It didn’t work that way in his world. They couldn’t do a damn when his mother had been kidnapped. They hadn’t done anything when his father was shot. He really didn’t believe they would do anything now and Molly deserved better.

Small hands curled into the soft material of his lapel. Wide, brown eyes peered up at him imploringly.

“You’re better than this.”

He froze at that. Not because of the words themselves, but because of the absolute conviction in her eyes. She genuinely believed he was worthy of redemption. No doubt she worried about tainting his soul further, but he still wasn’t so sure he had a soul and if he did, it was beyond saving. Truthfully, he couldn’t give a shit about it. Let the devil take it. What good was it to him anyway? The only one concerned about it was her and she needed to stop. She needed to stop trying to save him. She needed to stop being there. Her insistence to stay by his side infuriated him beyond reason. It made him want to punch a wall. How could she still want to stay after this? How could she not see that Molly had stayed? She had fought him too. She had refused his every demand she stay away. Now, there was no one left. He was alone. Again.

“Killian…”

“Leave.” The single word ripped from his very gut. It rang low, but with an unmistakable clarity. “Now.” Juliette started to open her mouth. He could see the protest and refusal and he snapped. “Leave!”

His snarl had the required affect. Her mouth closed. Her fingers loosened their crushing grip on his coat. She seemed to rock back onto her heels. The motion barely put a sliver of space between them, but it could have been the world for the way his insides dipped. Color that had nothing to do with the cold kissed her cheeks pink under the stray wisps of hair drifting lazily across her face.

Her hands dropped to her sides with her deliberate step back. It was just a foot, but, with the absence of her heat. The space seemed to crackle with ice.

“There is nothing down this road for you,” she whispered at last, filling the void with a white plume of breath. “But I’m here and I care about you.”

With that, she walked away from him and climbed into the back of the SUV. Frank said something to Marco. Then they were gone. She was gone. He should have been relieved.

“Sir—”

“Don’t.” The warning sizzled in the air between them. “Find who did this. Then find out where I can get my hands on them.”

Maraveet was gone when Killian got home. He knew she would be. His sister wouldn’t stay to face another death, especially not when she’d warned him it would happen. For years Maraveet had been chiding him for his attachment to things. She’d berated him for his weakness, his need for a semblance of normality.

“We’re not normal,” she was forever telling him. “We can’t afford to pretend.”

She’d been right. If he had listened, Molly wouldn’t need a pine box.

Frank hadn’t let him go in. Killian could have anyway. Ultimately, he was the boss. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. Torn to pieces was not how he wanted to remember her. That was how she was brought out, in thick, black bags along with her husband. They had filled too many to be one whole piece.

Someone had taken their time. Had enjoyed themselves. They had made sure there was no doubt in Killian’s mind that he’d pissed someone off. It was an unmistakable message and Killian knew all about leaving this type of message.

He’d been sixteen when his father’s throne had become his. He hadn’t even lost his virginity and yet he was responsible for an entire empire and expected to run it as well, if not better. But he had accepted. He had claimed his future out of sheer greed and vengeance. It was with the knowledge that with his family’s extensive contact list and resources, he would find the people responsible for the slaughter of his parents and put an end to them. He was certain that had it not been for Frank and Molly, he would have gone crazy. That the darkness would have driven him even deeper into that place no child should ever have to face. But they had held him grounded. Frank had protected his body, but Molly had been his sanity. She had saved his life.

No one understood the pain of walking into the place he had always considered his haven and feeling the walls shift around him. No one understood why he couldn’t even walk past his parent’s bedroom or why the places their pictures had once hung lay barren. They weren’t there the nights he’d wake up and swear blood was oozing from the cracks in the ceiling. Molly had begged him to leave the estate, to sell it, to get away from that life before it was too late, but that was just it. It was already too late. There was no help for him.

By nineteen he’d already had more blood on his hands than anyone his age ever should. He had basked in the deaths of his enemies. He had thrived on their pleas, on their suffering and, oh, had he made sure they suffered. He had left no one.

Word of what he’d done spread like gasoline on open flames. It ignited a frenzy of rumors that were beyond ridiculous, everything from him bathing in their blood to putting their mutilated bodies on spikes outside their homes. None of which was true, but he never corrected them. Before long, he was The Scarlet Wolf and he never corrected that either.

Let them fear me, he thought. Let them know what I am capable of, what I will do if anyone comes against me.

What he also never did was admit to anything. He let everyone believe what they wanted, except Juliette. He had told her the afternoon she’d asked if he’d murdered anyone. He hadn’t lied to her. He found he never could. Frank had been right about one thing, she had accepted him. Even knowing what he was, she never turned away. To most, that would make her special, someone who embraced all of him. It made her someone he should hold on to.

It didn’t.

It made her vulnerable. It made her susceptible to all the evils of his world. It left her open. He couldn’t have that. He couldn’t stand outside another house and wait for his men to vomit in the bushes. Molly was bad enough, but if he lost Juliette … Christ, if he lost her there would be nothing left. He would demolish the fucking city, the world if he had to, to find the person responsible because he loved her. In the solitary darkness of his own mind, he could openly admit it to himself. He loved her. He loved everything about her. He loved how she made him feel, loved how she could make him laugh. He loved how she could make him forget the monster crouched inside him. But more than all that, he loved how she could walk into a room and make him forget everything he’d done. Maybe she was his second chance. Maybe he was an idiot for not grabbing hold with both hands. But if it was a contest between his sanity and her life, there was no question.

He didn’t need his sanity anyway.

Chapter 22

It was three days before Juliette heard from Killian again. Three days of being left completely in the dark. Three days of worrying and badgering Jake and Melton for information and getting nothing in response. The pair were given orders to keep her away from the manor until further notice and no one knew how long that would be.

The wait was killing her, but she allowed it. She hoped Killian was taking the time to grieve and work through what the right course of action was from there. She hoped the distance was being used to put Molly to rest properly and not plotting revenge. Somehow she doubted it, but nevertheless, she was optimistic.

That night, Jake and Melton drove her home as they always did, neither saying a word … as they also always did. In the backseat, Juliette curled and uncurled her toes inside her pumps. The stiff joints creaked, reminding her she’d been standing in four inch heels for the better part of nine hours. She considered slipping them off, but then she’d have to get them back on and there was no point; they were pulling up in front of the house anyway.