“Good riddance.” If he’d been outside, he would’ve spat on the ground. “Although I wish he weren’t. ’Cause I’d like to kill him again. I’d like to rip him limb from limb for touchin’ ya. For markin’ ya. For?—”
He couldn’t finish past the bile that spurted into his throat. His stomach heaved. His fists curled. He had to force his next question through his clenched jaw. “Did he ra?—”
“No,” she assured him swiftly, shaking her head, bravely holding his violent gaze. “I was groped.” She tilted her chin toward her poor, bruised breast. “Hit.” She pointed to the cut on her cheek. “But that’s it.”
The fury in his blood cooled to embers. But it wasn’t doused. Because…groped. Hit.
Hurt.
They’d hurt her. And he hadn’t been there to protect her from them. He hadn’t been there to?—
“Wait.” She suddenly frowned. “Black Widow is here? I remember her being in the helicopter, but…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
“She’s down in the Bat Cave,” he informed her, jaw still tight with barely leashed rage. “We need to interrogate her. But first, we’re lettin’ her stew in her own juices. No food. No water. A little quid pro quo for what she put you through.”
He caught her chin between his fingers, forcing her to look at him.
She blinked, wide-eyed, and he could see the little flecks of gold floating in the creamy brown of her irises. The flutter of her pulse in her long, pale neck was like a hummingbird’s wings.
“Are ya sure they didn’t?—”
“I did more damage to them than they did to me,” she assured him, chin trembling. “I—I killed one of them, Hew. The one they called Hummer.”
The words came out raw, ragged. Like they’d been torn from somewhere deep inside her. Hearing them made something inside him rip open, too.
“They were going to kill me,” she explained unnecessarily. “They planned to take the money and kill all y’all, and so I shoved a glass shard into Hummer’s throat because I thought if I could help you guys then…”
She stopped and shook her head, her breath going thready. “I felt it go in, Hew. His blood was hot on my hand. And I watched him struggle until?—”
Her fingers jumped to her mouth. Her other arm curled around her midsection like she was trying to hold herself together.
Hew didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even think, really. He did the only thing he knew to do. The only thing he could do. The same thing he’d been doing since she first arrived at BKI.
He picked her up, carried her to the bed, and rocked her gently in his lap as her tears fell.
Hunter had reported on the corpse that’d been at Sabrina’s feet when the Knights stormed the bottling plant. But none of them had thought she had been the one to slit the man’s throat. They’d all assumed it’d been a tiff between teammates. Assassins turning on one another.
But it was our brave Sabrina.
Our Roman river goddess doin’ all she could to even the odds for us.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she whispered into the crook of his shoulder. “I couldn’t stand the thought of being the reason y’all walked into a trap. And so I?—”
“You did exactly what ya had to do.” His voice was low and rough. It had to work past the lump in his throat. “You were fightin’ for your life. For all our lives. And there’s not a soul on this planet who’d blame ya for that.”
“But I?—"
He pressed his thumb under her chin so he could see her pretty face. Then, he silenced her words by tapping a finger over her lips.
Of course, when he felt her warm breath bathe his skin, he had to remove his hand because it made his dick twitch.
Stupid bastard, he silently admonished. Now’s not the time.
With Sabrina, it was never the time.
Or was it?
Had she opened her mouth over his throat? Had she flicked out her little tongue to taste him?
