it, and they would prefer to put a bullet in every one of these men without a second thought. They are untrustworthy, cynical, conniving, and ruthless.
“I’m sure they have. How’s Sullivan doing?” His voice is even as he asks about Hayden. I fight the urge to jump over the desk and choke him with my bare hands.