Page 123 of Borden 3

Now it was his turn to be silent. Those green eyes shined. “You think I didn’t know you’d pick your granny over me?”

My eyes welled, and I choked out, “I promised you—”

“I told you that you were lucky you still had someone that loved you.” Theo rubbed his face, clearing his throat when it nearly broke. “I put you through the fucking ringer. I made bad decisions. I left and still made them. Can you imagine if you’d have been there with me? I’d have destroyed you, Emma, like I destroyed my…” He paused and sucked in a breath, looking utterly broken now. “I made the same mistakes, Nightcrawler. I lost everything, and barely made it out with my little girl.”

He destroyed what? Was it Stasia’s mom? I looked at him closely. “Where’s Stasia’s mother?”

“She died in a fire.” I thought of the burns on Stasia’s face, and my heart dropped. “Stasia is all I have, but I’m always on the move, and I’m tired of running, Em. I’m tired of seeing her go hungry when things get skint. She hoards food sometimes. She’ll even put puzzle pieces in her pocket every time we go out because she thinks we ain’t coming back.”

Fucking hell, it was hard to breathe.

“What the hell happened?” I pushed.

He just shook his head. “I messed with the wrong people. Like I’m doing now…messing with your husband.”

“If you made a deal with Borden, he will honour it.”

Theo looked at me long and hard. “I’m counting on it.”

My skin prickled just then. I glanced up, catching him on the second floor of the club, peering down at the booth. At us. Borden’s face was a blank canvas. He peered at me, thoughtfully, before his eyes settled on Theo and stayed there.

I felt a little unnerved by his sharp attentiveness to him. It was a look I couldn’t decipher from Borden when he made deals with people. He became a different person. The one I had to shake through sex or affection.

“What’s the plan?” I then asked Theo, returning my focus to him, though I still felt the weight of Borden’s stare.

“New Raven’s getting a facelift,” Theo simply said, absent of all emotion in his voice. He appeared tired in that moment. “Giving your husband back his city.”

I nodded slowly. “And your boys?”

He shrugged, leaning back in his seat. “He can have ‘em, too, if he comes out of it. Well, we both gotta come out of it, don’t we?”

I frowned. “What happens to you?”

His smile was sour. “We know there’s only room for one big monster in this city.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Theo…”

What was he implying?

That was he leaving, or that he would muscle himself in?

“Calm down,” he murmured, reading my expression.

Theo pulled out his wallet. He opened it and slid it across the table to me. I looked down, catching the photo in the window of his little girl.

“Everything I do, it’s for her,” he whispered. “Understand that for me, Emma.”

I still wasn’t following. “I know you love her.”

“If I don’t make it out—”

“You’ll make it out,” I cut in. “Most of these guys are low level thugs, Theo. They just came together and are fighting with numbers. Now, you’ve always been a fighter. A trained one judging by the fact you had some mad skill long before I even met you.” Which was questionable. “This will be a breeze for you.”

“I fight with my fists, and then I’m stealthy like a ninja,” he said, lightly. “I can handle a gun, but I’m no Marcus fucking Borden.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Definitely the man I ought to have been like. He disappeared and came back rich. I disappeared and came back with a fucking bounty on my head—”

“Borden will take care of that.”

He nodded. “I believe that now, but I want your guarantee that should anything happen to me, you protect my baby.”