My eyes burned, and I did my best not to choke on my unshed tears.
“Of course, angel. I’ll always be here to save you.”
Iwas so fucking comfy. Maybe the comfiest I had ever been in my life.
Where the fuckwasI? Everything was all soft and squishy and warm…
Wait.
I wasn’tsupposedto be feeling soft and squishy and warm.
I was supposed to be in my shitty bed at Apex.
My eyes shot open, and I had a horrifying, disoriented moment. I didn’t know where I was, and waking up somewhere unexpected was rarely a good thing when you’re a mercenary.
Shooting up in bed - well, Itriedto shoot up. I wasn’t very successful. A suddenblindingpain exploded through my sidelike someone was stabbing me with a white-hot poker. I let out a sharp, surprised bark of pain.
“Whathaaafuckkk…” I hissed, leaning back into the softest pillows I had ever touched. Squinting and looking around the room, I quickly realized that I was in Ryan’s room.
Fuck.
Bad.
Bad, bad, bad, bad!
The man himself was, thankfully, nowhere to be seen.
Perfect.
I would just get up, put on some pants—since a quick check under the sheets told me I was currently going commando—and get the fuck out of here before he came back.
Taking a deep breath to test how badly I was injured, I tried to sit up again, this time using my elbows instead of the muscles in my abdomen.
Flashes of memory from the night before were coming back to me now.
I remembered the three dudes killing McGreggor. They had said something about us protecting a child sex trafficker… which… was twice now that I suspected Damian was involved in something shady like that. Unfortunately, before I’d had time to process that little piece of information, the night had gone to shit.
I remembered getting shot.
Vaguely, I remembered Vox busting in to save my sorry ass, but after that, everything went pretty dark.
I had zero recollection of how I’d ended up back at Fairview and in Ryan’s bed.
The wound in my side was bandaged, and I could feel the familiar pull of stitches as I did my best to wiggle my way out of bed. There was also a bandage over the brand Damian hadgiven me, though the dressings looked like they needed to be changed…
I could get to that once I got back to Apex. I needed to confront Damian about the child trafficking once and for all.
As much as I was pissed off about the possibility that Damian might have been involved in child trafficking this whole fucking time… there was an even more urgent reason that I needed to leave.
I needed to get the fuck out of here before Damian realized where I was and took it out on Ryan.
Painfully slowly, I pushed the sheets down and worked toward swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. After an excruciating push that had me literally biting down on my tongue to keep from gasping in pain, my feet touched the ground.
I grinned.
Success.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
