“Jenson.” Her small whisper fucking hurts.
“Yeah, it’s me.” My throat tightens. “Please, baby. I need you to look at me.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll work it out. Whatever it is.” My voice stays low. As gentle as I can make it. “You’re scaring me. Please.”
She sobs, the soundbrokenas she lifts her face.
I stare at her for a long moment. Too long. Her face crumples as she raises her arms, before she drops them. “I’m sorry – I just—,”
She sucks in a wobbly breath as I scoot forward. “I’m alright. I am.”
My hands gently cradle either side of her face. She gapes at me.
But all of my attention is focused on her lip. Her bruised, swollen as fuck lip.
It looks like she’s beenbitten.
“Tell me who,” I breathe. “Right now, Briar. Who did that?”
Her eyes shutter as she tries to drop her face, but I don’t let go. I stroke my thumb against her cheek. “It’s alright. You’re safe. But I need to know who hurt you.”
Because I’m going to hurt them. Rage focuses my senses to a razor-sharp edge, every part of them focused on theteeth marksthat are embedded in her golden skin. “Was it the same man?”
I will fucking go to war with the Hearts if they lied to us. If she’s hurt because thatfuckis still walking around—
The Diamonds might be low on numbers, but I will fuckingannihilateevery single one of them for letting this happen on their watch.
Briar’s head shakes slightly beneath my touch. More tears spill.
She’s shaking so badly. But she doesn’t reach for me, her hands clenched tightly in her lap even as I hold her face in my hands.
It fucking breaks something inside me that Briar feels she can’t ask for the comfort she so obviously needs. “Come here.”
Another sob. “I know you can’t—,”
I pull her forward without another word, into my arms as her hands lift and wrap around my neck. I can’t stop my body from tensing. But I wrap my arms around her, holding her against me as she starts to cry in earnest, every broken noise sending my anger soaring higher. I stroke my hands down her back, over the back of her head, carefully cupping her as she buries her face inmy neck. Her bruised lips brush my skin, and the pained noise she makes is the final straw.
“I need you to tell me who did this.” My lips brush her ear. “They’re never going to touch you again. Do you understand?Never, Briar.”
I lift her, settling back against the wall and tugging her into my lap. She curls into me, her breathing still wet as her cheek presses, just about my heart. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”Ever.
I’m not sure I’ll ever let her out of my sight again. Between my nightmares last night over what could have happened, and nowthis—
My mind is made up.
Her words spill out in short, halting sentences. Her father. Her childhood. Her fucking arranged engagement to the cunt that walked in here andbither. And by the time she’s finished, my whole body is vibrating with the effort not to put her down and launch something through her fucking window. Preferably her fiancé.
Only the way she clings to me stops me from doing exactly that. I force the rage down. “They have used you, and taken advantage of you, and tried to force you into something you don’t want. You’re not going back to that house.”
Her breathing stutters. “What?”
“I’m going to ask you something.” I stare straight ahead, my jaw tight. I don’t want to see the expression on her face. “If you say no, I want you to know that it’s going to happen anyway. I’m asking because it’s the right thing to do, but it doesn’t fucking matter, because the outcome will be the same.”
She’s staring up at me. And fucking hell. The way these two men – one of whom is her fuckingfather– have abused her trust, when she’s so open, so gentle, so fuckingsubmissive,makes me feel ill.
