“Right . . . I’m just going to let them walk out of here. She knows everything, and even if she doesn’t, I can’t take that chance.”
“You don’t let them go, and you’re going to be the one who isn’t walking out of here.”
Felix sneered, a hateful twist of his lips. “Awful sure of yourself, don’t you think? Should have taken you out the second you rolled up here like a knight in shining armor sent to save the day. There’s no saving, Jace.”
Jace?
Jace just cracked a smile that was all taunt.
He was windin’ Felix up.
Stoking his anger.
Aiming it at himself.
“You’re right. It’s over. Over for you.”
Needles and knives. I could feel Jace driving them into Felix’s flesh. The way rage rippled through Felix, his pinpoint focus narrowing in on Jace.
But Jace’s . . . Jace’s might have been more intense. His drive greater than anything I’d ever witnessed or seen.
Fear tumbled through the center of me.
A different kind.
It was the terror of losing him all over again.
It rang with finality.
I could see it written all over him.
What he was willing to give. What he was gettin’ ready to do.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Steven is dead. I find that log? End this threat to our family? I take his place. Taking out that traitor Joseph was only a bonus. Now . . . back the fuck up. Me and your girlfriend here are going to find that log. She cooperates, and maybe, I’ll let the little girl go.”
Oh God, that was the only thing I wanted. For Bailey to be safe.
Desperately, I looked around as if it might conjure that log he was so desperate for.
Maybe . . . maybe I could use it to get us free. The only thing inside the smaller safe had been a stack of letters.
Felix had scattered them onto the floor like garbage, shooting into a rage before I’d even been able to figure out what they were.
He’d dragged me downstairs to get Bailey before he’d dragged us right back up here and had begun to tear apart the third floor.
Screaming at me to tell him where it was.
A log.
That’s what this had been all about?
As if I’d protect that over my daughter.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Jace said, “and sure as hell not with Faith or Bailey. You want to walk out of here? Let Mack continue to hunt you down? Be my guest. But you aren’t hurting either of them.”
I could see it in the firm clench of Jace’s jaw. In the way his finger flexed on the trigger of his gun.
The two of them had started to dance around the other, moving slowly as they began to circle like hawks.
Predators after their own prey.
Both of them beasts. Coming from the same ugly world.
But that was where the similarities ended, their hearts so strikingly different.
I felt the burn of Jace’s.
The bolt of light.
The streak of love.
And I knew . . . I knew I couldn’t just sit there. He was getting ready to go down in a blaze. I had to do somethin’.
If Felix had been responsible for Joseph’s death, no doubt Felix wasn’t going to think twice about killin’ any of us. I shook when I realize it’d probably been his intention all along.
Get the log, and then he was goin’ to get rid of us the same way as he’d gotten rid of Joseph.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
With none of their attention on me, I quietly eased off the couch and onto my knees.
In the lapping shadows, I ran the palm of my hand over Bailey’s mouth, my eyes begging her, silently praying she’d understand I was asking her not to make a sound.
Silently telling her how much I loved her.
That she was my world.
I hid her in a crevice between the couch and a massive dresser, and I pressed the softest kiss to the top of her head. A promise that I would always love her. No matter what happened.
My little thing hugged my neck, sending her own silent plea.
But somehow her heart was beating steady. Filled up with that understanding that was too great for someone her age. The child always too keen.
Pressing my lips to her chubby cheek, I breathed her in, held her little spirit tight to my heart.
Then I gathered the little courage I had and crawled back out, peering around the couch only far enough to see the two men still circling each other.
“You should know better than to think any of this works like that. Joseph killed my uncle, and he was holding that log over our heads like it was going to save him. Nothing would have. Just like there isn’t anything that is going to save you or her.”
Felix was in the middle of the room. Seething. The stench of hate coming off him was so great, I knew there was no chance any of us were making it out of there if someone didn’t stop him.