“Because it’s true.”
“Because I—”
“We came because she figured one of the staff must have your mobile number.” The youngest Quinn blinks up at me, wriggling her brows. “She misses you. She hasn’t bathed in days.”
Peter smacks a palm over her forehead, gently shoving his sister into the backseat. “Don’t tell her we mentioned the bathing thing. She’ll never forgive us.”
She misses you.
Bloody fucking hell. I’m a total goner. She’s turned me into a sap—the sick, annoying kind, at that—and I find my palm rubbing my chest, right over my heart. Happiness, something so entirely elusive, settles within me. Unicorns. Treasure chests of gold. I could die here, in this moment, and I would at least know what it feels like to be adored.
She didn’t bathe because she missed me.
My mouth curves upward, and though I catch Peter’s poorly concealed blanching, I don’t take offense. Isla wants me just fine, deformed upper lip and all.
“I’ll get her now,” I say, pulling back. “Two minutes.”
Isla shouldn’t be anywhere near London, but she’s single-handedly weakened my resolve. She’s here. I’m here. And, clearly, there’s no choice left on the docket but to kiss the hell out of her.
Releasing an aggrieved sigh, Josie mutters, “We’ll be here. As was already promised.”
Long strides bring me to the front door of The Bell & Hand, and I experience only a moment of self-doubt when I step inside. Damien may be battling a severe case of regret over me leaving Holyrood but the same can’t be said for our older brother. In the days since I left the Palace, I’ve not heard a single word from him.
No phone calls. No text messages. Not even an email.
This pub was never Damien’s passion, but it was mine and Guy’s. We bled hours into The Bell & Hand. Found the best chefs in the area. Hired waitstaff that could have hacked it at London’s premiere restaurants, had they ever decided to leave us. Though it started as nothing more than a front to entice anti-loyalists into our midst, The Bell & Hand was our tiny slice of normal. Here, we were business owners. Here, we were brothers—not spies for the Crown.
Will Guy run it on his own?
Is he here now, upstairs in his flat?
My heart doesn’t race. My palms don’t sweat. But I’m acutely aware of a . . . a sort of loss that threads through my body. The same that I felt when Mum took her last breath. Back then, at nine, I’d turned to my older brother and soaked his shirt through with my tears.
This time, I don’t cry.
“Saxon? Is that you?”
I turn at the sound of my name, and find one of my servers, Sara, standing beside an empty table. I draw the brim of my hat lower, to ward off any curious glances. “It’s best if you don’t mention me being here to anyone.”
To the world, I’m a killer now.
A killer of a priest, a potential suspect in King John’s assassination.
Her head bobs in a hasty nod. “Yes, yes, of course. Is there”—she shifts the tray onto one hand, leveraging it up by her shoulder—“something you needed? We received all your instructions. Everything is under control.”
Feeling slightly uncomfortable, I shift my weight. “Was there a woman who came in here within the last few minutes? Blond? Slim? She—”
BOOM!
“Dear God, was that gunfire?”
“Was it outside? Please tell me it was outside.”
A scream renders the pub silent, chilling, nightmare-inducing, and as chaos erupts all around, I surge forward through the crowd stampeding toward the front door. That cry. That voice. Undiluted fear slams into me as I shove patrons out of my way.
“Isla!” I bellow, at the top of my lungs. “Isla!”
My feet pound the floor as I enter the hallway leading toward the office, as well as the stairwell up to Guy’s flat. Guy. Did he find her here? Did he shoot her? I’ll rip him limb from limb. Tear his cold, black heart straight from his chest, and—
A man stumbles out from the office.
Blood coats his right hand, the leg of one trouser. A pistol is clamped in his opposite hand, one that’s still adorned with a splint around his index finger.
The red wings of fury sweep me into flight.
I charge down the hall, arms pumping at my sides, legs churning fast, faster. His chin jerks up at the sound of my footsteps, features blanching. Immediately, he fumbles with the pistol. Lifts his arm. Aligns the mouth of the gun with me.
Crack!
Lifelong experience of literally dodging bullets has me dropping to my knees. The air above my head crackles with the force of the discharged weapon. It crackles with my rage, too. Dragging up the hem of my trousers, I grab the knife from its holster and tease the weight of the hilt in my hand.
“Priest. Hold on now, yeah?”
“I heard her scream,” I grit out, swiftly covering the ground between us. “And you’ve blood all over you, which means you have five seconds to prove that you didn’t shoot her. That, when I open the door, I’m going to find her sitting behind my desk. Sleek. Beautiful. Alive.”
His gaze turns flinty. “We were friends.”
“Not the right answer, Jack.”
“You ruined e’erythin’! E’erythin’.”
It’s all the admission I need. His hand visibly shakes, and I pin my attention on it. Gripping the blade, I wind my arm back and send the knife hurtling through the air. It finds its mark in the crease of his shoulder and armpit, rendering his shooting arm useless. His pained shout echoes down the hall, the pistol crashing to the floor.
He wobbles to the side, his shoulder colliding with the wall.
I step up to him, wrenching the blade from his torn flesh. Look him dead in the eye as I leverage my forearm across his heaving chest and drag the point of the knife down over his sternum. A new scar splits his throat. Recently fresh, only a matter of days old. I narrow my eyes. “I told you what would happen if you came back.”
Sweat beads on his flushed temple. “And I told ye she’d be the end of you. All this given up for a cunt—”
I plunge the blade deep into his middle.
His mouth gapes open but no sound emerges. His bloodied hand circles my arm, using my weight to keep himself standing. I step away. Let him slither to the ground, his legs giving out. Dark blood streaks down the wall, but I’m already stepping away and throwing open the office door. I have to find her—now.
“Isla? Isla, are you—oh, fucking hell.”
What’s left of my heart shrivels at the sight of her.
It’s déjà vu, a damn near recreation of the moment that I spotted her at the riot. Blond hair haloed around her head. Legs drawn up tight into her chest. But her face is tipped up to the ceiling and her arms are splayed outward, like a cross, and her chest . . . her chest . . .
Blood. There’s so much blood.
Horror turns my limbs into a trembling mess as I demolish the space between us. One step. Two. The third has me sinking to my knees beside her, my shaking hands moving to frame her face. I fan my thumbs over her cheekbones, my other fingers cradling the back of her skull. Blood coats the corner seams of her mouth. More dot the ivory white of her upper teeth.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!