Page 8 of Restitution

“I like pulling hair.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course you do.”

He winks and pulls his phone out. “We’re approaching. Have your men ready.” He hangs up and looks at me. “There are no guards on this floor. Nearly there, little one.”

We stop in a small alcove in the lobby, and he throws aside the mask, his brows furrowing. He slips off his suit jacket, removing a blade and a gun and tucking them into his waistband.

“Here,” he says, sliding the jacket over me, helping me get my arms into each side and buttoning up the front to hide more of my exposed skin. “Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse. It was rather easy, to be honest. Other than having to touch you. No offence, but that made me want to vomit all over you.”

I want to call him a psychopath for thinking that was anything but terrifying, but he is one, so I’d just be stating the obvious. He doesn’t feel the same way I feel; his emotions are learned, altered and altogether different from mine.

“I think you enjoyed throwing me around a little too much.Payback for all those times I beat you at chess?”

He scoffs. “Do not delude yourself into thinking that was even slightly enjoyable. I’d rather be throwing Aria around, preferably while she’s wearing—”

“Stop! Some things are best kept in a locked box, you idiot. And if this doesn’t kill you, Aria will for escaping,” I say. “Have you seen her?”

“I’ve watched her, but I don’t have the balls to go see her. Fuck, no. She’d send my ass back to the States. I think she might cut me off completely after this.”

“I think she’ll understand,” I say, letting out a confuseduhhas he tugs at the suit jacket around me, so I’m glued to his chest, his face dropping to my throat as he pulls my head back by the hair, pretending to bite me just as a guard walks by.

Then he pushes me away like I’m poisonous. “Barry is supposed to be good at his fucking job, the motherfucker. And again, no offence, but if one more person comes, I might need to let us get caught.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I’m… very uncomfortable acting this out,” he says, looking away and shoving his hands into his pockets. “I feel like I’m betraying my son and Aria.”

“It’s not real.”

“I’m aware,” he hisses. “It still makes me uncomfortable.”

His phone rings again, and after Tobias goes nuts for a solid minute, Barry tells him they’re nearly ready and in position. He gives directions to the window we’ve to jump from, and we’ll escape out the back of the grounds since no one is there.

“I don’t think Aria will forgive me for this one, if I’m honest. I’ve probably lost her. She’ll hate me like the rest of the world.” Hesighs again and pinches his nose. “But I had no other option; you didn’t show up for visitation. I had to escape.”

With something close to a disbelieving laugh, I stare at Kade’s dad, at the tiredness in his eyes from constantly fighting with himself. “The world really has no idea who you are. You are a little bit nutty, but you care a lot about your family. You taught yourself to love – in your own way, yes – but that alone goes against everyone’s opinion of you. You aren’t heartless, Tobias. Who cares what the world thinks?”

He grimaces; he hates compliments and softness. “Shut up or I’ll take you back.”

I giggle. “I missed you.”

“Are you done?”

I roll my eyes, and he takes my hand and leads me through the corridor again. We turn left and pause in our steps.

A girl is pressed up against the wall, crying for two men to stop. They aren’t guards. They’re in suits. Bidders. One is trying to pull up her dress while the other grabs her face and tries to shove his fingers into her mouth.

I can’t see his face, but I feel the energy crashing into a dark void as Tobias pulls me behind him slowly, sliding the blade from his waistband at the same time.

The girl turns her face to dodge a tongue, and I almost step forward when I see it’s Cassie Sawyer, Bernadette’s daughter.

His fingers flex over the handle, and in a silent flash that has me backing away until I hit the opposite wall, he grabs the closest man’s hair, yanks his head back and slices the knife along his throat.

Animalistic noises fill the corridor, gurgling chokes, crimson splattering Tobias’s face as he punctures his victim’s skull withthe blade for good measure. The blade stays impaled as the body drops to the floor, lifeless, sightless, his unseeing eyes on me.

His beastly friend lets go of the sobbing Cassie, now covered in blood. She slowly falls to the floor in a huddle, her eyes glazed over, her lips chewed from her biting them. One of her nails is pulled up, the skin butchered, as if she’d been trying to claw herself free of their clutches.

I rush to her, dropping to my knees and pulling her away from them as the remaining guy tries to swing his fist at Tobias, failing when he captures his wrist, breaks it with a quick snap then headbutts him.