He’s probably right.
Everything that I am is solely focused on the blonde warrior who killed a man today, in order to save herself, then got down on her knees to offer me the likes of salvation to which I’ve never known.
Stop thinking about her.
Unlikely, especially since I have her heady scent still filling my nose. It’s on my skin, my clothes. Even now, I can smell her off my fingers from when I circled her clit and made her scream. Like some possessive caveman marked by lust, I’m tempted to never wash myself clean again.
“We’ll talk it over when I get us out of here tonight.”
Guy blows out a frustrated sigh that rattles in my ears. “Whatever you think that you’re doing, be done with it, you hear me? Damien’s got news for us—about Alfie Barker—and then we have to figure out the mess that is your bloody face all over the goddamn internet. You’ve fucked us, Saxon. Absolutely and completely fucked us.”
Scrubbing a hand over my jaw, I clench my teeth tight. “Ring me as soon as you have Peter and Josie.”
Hanging up the phone, I toss it on the rickety table that sits in the center of the room. Unlike the ground floor, it’s not so dirty up here. Musty, yes, with furniture that had its heyday in the seventies and a rug that’s torn and discolored, but not necessarily unclean. It’s one of Holyrood’s many hideouts within the City.
The fact that I brought Isla here is another problem all on its own.
“What did he say?” Isla’s voice drags my gaze away from the table to where she’s standing, a finished braid now falling over one shoulder. The hairstyle makes her look younger, innocent, especially with her face scrubbed free of makeup. After today’s events, it’s safe to say that Isla Quinn wouldn’t know innocence if it bit her in the ass.
Ruin me . . . take me . . .
At the memory of her begging for more, my cock twitches in my trousers and I drop my hands to the table. “He’s heading over to grab them now.”
Grasping the back of a chair, Isla falls into it, raw relief sweeping through her expression. “Oh, thank God. I wasn’t sure if . . . Of course, I’d hoped—”
“My brother might be an ass, but he would never leave two kids to fend for themselves.”
She bobs her head, nodding quickly. “Like I said, I hoped. But your brother and I, we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she and Guy will never be on the right foot. It’s simply not possible. Despite what happened today, we Priests fit solidly under the loyalist umbrella while Isla . . .
I drag my hands over my face. Christ, this is a mess.
Hesitant as I am to bring Isla and her siblings to another one of Holyrood’s hideouts, this one a terrace house in Camden, I don’t see another option rearing its head. Staying in Stepney, so close to Queen Mary, won’t work. Returning to The Bell & Hand, any time in the near future, might as well be the kiss of death. It’ll be the first place the police visit, and it’ll be up to Guy to hold down the fort.
All this time, I’ve managed to walk the tightrope between opening the door to anti-loyalists while still maintaining my position within London’s social landscape. It was Damien who had to hide at the Palace, for fear of someone catching him—not me. Ten fucking years of running the pub, and now this.
Granted, once Damien has the chance to comb through the Met’s databases and strip us of any charges, it might be a different story. But even then, how would I explain to Isla that suddenly we’re free to do as we please?
You can’t.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I draw in a breath. “According to Guy, my face is already all over the news. A possible suspect—not confirmed.”
Isla’s lips settle in a firm line. “And mine?”
“Not yet. Either the survivor didn’t get a good look at you or—”
“Professor Coney had photographs of me.”
My head snaps back. “What?”
“Photographs.” She splays her hands wide, gesturing at her thighs. “He dumped them in my lap right before he tried to strangle me—”
“He did what,” I bark, low, furious, firing away from the table to stalk toward her. “Explain.”
“What else is there to explain?” She motions to her neck, and my gut lurches with barely subdued rage. “He tried to kill me and I . . . I killed him instead.” She swallows visibly, then briefly closes her eyes. “What matters is that he knew who I was, Saxon. And I knew him.”
Coming to stand before her, I drop to my haunches. Tempted as I am to lay a hand on her leg, I keep my fingers locked on my knee. Fucking her once is not a green light to go for a second round. And, considering how epically dysfunctional our relationship already is, taking her again would prove to be the very definition of insanity.
Find the calm. Find the ice. Find yourself.
“How?” I demand, my voice emerging with all the softness of granite.
With only the cast of natural light from the narrow window to illuminate her face, Isla’s blue eyes appear darker, a turbulent gray, like the skies that drenched us this morning. “That first day when I came to apply for a position, I ran into a man on the front steps. I thought nothing of it. There are thousands of people that you cross paths with, in a single lifetime, that never mean a thing.”
“But?”
“But I saw him again the next day, when you asked to meet.” She leans forward in her chair, propping her elbows on her thighs and clasping her hands together, careful of the clean cloth that I wound around her injured hand when we came upstairs. “Déjà vu, Saxon. The same man, the same feeling that I had when I walked in the pub after sidestepping around him. Ian Coney didn’t just stop by The Bell & Hand—he was actively staking it out.”
“Fuck.”
Her thumbs crisscross restlessly over each other. “I don’t know how many others like him are out there, just waiting until they can make their move on you. I don’t think . . . I don’t think Professor Coney is an isolated instance, though. You and your brothers are notorious among anti-loyalists. And since you run the pub yourselves, everyone knows where you are at nearly any given time of the day.”
Isla isn’t wrong.
It’s something we actively considered when we agreed to open The Bell & Hand ten years ago. At the time, it seemed like a brilliant idea. We needed a front that gave anti-loyalists a reason to trust us with their secrets. But in building that repertoire, we simultaneously alienated the group of people who should have trusted us implicitly, if only they knew the truth.
Bloody tangled webs and all that shit.
Feeling my throat tighten, I ask, “You mentioned pictures. What were they of?”
“The ones of just you, or the few that included the two of us?”
The fact that the bastard managed to sneak not only pictures of myself but ones of Isla . . . If Ian Coney weren’t a dead man already, then I’d deliver him straight to the grave. “The latter,” I edge out, curbing my anger.
Isla licks her lips, immediately drawing my attention there.
She wanted a kiss and I . . . panicked, full force. Even if I’d gone for it, I wouldn’t know what to do. It’s a zone I’ve never been welcome to, a paradise that’s remained forever out of reach. And, beyond the practicality of it all, anything more than a quick peck might have allowed her to feel just how misshapen my upper lip is.