“It will work,” I say even more determined to bring them all down.
“Fuck, baby.” He pulls me close, resting his forehead against mine and closing his eyes, as his hands rest gently on my waist. He’s shaking all over, and his chest is visibly heaving.
“Hey.” I touch his face. “I’m okay.”
He opens his eyes, and there’s so much emotion brimming in his gaze. “I can’t watch them hurt you anymore. I can’t stand by and do nothing, Abby. I just can’t.” His voice cracks, and I want to wrap my arms around him and soothe him, but I’m covered in blood. “I need to protect you from them, and I haven’t been doing a good enough job.”
I caress his cheek. “None of this is on you, and what I need now is you to hold me and love me and help me put it behind me.” I hold his face more firmly. “They didn’t win tonight, Kai. I fought back, and you all came for me. They didn’t get what they wanted.”
“How are you so strong?” He kisses my cheek. “You are so brave, Abby. And every day I find more reasons to fall deeper in love with you.”
I stretch up and kiss his lips. “That right there. That’s what I need.” I sigh. “But first, I need to get clean.” He moves aside, and I step under the water, closing my eyes as the shower washes away every trace of them.
When I get out, Kai carries me to the tub, gently placing me in the water. A contented sigh slips from my mouth as the warm water caresses my aching muscles.
“Can I join you?” he asks.
“Please.” I smile, happy to be with him, despite what went down tonight. I watch him stripping out of his clothes, admiring his beautiful body, feeling the usual stirrings of lust, but I’m not able to act on anything. Because I feel like I’ve just gone ten rounds in a boxing ring and my psyche has taken another battering.
I shudder uncontrollably as the events of tonight return to haunt me, remembering how close of a call it was. Thank God, I fought back and delayed them long enough for my brother, my friends, and my love to rescue me. I daren’t even think about how awful things would’ve been if they hadn’t arrived in time.
Kai gets in the tub behind me, pulling me back into his chest, and I lean my head against him, holding onto his strong arms, needing to feel protected.
I came so close to complete and utter destruction tonight. I’ve been broken so many times, but this would have been my final undoing. I squeeze my eyes closed, remembering Christian approaching with his cock in hand, and bile floods my mouth. I shiver again despite the warmth of the body behind me and the soothing water swirling around me.
“Abby.” Kai presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Were we too late? Did they—”
“No,” I cut across him, quick to reassure. “It hadn’t gotten that far.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
My initial instinct is to say no, but if I store this grief up inside, like I’ve done so many times recently, I’m giving them power over me. Because every time I think of it, I’ll feel violated all over again. I want to tell my husband. To reinforce my earlier words. They didn’t win tonight. We did. Because I got away, and they didn’t get to hurt me in all the ways they planned. “Yes,” I say, and I begin telling him what happened.
He listens attentively, never interrupting, running his hands up and down my arms and pressing kisses to my head and my temple, supporting me with his touch and his silence, letting me expunge it from my soul.
Silence descends when I finish, and I know Kai has got to be feeling all manner of emotions, but he doesn’t vent, because he’s focused on me, and he’s not the only one finding new reasons to fall more passionately in love.
“I hate that happened to you, and I wasn’t able to prevent it. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop it.”
“It’s not your fault. You were all trying to protect me. I know that. If anything, tonight has taught us that no matter how much we plan they still have the ability to outmaneuver us.”
“Do you believe your father?” he asks, adding some soap to a sponge. “Or did he set it up and he reacted like that to cover his ass?”
“I don’t know,” I honestly admit. “He wanted to punish me for tonight, and this might have been his way of doing it.” Although, given how he was attempting to grope me on the dance floor, I think he would much rather have been the one doling out my sentence. “Denton insinuated he was behind it, so perhaps, he was planning on joining them and he improvised when you guys showed up.”
Kai rubs the soapy sponge up and down my arms and it feels wonderful.
“Well, it won’t happen again. You are safe, at least until the vote.”
I frown, angling my head around so I’m looking at him. “How?”
“Earlier tonight, Xavier and Hunt unscrambled the video recordings from your house on Christmas Day.”
“What?” Excitement bubbles up inside me.
“We have it all. Him killing Charles Barron. Me tied to that chair. Him threatening you into marrying Charlie.” He runs his fingers along my cheek. “We could try and use that to take him down.”
I shake my head. “It’s not enough. He has too many judges, cops, and authority figures in his pocket. We can’t risk it. It’s why we must hit him from several angles. To ensure he’s taken down. And it’s not just about him. We need to fuck up the order. To throw Parkhurst into chaos. To try and do something about the kids he’s kidnapping. We can’t be selfish.”
