Sighing, I gesture to the three infuriating men currently occupying my shop.
“I hate all of you.”
None of them looks even remotely sorry.
“We just want you safe, baby,” Tank says. “I’ve got a run to make, and I’d feel a hell of a lot better knowing you’re not in any danger.”
“I get it,” I sigh. “But I’m not in any danger.”
Spike’s head snaps toward me; whatever patience he had left is gone.
“Need I remind you,” he says coldly, “that you were kidnapped by the Mexican cartel not once…but twice?”
The words hit like a slap.
“And you were raped,” he continues, voice brutal, unyielding, “and fucking sliced up less than four months ago.”
Shock freezes me in place.
He doesn’t soften it. Doesn’t try to spare me.
“You of all people should know how sadistic the world can be,” he finishes. “How fast it finds the ones who think they’re safe.”
My chest tightens.
Images flash…darkness, pain, fear I thought I’d buried deep enough not to touch again. My hands curl at my sides, nails biting into my palms as my heart stutters.
For a moment, all I feel is that old terror.
Then something steadier settles beneath it.
Understanding.
This isn’t cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
This is a brother who would rather break my heart than lose me.
I exhale slowly, my shoulders dropping.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I get it.”
And for the first time, I really do.
“Good,” Spike says, pulling me into his arms. “I’m sorry. I just really need you safe.”
He releases me and steps back. “Now tell your man goodbye. We’ve got shit to do.”
“He’s not my man,” I say quietly as I step into Tank’s open, waiting arms.
But the words don’t feel as solid as they did a few months ago.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Spike mutters as he turns and leaves the building.
“The way he said it was wrong,” Tank murmurs. “But what he said wasn’t. Please… don’t fight us on this, Abigail.”
His hand lifts, fingers gentle as they catch my chin and tip my face up to his.
My breath stutters.
