Enamoured (The Enslaved Duet 2)

He was palming a gun.

Adrenaline sluiced over me, my legs aching with lactic acid that urged me to charge out of the car and kill the bastard for following either of us.

The Order had sent someone to take care of us if we disobeyed orders.

Despite my show of loyalty by castrating Simon Wentworth, they still didn’t trust me. Indignation burned through me, chased on its heels by the inferno of betrayal.

That they knew where she was to send someone indicated they were the ones to take her from me.

I felt the insane urge to tip my head to the sky and howl like a beast with rage. Instead, I pulled my knife out from my pocket, flipped it open, and stabbed it into the passenger seat of the hundred thousand-pound Bugatti.

The act of violence calmed me enough to take stock of Cosima again.

As I deliberated how I could instantaneously kill each member of the Order, the strange man reached Cosima and began to pull open his coat.

I had my gun out of its holster and in my hands, leveled at the threat in the next instant, my breathing calm and cool as I narrowed my sight at the threatening bastard.

Would they really be so bold as to take her out on a bloody street corner?

No. I told myself to relax and lowered the weapon as the man took off his trench and handed it to my wife.

The Order operated in the shadows, illusive and ephemeral as the spectre of a demon sent from Hell. They wouldn’t cause a scene.

The bastard-in-wait across the street was a sleeper agent. He wouldn’t pull the trigger unless Cosima gave him—and therefore the Order—reason to do so.

Right now, she was safe.

If I stepped into the picture again to claim her, I’d be placing her in imminent danger. If we somehow escaped this gunman, there would always be another threat around the corner.

Sherwood and the rest were not the kind of men who let flagrant rule breaking go unpunished.

I thought back to the difference between Ares and Athena, of how cool logic and careful planning always prevailed over hot-headed action. I wondered if I was strong enough, clever enough to think hard and long, to craft a plan so precise and perfectly honed I could use it like a lance to drive it through the heart of my enemies and hers. Ours.

I watched distractedly as the redheaded man spoke with Cosima, obviously trying to comfort and coax her toward a café to get out of the rain.

She laughed, her head thrown back and her hand snapping out to brace herself against his arm as if the weight of his hilarity was too much to bear.

The man looked down at her hand on his arm and then back up into her gorgeous face made even more gorgeous by the rain and good humour, and I knew he was caught.

It only took a moment, a glance, to be hooked by her beauty, but the moment she allowed you a glimpse of her vital spirit, it was like a bludgeon over the head and the end of any protestations.

He would help her.

I could see it in the way he led her into the café, leaning down to better hear her lyrical voice.

I wanted to kill him.

And not even quickly, simply by shooting him with the cold gun in my lap.

I wanted to rip him apart with my bare hands just for touching her, for even thinking about caring for her when she was my responsibility.

But then I looked over at the minion across the street and saw him watching my car, squinting across the distance into the dark interior.

He couldn’t see me, but if he did, the work I’d done to convince Sherwood I was indifferent to Cosima would be undone.

And it couldn’t be.

If I really wanted the best for Cosima, I’d leave her alone to carve out a better life for herself. One that didn’t involve my dark tastes, my sadistic father, the cursed Order, or the past four years of a debt that should never have been hers to settle.

She’d helped me enough.

Salvatore was dead. The Order was appeased now that I’d taken part in their twisted games. They had ammo for blackmail should I choose to go against them, which was really why they participated in things like The Hunt and The Trails in the first place. To get dirt on the wealthiest, most powerful men in the United Kingdom and save it for a rainy bribe-ridden day.

Cosima was only ever meant to be a tool, and she’d fulfilled her purpose.

It should have been easy to let her go.

So why did my chest feel on fire?

Why could I hear the bones snapping and cracking as flames ate away at them, as my organs shriveled up to soot and ash?