That Hernandez fucker didn’t look like the paragon of good hygiene.
Opening the box, I grab what I need—gauze, antiseptic, a needle, and thread. I can feel her gaping at me with those wide, terror-filled eyes when I also pull out a flask. I sigh. “Calm the fuck down. It’s vodka. I’m not going to give you an anesthetic. With your luck, you’ll probably be allergic and keel over in my fucking guest room.”
I unscrew the flask cap and hand it to her. It takes her a minute to accept it. Even as she does, she looks at it like a grenade without a pin in it. I try to be patient when she doesn’t drink it immediately. But when she keeps on staring at it, like there’s some hieroglyphs on it she needs to decode, I snap, “Drink. It.”
This time, I roll my eyes at her jumpiness. At least she finally drinks. She takes a small sip. It’s barely enough to wet her lips. Her eyes, however, water without a problem. Her entire body is shaking.
“More, Janella.”
The fear is back, tenfold, in her eyes. She takes another sip, though. When I keep glowering at her, she takes another—larger, this time. And another. By the fifth sip, her shouldershave at least slumped down from where they’d been hunched by her ears.
I take the flask back and set it on the ground.
“Give me your arm again,” I say.
She extends it without argument, obediently. I suppose that’s to be expected.
It’s probably how she got into tonight’s mess in the first place.
This is all a great reminder of why docile women don’t do it for me, even ones as gorgeous as her. She wouldn’t make it in my world. It makes me wonder how fucking stupid I’ve been, hauling her into it out of some helpless impulse to save her from her circumstances. As if I’m the best person for the job. I have no idea what the fuck to do with someone like her, who’s spent her life learning to submit, to make herself small, who would let someone degrade her the way her father did tonight.
She should have slit that bastard’s throat in his sleep a long time ago.
Pushing the thought away, I start cleaning the wound with antiseptic. The alcohol burns, I know from experience. Her lips purse into a hard line, refusing to cry out. She isn’t a complainer. She just sits there—still trembling, but not as much as before—with her eyes fixed on some point on the wall behind me.
“Could’ve been worse,” I say as I begin to thread the needle.
She doesn’t respond, which is fine. I wasn’t expecting her to.
It’s better if I don’t talk while I do this. Usually, I don’t even do this shit for myself. I should probably get Ivan to handle this. One phone call, and Oksana could take over.
But I don’t reach for my phone.
I may as well get used to her being my responsibility.
I can feel her eyes on me, watching my hands work to stitch her back together. One stitch, two, then three. By the time I’m mostly through, the vodka seems to have calmed her nervous system enough that she isn’t shaking anymore.
It’s as good a time as any to tell her.
“You will not be treated that way again, Janella. My lawyer is already working on the paperwork,” I say, not looking up from her wound. “We will be married tomorrow, and you will be safe under my protection.”
For a moment, there is no response. No reaction.
Were she someone else, someone more vocal, I would’ve questioned whether she even heard me. But all I have to do is look up at Janella, and I can see that she’s heard me just fine. Her jaw has comically dropped.
“Janella—” I start to say.
“No!” bursts out of her in a startling shout.
Despite myself, I choke out a laugh. She, however, is not amused.
“What, are younuts?” she splutters, shooting to her feet. Her features are torn somewhere between anger and alarm. Until this moment, when brilliant color floods her face, I’d never have guessed that pallid pallor isn’t her natural coloring. Her tiny, ineffectual fists shove at my chest when I rise to myfeet, easily towering over her. “Oh no, no, no! Don’t you try to intimidate me with your gigantism!”
Gigantism?I’m six feet tall. Not even the tallest of my brothers.
“I’m not going tomarryyou,” Janella screeches. “That wasn’t the deal! You’re supposed to—What’s wrong with you?! I don’t even know your whole name! Just fuck me and leave me alone. Are you insane? You must be. Nothing is sacred to you people. You can’t just marry someone to—someone who you don’t evenknow!What kind of sick joke is this?”
My brows have crawled up my forehead in the span of her sentences.
