Page 78 of Malice

I grab him by the throat.

My bandaged hand closes around his windpipe with a grip meant to crush bone, and I watch his eyes go wide finally—finally, the fear I’ve been waiting for. His feet kick uselessly against the legs of the chair, his fingers clawing at my wrists, his face turning that ugly shade of purple I’ve seen on men in the cage right before the ref calls it.

“Say it again,” I growl, my voice barely human. “Say you have her again, and I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”

Butcher moves in from my left, his massive hand clamping down on my shoulder. “Carter. Breathe. He’s lying. Think.”

I don’t want to think. I want to kill. I want to watch this man’s eyes go glassy and dark and know that he’ll never say her name again, never threaten her, never exist in the same world as the woman I⁠—

My phone rings.

The ringtone pierces the air like a gunshot, that distinct tune I picked just for her, the one that echoes her morning coffee hum. Every man freezes. Caldwell’s eyes dart to my pocket, his face shifting, not quite in fear, not quite in triumph, but something hazy and confused.

My gaze locks on Caldwell as my fingers, slick with blood, fumble with the phone. The gauze snags on the glass, but I manage to answer. I hit speaker. Right here, in front of this bastard, in front of every brother gathered, I let her voice flood the room where violence was ready to erupt.

“Carter?” Her voice comes through cracked and raw, the sound of someone who’s been crying, who’s been terrified, who’s been sitting on a porch two hours north with bandaged hands and a broken heart. “Oh God, Carter, is that are you⁠—”

“Trix.” My voice comes out wrong, too rough, too broken, the voice of a man who’s been holding himself together with barbed wire and a prayer. “I’m here, sweetheart. I’m right here. Are you okay? Are you safe?”

The sound she makes, half sob, half laugh, the particular fractured sound of relief so overwhelming it becomes its own kind of pain, is a blow that bypasses muscle and bone to land somewhere deeper. I hear it in my chest, in my bones, in the architecture of everything I am.

“I’m okay,” she says, and I can hear the lie in it, the wobble, the tremor, the way her voice catches on the second syllable. “I— They texted me, Carter. They said they had you. They said if I didn’t come to the mill they’d— I almost— Tiana stopped me, she grabbed the phone and⁠—”

The words pour out of her in a rush, tumbling over each other, and I can see it: the porch, the cabin, Tiana physically holding her back while she fought to run toward a trap because some sick fuck thought threatening me would be enough to lure her out. The image explodes behind my eyes, and I feel something in my chest, something that was already cracked, already damaged, splinter into pieces.

“Hey.” I lower my voice, forcing it into a steadier tone, a sound that she needs right now instead of the animal standing over a bleeding enemy. “Listen to me. I’m right here. I’m breathing. I’m standing in a room full of my brothers, and nobody has me. You hear me? I’m fine.”

“But the text. They knew your name, they knew⁠—”

“They lied.” The words come out with a certainty I don’t fully feel, because the fact that someone knew to use me as bait means they know the connection, they know the leverage, they know exactly which button to press to make her do something stupid and brave and self-destructive. “It was a lie, Trix. A trap. They were trying to get you to leave the cabin.”

“I know.” Her voice is smaller now, the rush of panic giving way to something quieter and more exhausted. “I know it was a trap. Tiana told me. My mom told me. I knew. The rational part of me knew, but I couldn’t fathom the thought of you being⁠—”

“I know.” And I really do. I get how it feels when your logical side is shouting, but your heart panics, pulling you toward disaster. I’ve been trapped in that mess for two days. “But you stayed. You’re still there. You’re safe.”

She goes quiet, breath shaky and uneven, but it’s calming down. The panic’s ebbing.

“Are you hurt?” she asks, and the question is so quintessentially Trixie—concerned about my well-being when she’s the one sitting in a cabin with bruises and bandages and a text message that tried to destroy her—that something in my chest splinters.

“Nothing that won’t heal.” I look down at my hands—the gauze soaked through, the split knuckles, the blood that’s not all mine. “How are you? Really?”

“I’m…” She pauses, and I can hear her gathering herself, pulling the pieces back together. “I’m okay. Shaken. Tiana’s sitting with me. Mom made tea that nobody’s drinking. Kane’s on perimeter.” A breath. “I miss you.”

The words are a blade. Not because they hurt, but because they remind me of everything I’m fighting for—everything that’s worth the blood on my hands and the darkness I’m about to embrace.

“I miss you too,” I say, and I let myself feel it, the ache of distance, the particular emptiness of being in a room full of violence while the one person who makes the violence bearable is two hours away. “I’ll call you tonight. Same time. I promise.”

“Okay.” Her voice is steadier now, finding its footing. “Carter?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

“Be careful. Please. Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are, please be careful.”

I look down at Caldwell. He’s still in my grip, still purple-faced, still watching me with those calculating eyes that are quickly losing their confidence. He can hear her. He can hear the woman he tried to kill, the woman he tried to lure into a trap, sitting on a porch and begging me to come home safe.

“I will,” I say. “I love you, Trix.”

“I love you too.”