The terrible weariness in her brother's eyes lingered for a moment, then his long, gold lashes descended. When they lifted, the weariness was gone, replaced by a gentle understanding that almost broke her heart. "I'm sorry, Peanut. But it's true."
Her mind reeled, unable to process it. Theo was Jericho. A crime lord heavily involved in the sex trafficking business, drugs, and who knew what other crimes.
It just … didn't make any sense.
"Why?" she demanded suddenly. "How? Elijah told me that Dad wanted to give me to Jericho, that he was trying to-"
"Yes," Theo interrupted, that gentleness lining his tone as soft as cotton balls, as if she was fragile, breakable, and he was trying to keep her safe. "That's what I meant when I said I've been trying to get you away from him for months. I was going to give him some new trade routes in exchange for you."
Horror unreeled through her at the words ‘trade routes.' Like they were talking about actual goods and not human beings. "I didn't need you to get me away." Her voice shook. "And certainly not at the expense of people's lives!"
He didn't protest, just looked at her with terrible sadness. And she understood that part of her had been waiting for him to deny it, to tell her it wasn't true. But he didn't.
"Some things are worth the sacrifice," he said softly, as if that explained everything. "He would never have let you go, Vi. Surely you know that."
Maybe she did. Maybe deep in her soul she'd always known. But her life in exchange for all those women? Those ‘trade routes'? No. Never. "‘Trade routes,' Theo? You do know what Dad wanted those routes for?"
He smiled, rueful. Sad. "Of course I know. What do you think I've been doing for the past ten years or so?"
Her throat closed up, grief crushing in her chest. "Why?" She could barely get the words out. "Why would you do such a thing? Why would you involve yourself? That's not the Theo I know."
"That's the thing, Peanut," he said softly, his expression full of dreadful sympathy. "I'm not the Theo you knew. Not anymore."
At that point a man came through the doorway, some big guy in a suit, the coldest expression she'd ever seen on his face. "We need to move, sir," he said, his voice tinged with some kind of European accent Violet couldn't place. "We've already been here too long."
Theo glanced at him and then said something in what sounded like German. The man responded, but Violet couldn't follow what either of them was saying. She'd picked up quite a bit of French while she'd been in Paris, but German not so much.
"What's happening?" she demanded as the man, clearly a henchman of some kind, began to turn away. "I'm not going, you do realize that, don't you?"
Theo was looking down at his phone again. "I'm sorry, Vi, but you don't get a choice."
Violet opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of that when the front door of the apartment burst open with a crash and all hell broke loose.
The big man in the suit reached for a handgun in his jacket, starting to raise it in the direction of the doorway. But he had no chance to get a shot off before he was suddenly dropping without a sound, a dark red wound in the center of his forehead.
Violet, frozen in shock, stared as Elijah stepped into the room through the remains of the door, his Colt in his hand, lethal fury twisting his scarred face and glittering coldly in his black eyes. He looked immediately in her direction and she saw the fury turn and change, morphing into savage satisfaction. But that Colt of his was moving, his arm coming up, aiming at the tall, golden figure of her brother, who strangely hadn't moved a muscle since Elijah had first kicked the door in.
And Violet knew without a shadow of a doubt that Theo would be next to get a bullet right between the eyes. So she didn't even think. "Stop!" she screamed at Elijah, throwing herself between her brother and the muzzle of that gun. "Don't!"
Surprise flashed briefly over Elijah's face, but he didn't lower the Colt. "Get out of the way, Violet," he ordered.
"No." She was shaking as she met his terrifying gaze, a mass of emotions tangling in her chest, far more than she could ever hope to sort out. Only one thing was clear: she couldn't allow Elijah to kill her brother. "I won't let you hurt him."
Behind her, Theo was silent. As if he was waiting for something.
Elijah's dark brows arrowed down, his gaze sharpening on her. "What are you doing? You were taken and I-"
"I know," she interrupted, trying to make her voice sound steady. "It was Theo, Eli. Theo was the one who took me."
For a second there was only a heavy, dark kind of silence as Elijah stared at her, then focused his gaze on the man she was protecting, his quick mind obviously sorting out the implications of that statement.
"Theodore Fitzgerald." It wasn't a question, his tone devoid of inflection.
"Yes," Theo said levelly. "Good afternoon, Mr. Hunt. I see you've found us."
Something twisted in Elijah's face. Something dark. "You took her." Another non-question.
"Yes," Theo repeated. "I did."
"Eli," she began. "You can't-"
"You're him." The rough edge in Elijah's voice was full of heat and fury. His gaze was no longer sharp and cold, but burning with a kind of black fire that Violet found both utterly terrifying and totally mesmerizing at the same time. "You're fucking Jericho."
How he knew, she had no idea. But he did.
"Elijah," she said.
"Get the fuck out of the way, Violet." Death lurked in each word, in his eyes. Merciless, ruthless. Because this was what he'd come here to do. What he'd been trying to do for the past seven years. Claim his revenge.
"No." She stayed exactly where she was, staring at the man she'd fallen in love with so quickly and so very hard. "He's my brother."
"He's a monster." Elijah didn't look at her, his gaze firmly on the man at her back. "He helped your father murder my wife."
She wanted to turn around, see Theo's face, demand to know whether this was true or not. But she didn't.
You don't want to know.
Grief choked her. Theo was all she had of her family. The only one who'd ever been there for her, the only one who'd ever loved her. She couldn't let him die, she just couldn't.
What if Elijah's right? What if he's a monster like your father was?
"I … I can't let you kill him." Her voice was hoarse, unsteady. "He's all I've got."
Elijah's gaze shifted, focused on her. And something intense gathered in his expression. "No, he's not. You have me."
Her breath caught and for a second it felt like the ground hadn't finished moving under her feet after all, was in fact still shifting, rearranging the landscape once again. Theo didn't say anything, though behind her she could sense his attention sharpening.
"You?" she croaked. "What do you mean?"
There was movement behind her, the sound of her brother taking a step closer. "You want her?" Theo made it sound like a casual question. "It'll be over my dead body."
Elijah's smile was frightening as he pointed the Colt. "That's the general idea."
"No." She moved more fully in front of Theo. "Please, Elijah. Don't do this."
But Elijah wasn't looking at her now, his gaze wholly on her brother, and there was such hate in his eyes. Such fury. It made her heart twist in anguish for him. "Two years she was in that fucking Russian brothel," he said in a cold, dead voice. "That's what your cocksucker of a father told me. He also told me that you were the one who sold her there. You made the deal. And you were the one who let her die after a client slit her throat."
Tears blurred in Violet's eyes. His wife. He was talking about his wife. The woman he'd failed to protect and had been taking the blame for ever since. And she waited again for Theo to say no, to tell Elijah he had nothing to do with it. But again, he was silent.
"Now's the time to pay, you fucker," Elijah went on, toneless. "Now's the time you go down."
It would be easy to step aside. To let this man take the revenge that, surely, he was owed. Yet she wasn't going to.
She had no altruistic reasons. No lofty motivations. She didn't have a wronged past and she had no one to avenge. She only loved her brother and didn't want him to die, no matter what he'd done, no matter the murders or rapes or any other evil he'd committed. Because he was the only family she had left and she couldn't bear to be alone.
You have me.
But, no, she didn't have him. She could never have him. Elijah may have been a killer, but there was a nobility to him that she'd never had. He was doing this out of love, out of love for his wife. Because he'd been a victim. He'd been manipulated and used, and so had Marie.