Page 68 of Shai

“Before?”

“Before the little fucker managed to do what no one else could and

killed McIntyre.”

I turned the full force of my gaze on him. “Don’t call him a little

fucker.”

A ghost of a frown appeared on Taylor’s forehead. He clearly couldn’t

wrap his head around where Elijah and I stood. He would—in time. I just needed to get Elijah to that point first. Then I’d worry about the rest of my men. I decided to let Taylor off the hook. “I have someone coming to cut Elijah’s hair this afternoon. I want you in with them. Don’t leave them alone, not even for a minute. Elijah wants out and he’ll stop at nothing to achieve that. I don’t need him grabbing the scissors and stabbing the barber in the throat. If that happens, I’ll hold you personally responsible.”

“Me?” Taylor’s frown grew more pronounced. “Seems to me like it

would be his fault.” I let my stare take the place of words, Taylor breaking eye contact first. “Fine, I get it. It will be my fault. I’ll watch him like a hawk. Make sure he keeps any murderous tendencies under control. If you’re giving him a haircut, does that mean you’re letting him out? Because he will ask, you know.”

I let out a breath. It was definitely time. “Tell him he’ll be joining me

for dinner tonight.”

ELIJAH WAS PREDICTABLY LATE, arriving fifteen minutes after the time I’d designated via message that he should be there. His arrival was accompanied by quite the commotion, Taylor presumably having had to apply pressure to get him there at all. I’d sent another expensive suit to Elijah’s room, and when he finally erupted through the door, he was wearing it. Well, sort of—the trousers at least. Despite me having sent shoes, his feet were bare. He wore a white shirt, but hadn’t bothered to fasten it, the tails billowing behind him as he stomped over to join me at the table. His hair had been cut short enough that he wouldn’t have been able to make it look messy even if he’d tried, but he’d gotten around that by not bothering to shave, sporting at least a couple of days’ growth on his chin.

Even with his less than put together appearance, he looked a hundred times better than the blood-stained, shaking mess that had arrived back on my doorstep a couple of weeks ago. That Elijah had been a feral beast, a new man forged in blood and pain, one created by my actions and the role I’d thrust upon him. I lifted my glass and took a sip of wine, waiting until Elijah was only a few steps from the table before addressing him. “And there was I thinking that you wanted to come out of your room. You’ve been asking to see me. Yet, when you get the chance to, you change your mind.”

He threw himself into the chair opposite, his eyes blazing blue fire. “Maybe I just don’t like you snapping your fingers and expecting me to come running. Where the fuck have you been for the last two weeks anyway? Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through?”

I pushed a glass of wine over the table toward him, quelling the urge to reprimand him for his use of bad language at the dinner table again. “Of course, I do. I’ve had regular reports from both Callaghan and Taylor.” I reached across the table to take hold of his arm, pushing his sleeve back to examine the wound, which was far more jagged after Elijah had ripped the stitches open. “It’s healing well.”

Elijah snatched his arm back, pulling his sleeve back down to cover it. “If you’re waiting for me to say thanks for sewing a weapon into my arm, you’ll be waiting a long time.”

Ignoring the bite in his tone, I answered his earlier question. “As for where I’ve been, I thought you might appreciate some time to wrap your head around things. Plus, I had no particular desire to witness your suffering.”

Elijah’s stare was incredulous and then he started laughing. “Right? I forgot how sensitive you are. Poor Shai. I’d hate to have upset you with my shaking and sweating, not to mention the number of times I lost control of my bodily functions at both ends. It definitely wasn’t pretty, that’s for sure.”

He planted his elbows on the table and leaned forward, antagonism

written all over his face. “Do you know, that’s the one thing I can’t work out in all your plotting and scheming. I get the showing me where the poison was kept and your lesson on using it. Not to mention leaving me alone with a conveniently unlocked cupboard so I could take it. I get the sewing a razorblade into my arm, even though it was fucking twisted. I even get the fact that Taylor must have deliberately gotten himself caught, so that you could manipulate McIntyre into your little swap and have him think it had been his idea all along.” His mouth twisted. “It’s just chess, right? You even said as much when we went on our date that wasn’t a date, the thing that was actually designed for McIntyre to discover I was still alive.”

He sat back in his chair. “But the one thing that I can’t work out is why

the drugs? Where did that fit into your master plan, or was it just another layer of mindfuck simply because you could?”

He’d obviously done a lot of thinking while he was alone to have

worked out the details of my plan, a plan that had come to me not long after Elijah’s arrival. I’d known McIntyre wouldn’t be happy to discover I had something of his, even if it was something he’d discarded. The one thing we’d had in common was our need to control the world around us. He hadn’t liked unfinished business any more than I did, and I’d assumed that’s what Elijah would be to him. I’d gambled everything on it and been proved right. “The addiction to Void did two things. It gave you a sense of urgency, a need to get the job done quickly, and it provided you with a reason to come back. I would hate to have had to send out a search party for you.”

Elijah laughed wryly. “You make it sound like a foregone conclusion

that I was going to walk out of there. I could have died.”

I held Elijah’s gaze, glad to see the spark of life that Void had stolen

from him back in his eyes. “You could have, but you didn’t. I had faith in you. Your story wasn’t finished.”

“I killed three men.” Most of the anger had leached from Elijah, just as

I’d known it would. He’d been desperate to have this conversation, desperate to put all of his experiences of the past few months into neat little boxes. It was just the way he worked.