I set my jaw and shake my head again. “Sorry.”
Her eyes rove my tear-streaked face, and no doubt she sees the pain in my eyes. Except she mistakes my sympathy for pity.
“Get the hell out of the way, or I’ll move you,” she snaps.
I hold firm, and she shoves me hard at the shoulders before I even register she’s put her hands on me.
Stumbling back, I land on my ass in the middle of the room. Adrian is in her face less than a second later. “What the hell is your problem?”
The only reason he hasn’t hit her back is because of what he just saw. Hesitation is his own form of sympathy, but again, she doesn't take it that way. This time, she goes for Adrian’s throat.
Kai finally steps in and gets her in a hold in less than a second. She goes frantic, her eyes wild, her body jerking and fighting against this. But it’s not the carefully disciplined moves she learns every day but the fervent dangerous, formless fight of the trapped.
“Let her go,” I say, getting to my feet, my hands stinging from scraping on the floor.
As usual, no one listens to me. “Let her go,” I say again, this time placing my hand gently on Kai’s forearm. Everyone freezes, and Adrian hauls me back.
It takes a minute, but Kai relaxes his grip, and Andrea scrambles out of his hold, shoving him away. “I don’t know what the hell is go—” Her eyes finally snag on the screen, and she knows.
She knows.
“You…” Her breath shudders out of her. “You saw it?”
She folds her arms around her middle, and I want to comfort her so badly. Adrian refuses to let me go, no matter how much I try to squirm from his iron grasp. Right now, she’s dangerous. A cornered creature looking to claw her way back to reality. I know both that cage and that border intimately.
I turn in Adrian’s grasp to meet his eyes. “She won’t hurt me. When she pushed me, she probably didn’t realize I’d go down so hard. She needs a friend, and I’m the only female in this house who can help her get through this with her soul intact.”
He smooths my curls away from my face with one hand, his fingers gentle but unyielding. His eyes hold a million questions and a million answers, but he gives me one sharp nod and then releases his grasp.
I approach her slowly, hands up in surrender. “It’s okay. We are the only ones who saw it. No one else.”
A choked sob escapes her throat, and she turns away to stifle any more than might come out. I give her a minute before skirting wide to look at her face again. “If anyone knows what you’re going through, it’s me. We already talked about this, remember? What you see on my face now, it’s not pity, it’s anger...it’s sympathy...it’s the need to drive a knife through those bastards’ hearts and then keep them alive long enough to feed them their own dicks.”
I clamp my mouth shut, a little surprised at my own thirst for violence. Her eyes lock on mine, wary but surprised too. “I don’t want them to see it. They will think I’m weak.”
Gently, I cup her elbows and steer her to avoid seeing the boys or the screen. “No one who watches this could say you are weak. Not in a million years, not after how you fought, and how you survived.”
Her shoulders slowly inch away from her ears, her long dark hair shifting around her with the movement. “I want revenge, I do,” she whispers. “But I’m not strong enough to get it yet. I can’t leave this damn building for fear of seeing one of them and not being ready to face it all.”
I want to hug her so badly, but Andrea is definitely not a hugger, so I keep my distance. “That’s okay. You take as long as you need. No one will make a move on these pricks until you’re ready. Hell, and if you’re never ready, I know five very powerful men who would love nothing more than to handle it for you. I promise, if you say the word, they will deliver each of these asshole’s heads on a pike.”
She drags her gaze from mine over to Adrian, then Kai, and back. “Okay. I believe you.”
I nod, satisfied she’s not going to do anything stupid that will get Adrian riled up again. “Do you want to tell them about it or talk about it at all yet?”
Frantically, she shakes her head back and forth. I run my hands up her biceps slowly, back and forth, trying to soothe her. “Okay. Okay. Don’t worry about it, alright. It’s fine.”
I stalk over to the table and hit the button on the DVD player to remove the disc. Then I slide it into the paper wrapper we found it in. When I’m standing in front of her again, I wrap her hands around it. “Kai, I’m sure, will try to see if there are any digital copies that can be destroyed. This belongs to you, but if you can, try to keep it in case we need it for evidence.”
She chokes out a sob. “Evidence to present to who? The same council who did this to me? No. But I’ll keep it for now in case it’s needed.”
I nod, and she turns away, shoving between the men to get out the door. They let her go but follow her with their eyes until she’s out of sight.
Adrian focuses on me again, something new written in his features. “Angel...”
I shake my head and grab the paper, the summons as Kai called it, and hold it out to him. With a grimace, he snatches it and unfolds the edges to scan the sheet. His fingers tighten around the top and bottom, and then he waves it over to Kai, who takes it next.
“What is it?” I ask, stepping into his open arms now. The strength that kept me going for the past couple of hours seems to drain out of me bit by bit after the confrontation with Andrea.
Kai sighs and carefully sets the paper on the table. “It’s a summons alright and a threat. It seems the council is content to go to war with us, officially.”
“Me,” Adrian corrects, his chin pressing into the hair at my crown. “The council wants me, and I plan to give them exactly what they want.”
24
ADRIAN
The threat was issued to me, and Andrea already paid the price of being in the council’s crosshairs. I won’t risk the rest of my men as well. Not with stakes this high.
I don’t sleep much over the next couple of days, so much so that Valentina comments on it when she catches me staring off into space for the third time in the morning. “Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking?”
I wave my fork at her, the one I didn’t even remember I held. A piece of melon dangles from the tines. “I’m thinking I need to find somewhere safe for you and the others to go.”
Her forehead scrunches up as she chews her own food. “The others?” she echoes.
“Andrea is already hurt, and I won’t risk anyone else. I’m going to find somewhere safe you all can hide out until this blows over.”
She laughs, short and sharp. “If you think they are going to leave just because you order it, then you haven’t been paying attention. Every single one of them wants revenge for the attack Andrea suffered and for the council’s continued targeting of you. Even with them on your back, the five aren’t going to go anywhere, not without you. Especially without you.” She narrows her eyes. “Isn’t that what you pay them for anyway? To keep you safe.”