Page 67 of Liar Byrd
His head is down, so I can’t read his expression. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
“No, Makhi…” It’s my turn to let my voice trail off. “Makhi was there,” I finish lamely.
Vonn raises his eyes from my bruised wrist, fixing them on me. I didn’t say a word, but he knows what the gardener had been trying to do to me, and would have succeeded if Makhi hadn’t walked in when he did. He gently places my arm on the table and stands up.
I grab the front of his shirt, holding on. “Don’t.”
He freezes.
This is the first time I’ve reached out to anyone at all. Anyone other than my mom, when she betrayed me.
I continue, “Not for me. Don’t do it.”
I’m not worth fighting for or risking jail over. I mean nothing to the father who left me and never came back, or to the mother who handed me to a forty-something-year-old man because she was so blinded by her love for him.
“I’m not worth anything to anyone in the world,” I whisper.
“You are to me,” Vonn says just as softly.
“Tous,” Makhi adds, and I don’t know why either of them would say that when I’m no one. Just a stupid nobody whothought she could save her mom from herself and ruined her own life because of it.
I shake my head, tightening my grip on Vonn’s shirt when he moves to stand. “You don’t need to do this.”
I’m not stopping him because Kit doesn’t deserve to hurt for forcing himself on me. If Vonn goes to jail because of me, that isn’t right. I couldn’t save myself, but maybe I can save him from ruining his life for me.
“If Makhi hadn’t stopped him?” Vonn’s voice might be gentle, but I’m not looking at the protector he claimed to be. That’s not the side I see now.
I don’t say a word, because it’s as apparent to me as it is to him what would have happened if Makhi hadn’t shown up when he did. And now Vonn is going to take the gun he had tucked in the waistband of his pants, and he’s going to use it on Kit.
For me.
Vonn gently pulls my hands from his shirt, and I hold my breath when he presses a kiss on my bruised wrist before he releases me. He turns to Makhi. “Keep an eye on her and get an ice pack on her wrist. I won’t be long.”
He walks out of the kitchen.
Killing is wrong.
My ears still ring with the endless drone of one of Jeremiah’s two-hour-long sermons on how wrong it is to take a life, but I don’t say a word.
Because if there’s one thing Jeremiah taught me, it’s that some people need to die.
Chapter 23
Byrdie
It’s the middle of the night when a sound wakes me.
I limp from my daybed in the den to the kitchen to find the source of that sound.
Vonn.
Fully dressed in the same black button-down shirt and jeans he was wearing before, he sits at the kitchen dining table with a bottle of whiskey and a gun he’s taking apart.
“You should be sleeping.” His voice is calmer than I thought it would be, given that hours ago, he slipped out of this very kitchen with murder in his eyes.
I was quiet, yet somehow he knew I was watching him from the doorway.
And I lied about a sound waking me. I was already awake. At no point did I close my eyes to sleep. I limp over to the table and take the seat opposite him, watching his strong, nimble fingers put the gun back together and just as knowingly take it apart again.
