I guided her—not gently, but not roughly either—to the sofa. She tried to pull away, but I tightened my grip just enough to remind her that fighting me was pointless.
"Stay," I ordered, then went to her bathroom.
The medicine cabinet was a disaster. Half-empty bottles, expired prescriptions, a tangle of hair ties. My eye twitched, but I grabbed what I needed: antiseptic, cotton pads, antibiotic ointment, then wet a washcloth.
When I returned, she was exactly where I'd left her, but her whole body was coiled tight, ready to bolt.
"Don't even think about it," I said as I knelt in front of her.
She flinched when I reached for her face.
"I'm not going to hurt you." The irony of those words coming from me, with my bomb still locked around her throat, wasn't lost on either of us.
Her laugh was bitter. "Right. Because you've been so careful with me up until now."
I ignored that. Carefully, I tilted her chin up, angling her face toward the light. The bruising was already deepening, a violent bloom of purple and black spreading over her cheekbone. Her eye would be swollen by morning.
"Who did this?" I asked quietly.
"Does it matter?"
"His name, Anna."
"Peregrine." She spat the name like a curse. "My fake ex. He came into the shop, started yelling about how I embarrassed him at the Kennedy Center fundraiser, how I was supposed to be part of his image. Then he—" Her voice cracked slightly. She swallowed hard. "He was high. Cocaine."
He'd be dealt with. Slowly. Painfully.
"And the necklace?" I asked, carefully cleaning the dried blood off her face before dabbing antiseptic on the scratch. She hissed in pain but didn't pull away. "You were clawing at it downstairs."
"What do you care? It's your fucking bomb."
I pressed a little harder than necessary with the cotton pad. She winced.
"Answer me."
"The scarf I was using to cover it came off during the attack. He saw the diamonds. Started screaming about me being a whore, that I was selling myself for jewelry, that some rich sugar daddy was buying me pretty things. He was beyond reason." She stopped, her jaw working. "Your men came in before he could—before he could finish whatever he was planning."
My hands stilled. He'd seen the necklace. Had called her a whore for wearing my diamonds.
The fact that my men had arrived in time should have satisfied me. But all I could see was the terror still in her gaze when I arrived.
He'd hurt her worse than I'd initially thought.
Before I?—
No. Stop. I didn't care about her. This was about control. About possession. About not letting anyone else touch what was mine to destroy.
But my hands were gentle as I applied the antibiotic ointment over the abrasion.
"The scratch is superficial. It shouldn't scar," I said finally.
"That's a pity." Her eyes met mine, defiant even with tears tracking down her face. "A scar would be a reminder of exactly what happens when I let men like you into my life."
Men like me. Not just Peregrine. Me.
The words landed like a physical blow.
"He hit you,” I said, my voice dropping to something cold and lethal. "I'm going to pull every bone out of his body through his sinew and skin until he begs for a death that won’t save him from the pain.”
