Page 133 of Captive Souls
I was also hungry for more of their story, to understand how Elizabeth came to be the way she was, how they made it work.
It felt incredibly juvenile to be wanting to talk to two hitmen—hit … people?—about the secrets to a long-lasting relationship, but with the real world rapidly approaching, I was desperate to figure out a way to make Knox and I work. And by rapidly approaching, I was being quite literal. We were driving back to Manhattan.
I’d marinated on that the entire drive back to the city. The villain was dead—one of them, at least—so I assumed I was otherwise safe. If not, Knox wouldn’t have agreed to take me back home.
Regardless, our story wasn’t over.
We weren’t riding off into the proverbial sunset; we were driving toward real life—which I’d longed for at the beginning of my captivity, but now I just yearned for Knox to drive us back to our cabin in the mountains. Reality be damned.
But we couldn’t hold off the world forever. The truth of that was searing and somehow more terrifying than the mob boss I’d just killed. And I was sure that deed would come to haunt me eventually.
The ringing of a phone ripped me out of my daze.
My phone.
I glanced at where the ringing was coming from, the center console. I hadn’t even noticed it.
Knox must’ve gotten it for me at some point. It had been taken an age ago, when he’d apprehended me during my run. I’d assumed he’d destroyed it. Yet there it was.
Though I wanted to know the details of when and how, the name flashing on the screen silenced my questions. My eyes were on Knox as I answered.
“Daisy!” I half yelled, delirious with worry. “Please tell me you’re okay.” She had been in the back of my mind the whole time, but I’d been convinced she was safe. For my own sanity more than anything else.
“Me?” she yelled. No halfway about it. I winced and held the phone farther from my ear. “I’m not the one who was apparently embroiled in a plot toassassinate and overthrow an entire regime.” I could still hear her crystal-clear from that distance, as could Knox.
His hand twitched on the steering wheel.
I wouldn’t have said that I considered Stone’s enterprise to be a regime, but it seemed ill advised to interrupt Daisy. And even hysterical, my sister’s voice was music to my ears.
“I know you take the older sister role very seriously, but this is too far, even for you,” she continued, still shouting. “Couldn’t you let go of the reins for just a moment, and let Knox save the day?” Her tone had lowered, but it still delivered a sting. “I’m sure he was absolutely itching to. I bet you playing hero chafed his horns.”
I didn’t miss the underlying disdain my sister had for Knox, even still.
“Not my style, Daisy,” I told her. “And what if he needed to be saved too? The hero costume is so much more flattering on women.”
I didn’t look at him when I said that. I assumed it was an unwise thing to say, endangering his masculinity or something.
Knox’s hand went to my chin, turning it so I faced him. He didn’t say anything, just cupped my face, watching me for a dangerous amount of time before his gaze returned to the road.
I guessed he wasn’t angry.
My mind whirled with all that went unsaid in that gaze. He didn’t appear to feel emasculated or irritated. He looked … proud. Reverent.
“Him? Needing saving?” Daisy snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“Where are you?” I demanded, cutting off the conversation. She did not need to know the finer details of just how much Knox needed saving, nor was that the right time to try to win her over and put her on Team Knox. I figured that would take a while, if he stuck around.
A stab of panic hit my midsection at the thought of him being anywhere but there. With me.
“San Francisco,” Daisy answered, taking the change of subject in stride. “Well, Napa. We’ve got a little villa here.” I didn’t miss the warmth in her tone, the bashfulness.
“We?” I clarified. “As in you and Joey?” I’d known they were together, but the hitch in her voice told me that they were alsotogether.
I got the job of seducing and killing the mafia don, and she honeymooned—for lack of a better word—in wine country with the mafia man who started all of this. Exactly how it should’ve been. This was the pinnacle of me protecting Daisy from the horrors of life, the full consequences of thoughtless actions. It wasn’t exactly healthy of me, but I didn’t give a shit. I’d preserve my sister’s hopeful naïveté for the rest of my life if I could.
“Yes, yes. I don’t want to hear it,” she whined, obviously expecting some kind of lecture about Joey. I wasn’t going to give one, since I didn’t really have a leg to stand on when it came to talking about choosing appropriate partners. It didn’t mean I liked Joey, though. “He did save our lives, after all.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. It didn’t serve me to point out that he was the one who put our lives in danger in the first place. Without Joey, never would’ve been pulled into this world. If my sister had never met Joey, I never would’ve met Knox. Unthinkable. Somehow, I owed my life as I knew it to one of my sister’s lovers.