Page 39 of Dangerous

I looked up at him in surprise, my eyes widening at the absolute, stone cold rage in his gaze as he leveled my father and brother with a murderous stare.

“Now you listen to me very,verycarefully, Clery. There will be no more deals made between my family and yours. Not one. Any arrangements made in the past are null and void. You understand?”

My father gaped up at Blaine, his mouth working to form some form of protest no doubt, but the shock didn’t allow for any actual words to be produced. By his side, Michael had gone completely pale—Blaine’s anger was a near physical presence in the room, and terrifying beyond belief, even for me who wasn’t in its direct line of fire.

“You have twenty-four hours to get thefuckout of London and back to Belfast, or I swear I will gut every one of you like fish.”

“Nowyoulisten, son!” my father protested, finally finding his voice as he got to his feet. “You have no authority to make such threats. We have an agreement with your father, and you can’t—”

“Did I not make myself clear?” Blaine hissed. “Get out of my city,now.I am a Steel, and trust me when I say that I have all the authority I need to slaughter every last member of your miserable little gang.”

“You’ve made a grave mistake today, boy,” my father growled. He grabbed Michael by the shoulder and my brother got up from his chair too, despite looking like he was about to wet himself. “Andyou.”He pointed his finger at me, and it took all I had not to shrink back from the absolute hatred in his eyes. “You’re gonna regret the day you betrayed your family, you little whore.”

Blaine slapped his palm into the table hard enough to make his abandoned folder jump an inch. “Don’t you fuckingdareinsult my wife!”

My father glared at me, the muscles in his neck working like they always had when he was about to lose his temper. But apparently, being confronted with Blaine’s palpable anger made him able to rein it in. Without another word he spun around and stormed out of the office, followed by Michael.

Once the door was closed behind them and we could no longer hear my father shouting profanities and threats as he stomped down the hall, I turned to the still-seething man by my side. My husband.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Blaine shot me a dark look. “They harmed you. That’s exactly what I needed to do.”

Nineteen

Mira

Neither Blaine nor I spoke on the car ride home.

I was too wrapped up in the emotional turmoil of what had just happened, and I imagined he was still seething away with anger, at least if the dark look on his face was anything to go by.

When we got home, I went straight up the stairs and threw myself on my bed, burrowing into the duvet. As I lay there, clutching my blankets like a protective shield, my mind went over everything that had been said in that conference room. At first it took all I had not to start crying again, but the more times my thoughts looped, the more they focused on what Blaine had said rather than what my father had. What he’d done.

It was the first time in my entire life anyone had stood up for me. My mother never had the courage nor the strength to do so. She had chosen to accept the abuse instead. I remembered that once I had cried on her shoulder as a little girl over a particularly vicious beating, and she had told me I brought it on myself with my bad behavior.

But not Blaine. He hadn’t told me what was done to me was my own fault. And he hadn’t seen me as a victim, either.

Somehow, seeing his anger on my behalf and knowing he didn’t find me weak and pathetic for what I’d gone through finally gave me the strength to do the same. I had survived years of abuse and come out the other side of it. I was stronger than most people.

I was a survivor.

Tears pooled at the corners of my eyes again, but this time, they were from relief. It felt like a knot in my stomach that had been there so long I’d stopped noticing it finally came undone.

And in some weird, fucked up way, it came undone because of Blaine.

As if summoned by my thoughts, a low knocking on my door announced Blaine’s arrival. He walked in without waiting for my answer.

He’d changed out of the suit and back into his usual T-shirt-and-jeans attire, but his face was still set in the same grim lines as when we drove home.

“Hey,” I croaked.

“Hey,” he said. And then he crossed the room to my bed and climbed in behind me. His arm wrapped around my waist as his body curved around my back, shielding and supporting me.

I closed my eyes and leaned back into his embrace, too emotionally exhausted to protest the unexpected closeness. I didn’t care that I wasn’t supposed to let him touch me, that our relationship up until now certainly hadn’t paved the way for physical closeness like this. All I cared about was that being held by Blaine right now felt better than anything had before.

We lay in silence for a little while, but it was the comfortable kind. The kind that let me feel the press of his muscles against my back, hear his slow breaths in my ear, and smell the faint trace of his cologne without anything disturbing the tranquil enjoyment of the simple, sensory experience of being held this close.

“When I came to see you, I’d just found out my father got my brother locked up on purpose. As punishment. Isaac disobeyed him, refused to kill someone who had snitched on us.” Blaine spoke softly, but his mouth was pressed lightly against the side of my head just above my ear, so I heard the pain in his voice perfectly.

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