I'd deal with that later.
"Where is she?" I demanded.
One of the men pointed over toward the side where Anna was sitting on a low, velvet armchair, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs, her hair falling in front of her face, hiding her from view. Or maybe she was hiding from everyone?
The sight of her curled in on herself like that—small, broken—made something crack in my chest. Something that felt dangerously close to fear.
One of my men stepped over, hand on my shoulder, stopping me from going to her. "She's pretty banged up. Bruised cheek, possibly a black eye and a scratch over her cheekbone that looks worse than it is. Already stopped bleeding."
I stared at his hand on my shoulder until he dropped it.
"I want the store empty. Take that piece of trash and put it somewhere. I will deal with him later. I want two men at the front entrance, and two standing guard by the alley. Nobody comes in, is that understood?"
"Yes, sir," he said. I waited until they were out, and I heard the door lock click behind me. The sound echoed in the sudden silence. Just me and her now.
Then I went to her.
I knelt in front of her, careful not to touch her or startle her. My hands hovered, uncertain—a foreign feeling. Then I kicked myself for not asking the men what had happened. I was so focused on getting here to protect her, and then take care of her, I never asked what the fuck actually happened.
"Maya soloveyka," I whispered. "Can you look at me?"
Her head stayed down, but she shook it just enough to get her lilac locks to sway with the movement.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"Go away."
"I can't do that," I said. I gently reached for her chin and tilted her face up. Her hair fell away as she met my eyes, and my breath stopped.
There was a nail scratch along her cheekbone and swelling just below her eye that was already turning a grayish purple beneath her pale skin. It was obscene. Wrong. Sacrilegious to harm such an innocent.
That I was as guilty of causing her harm was immaterial to me. This was different. It had to be or there would truly be no hope for me.
Every time I had gotten furious at someone, my veins filled with fire. This wasn't that. This was colder. Arctic. The kind of cold that burned. I was so far beyond anger my veins filled with ice, and my heart froze. I was furious at that frat boy douchebag for doing this to her, at myself for not protecting her, at my men for letting it get this far before intervening, and at her for not telling me about this threat.
I needed to know who that asshole was, and why the fuck he thought he had the right to touch my girl. The surrounding roomdarkened, and all I could see were the injuries that now marred her beautiful face. The delicate bone structure I'd traced with my fingers, now swollen and discolored. The physical proof of how I failed her.
"I'm going to kill him." It wasn't a statement but a promise, to her and the universe. I could already feel my hands around his throat, feel the cartilage give way, hear the snap. The man who did this to her would never get another chance to hurt her.
"Why?" she asked, tilting her head like she was genuinely confused.
For a second, I couldn't even understand why she would ask such a thing. Then I remembered everything that she had been through in the last few days. Maybe she was in shock and couldn't feel the injuries to her face yet. That had to be it.
Carefully, I took her hand and lifted her to her feet. She tried to pull away from me, but I wouldn't let her. My fingers tightened around her wrist—not bruising, but unyielding. Instead, I led her over to a glass instrument case with a mirrored back, and I had her face the mirror. Forced her to see what he'd done.
"That's why," I said.
She turned in my arms and shoved at my chest. A high-pitched sound of aggravation strained through her gritted teeth as she tried over and over to push me back.
She was so small and reminded me of a bird flapping its wings against a cage. It didn't matter how angry she was or how hard she flapped. She wasn't going anywhere.
She beat her fist against my chest, another sound of fury escaping her lips, and when she shoved me back again, this time out of some form of sympathy, I took a step back. Allowing her the illusion that she had won, at least for a moment.
"You're going to kill him? Because he hit me?" she asked, hysteria leaking into her shrill voice. "This will heal. This is nothing. Just a black eye and a scratch. But this?"
She wrapped her fingers around her diamond necklace and yanked it.
"This is so much worse. This can kill me at any moment. And even if you let me go? What then? What do I have left in my life, when I know that at any point, one of your kind can break into my home, into my work, and just strap explosives on me for your own fucking amusement?"
