Page 103 of Master of Lies

“Not until I talk to Freya,” I said.

“You’re not getting anywhere near Freya,” her brother said, his voice like ice. “You’ve done enough. You almost got her killed. She barely speaks. You already let Shane fall into a fucking hole in the earth. I won’t let you inflict any more damage on my family.”

I had no coherent response to that, because he was completely right. So my only option was dumb-ass stubbornness. My default setting.

“I’m not leaving until I see her,” I repeated.

The energy in the room shifted as Ethan exchanged meaningful glances with his hired muscle. Hamon and Bryson moved toward me, trying to herd me toward the door.

I was in for a world of hurt, but fuck it. I was so used to pain by now, I’d barely notice. I’d rather have the shit kicked out of me ten times over then tolerate this silence any longer. She’d made no response to calls, texts, emails. Even snail mail letters.

If the answer was fuck off, it had to be verbalized, and come straight from her lips. Then I would accept it, and promptly turn around and walk right off the edge of the world. But not until then.

Hamon went for me first, his gorilla arms swinging in a lightning fast roundhouse that I barely managed to evade. It whipped right past my nose. I bobbed and wove and spun and ducked, avoiding some of the blows, catching some doozies.

Then I backed away and picked up a chair, some fancy designer thing made of bent metal and leather, and flung it at Bryson’s head, dancing back just in time to avoid a crushing kick meant for my balls from Hamon’s huge booted foot—

“What in the hell is going on here?”

We all froze at the sound of Freya’s voice. Hamon made another lunge—

“I saidstop!” Freya commanded, with absolute authority.

Hamon stumbled back and looked at his boss, looking confused and agonized.

“Do not touch him,” she bit out. “Or you will all regret it.”

Hamon stood down, giving Ethan a shame-faced, apologetic look.

At that point, I dared to lower my guard enough to turn and look at the door.

The sight of Freya Masters was a whole body experience, like jumping into water. Holy God, she was so beautiful. Different, though. So thin. Her eyes were deeply shadowed, and she’d chopped off all the bleached blonde locks, which resulted in a dark blonde raggedy pixie cut, with some paler bleached tips here and there, like some wild woodland creature. Which only accentuated all the delicate, elegant details of her face. The wounds from Nicole’s knife were healed, but the scars were still an angry red against her paleness. But her eyes. So brilliant, so bright. Filled with accusation.

Well, yeah. I had let her down in every possible way. Fuck, in the end, it had been Freya who had to come and rescue me. She had to risk getting cut to pieces just to save my miserable skin. I had made every possible wrong decision, and piled incompetence upon incompetence. Boer was dead. Nicole was gone. Shane, still lost. A whole host of other people dead. No one still alive worth questioning.

My hands were empty. I was so ashamed of that. She deserved better. And even so, my eyes were starved for the sight of hers.

I couldn’t look away. I felt like a prisoner in a dungeon. Desperate for the sunlight he will only see on the day that he goes to be hanged.

CHAPTER36

Freya

What the hell? Jed, getting pounded by Ethan’s security people?

I spun around to face Ethan. He had that look on his face. I knew it all too well. The look that said, “This is going to hurt, but I know what’s best for you.”

But I was changed by what had happened to me. I wasn’t taking any of that shit from him, or anyone, ever again.

Jed looked different. Leaner, sharper, harder, but his eyes burned in his face, staring at me. The intensity was confusing, after his silence.

“Why were you attacking him?” I asked Ethan.

Ethan shrugged, his face set in stubborn lines. “He was being unruly.”

“Unruly? You mean, like, he said something you didn’t want to hear? Don’t be a prick, Ethan!”

“Freya, he just needs to go, and then we can talk about—”

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