The cheeky minx has the nerve to start laughing. “You can’t fool me, Alastair. We’re old friends. Just your tone when you speak of her is different than what I’ve heard before.”
“You’re wrong,” I insist.
“Of course,” she says, still chuckling. “My offer to meet with her still stands if she’s ready for it.”
Hanging up, I glare at the phone. How dare Monica assume she knows anything about how I feel?
Sorcha is my responsibility, nothing more.
I choose to ignore why I’ve started thinking of her as Sorcha, instead of “the girl.”
***
That night is particularly bad.
Even though the bedrooms are soundproof, I can hear her screams through the locked door. Her voice sounds younger, more like a terrified child.
“Don’t don’t don’t!” she screams, “Take me, ya’ bastards! Don’t hurt- ah, god don’t hurt them!”
I unlock the door and I’m across the room in seconds. Her arms are flailing violently, as if she’s trying to fend off a beating.
“Sorcha,” I keep my voice low, trying to sound soothing. I am not soothing. I run a criminal organization, for fuck’s sake! But I try. “Sorcha darling, you are safe, I promise you. No one will hurt you.” My voice is stronger now. “No one will ever hurt you again. You are here with me. It’s all right. Come back now, darling. You’re safe.”
I murmur variations on the message until her arms drop and she begins to breathe again, great, gasping breaths of air as if she’d been suffocated.
Was she? What did those sick fucks do to her? To her little cousins?
Her eyes open, the gleaming, silvery gull-wing color almost swallowed up by her violently flaring pupils. “There you are,” I say, pushing her hair back from her sweaty forehead. “You’re safe.”
It takes some effort, but she finally speaks. “I don’t want to be in here.”
Is she still in her nightmares, bound by the horrors there? I can’t tell this time.
“I’m going to pick you up and take you down to the library. I’m putting an arm under your knees…” I scoop her legs up. “And I’m putting my other arm around your back. Can you feel that?”
Wetting her lips, she blinks. “Uh huh…”
“Good girl,” I lift her gently, “such a good girl. Put your arm around my neck.” She flails a bit and finally holds on, her eyes wide and staring. At least she seems to be hearing me. Lifting her easily, I take her downstairs and through the dark halls. I know the library is her favorite room in the house, she will feel the safest there.
She’s so slight and small for a woman with such a fierce, loud personality. Her head is drooping against my shoulder and the silk of her thick, red hair is sliding across my skin, sending up scents of lavender and rosemary.
Laying her down on the couch, I pull the cashmere throw on the arm over her. “Sorcha, you’re in the library. Surrounded by thebooks you enjoy. I’ll keep watch over you, so try to sleep now. No bad dreams, darling.”
“No bad dreams…” she whispers, falling asleep again. Even in her sleep, she clutches onto my hand and with a sigh, I settle her head on my lap and resign myself to another sleepless night.
When dawn breaks, I carry her back to her room but make a point of leaving the bedroom door open.
When I come down for breakfast, Sorcha’s there, and she glares at me as she always has. “I’m finally let out of my room?” she says, “The great lord and master of the house has decided I’ve learned my lesson?”
“Have you?” I ask mildly.
She wants to shout and swear at me, I can tell. She forces the most insincere smile possible before she answers. “I won’t try to escape again.” Buttering her toast, she says, “I’ll wait for my brothers to come get me.”
As Sorcha bites into her bread, glaring at me, I realize she doesn’t remember what happened last night.
That is likely for the best.
Chapter Sixteen
