“What the fuck are these two not doing in cuffs?” He yells at the men securing the few left in the kitchen. I grip his face from where I lay on the floor beneath him.
“It’s already over, my love,” I inform him, as he briefly lowers his gaze to me and regrips his Glock. Intent on getting through to him, I cup his face in both hands as he struggles in my grip.
“Tobias, look at me,” I command in a tone that has his eyes moving slowly back to focus, “it’s over.”
Lips parting, he gazes down at me, the truth of it not quite getting through. “I love you, Ezekiel Tobias King, so fucking much,” I murmur, “even if you force me to prove myself to you time and time again. I told you I wouldn’t fucking hesitate, and I meant it.” His brows crease into a deep V. “You made me a Raven. You gave me my wings, so I took it upon myself to use them.”
“What?”
I call out to the man standing next to Palo. “Julien, s’il te plait,” Julien, please. Julien comes forward, kneeling so he’s eye level with Tobias before discarding his Glock on the carpet. Tobias bristles atop of me until Julien unbuttons his shirt and slowly rolls it up to reveal fresh ink.
Tobias’s jaw goes completely slack as he faces off with one of his own and realizes the implications of the hell he put him through.
“He got it last night,” I say with a grin. “It’s the least I could do after the brain damage you nearly cost him. Julien has been a raven for almost six years.”
Antoine curses and shoots a death glare at Julien, whose lips twitch with a smile. Palo remains silent, but I can see the amusement dancing in his eyes. Tobias studies both of them for long seconds and then shifts his gaze back to me.
“Thank you, Julien,” I dismiss him, and with a nod, he retrieves his gun and moves back into place. Tobias goes to speak, but I press my fingers to his lips. “But the fact that you challenge me is probably one of the reasons I love you most. Knowing you, loving you, and understanding you helped shape me into the woman I am.”
He swallows, my sentiments hitting him as he examines each word carefully.
“A few weeks in,” I explain. “I knew something with you wasn’t right. And I couldn’t figure out what it was. I already had Greg on my radar and thanks to my old partner Ryan, he checked him out, and we concluded his game was weak. Let’s face it, Greg never had a fucking chance.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “But I had to find out what or who had you so on guard. I had to know what unspoken threat was bothering you, a threat you repeatedly refused to tell me about, even after you promised you would. I was so furious with you at one point because I knew you’d fallen into old habits again, keeping me in the dark, so I called Sean.”
“Sean is in on this?”
“He had his suspicions, but we sent Julien in to make sure he was right.”
His eyes widen. “You…baited me?”
I keep my voice low as the commotion sounds around us. “Yes. Antoine was never aware of me. Never. You covered your tracks, our tracks perfectly. He would have never discovered us. But I didn’t care if Antoine was a threat at that point. I wanted him gone regardless because of the state you were in. So, when I found out about Greg, I fed him bits and pieces to lead him to Antoine. But Antoine came at my invitation. I brought the fight here.”
He gapes down at me. “You fucking what?”
“To kill two birds, no pun intended.” I tilt my head as it sinks in. “This was inevitable. I just sped up the process, my way.”
“You lured him here?” He rasps out, his features twisting in fury.
“I did. And you damn near put a kink in my plans by legitimizing us with condition of protection from the Secret Service. I really wanted this to be an in-house job to show you the strength of your own club, but, luckily, I knew a guy. We worked our way around it.”