Page 120 of Bound to the Heartless Duke
“Fine. Kick me out. Add it to the list of everything I’ve lost because of him.”
“You lost everything,” Magnus growled, “because you’re a coward who couldn’t hold his own cards.”
Nathan’s expression twisted. “Easy for you to say. You were born with a bloody silver spoon in your mouth, weren’t you? Younever had to worry about putting food on the table ever since you inherited the duchy. Your father didn’t leave you a pile of debts after his death! Mine did.”
Silence fell between them, only to be broken by Magnus’s sarcastic, dry chuckle.
But Lily quickly interjected before anyone could.
“You think handing me over to Ronald Bailey was keeping me safe?” Her voice cracked despite her attempt to keep her composure. “You think disappearing when I got married was keeping me safe?”
“I thought,” Nathan bit back as he rose from the ground, “that if you were in enough danger, he’d pay it off! He’s clearly attached to you, isn’t he?” He waved a bloody hand toward Magnus. “I gambled on the only card I had left—his weakness for you.”
“You absolute bastard,” Magnus gritted out, his voice no louder than a breath but sharp enough to cut glass.
This time, when he moved, Lily didn’t flinch. Her heart hammering, she watched as her husband drove his fist into Nathan’s ribs, hard enough that Nathan folded with a wheeze and dropped to one knee.
“Go ahead,” Nathan rasped. “Hit me again. You want to beat something into me? Try sense. Try luck. Hell, try responsibility. Because all I ever got handed was a life already damned before Icould hold a quill. A father who drank away our future, a mother buried before I grew into my boots, and a sister I was supposed to protect with nothing but air in my pockets and debts biting at my heels.”
His voice rose with each word.
“You think I wanted to disappear? You think I didn’t see you kissing her, holding her like you would die without her? What was I supposed to do? Watch her marry the devil and pretend it wasn’t better than starvation?”
“Nathan, stop!” Lily snapped.
But it was too late.
From the shadows in the alley, the sound of footsteps echoed, and it sounded like dozens of them.
Boots pounded against cobblestone, followed by a low murmur of voices and malicious laughter.
Nathan froze with instant recognition.
Lily and Magnus exchanged a look before turning around slowly.
Out of the fog emerged six—no, seven men. They grinned like a devil who stumbled upon the evening’s entertainment.
One of them, younger than the rest with a wicked glint in his eyes, cracked his knuckles and looked straight at Nathan.
“Well, well,” he drawled, his voice dripping with mockery. “Looks like the rat found his way home.”
He stepped forward, cocky and careless, like a fox toying with a bird that had already broken its wing.
“Thought you could outrun the lot of us, didn’t you, Medlin?”
Nathan said nothing. His mouth opened, but no sound came. For once, he looked exactly as he was—cornered, breathless, and utterly defeated.
Lily stepped instinctively between him and the newcomers.
“Move,” the boy ordered, sounding bored. He looked barely twenty-two. “Unless you’d like to get your pretty dress dirty, Duchess.”
She didn’t move. “You’ll touch neither of us.”
The boy grinned. “It ain’t you I’m after, sweet. But if you’re protecting him?—”
“He’s not worth your trouble,” Magnus cut in, stepping up to Lily’s side, his tone flat as stone.
The men paused at the sound of his voice.
