Morbid because I’d seen to the depths of perversion.
I gulped, trying to suppress the way those terrors had carved the deepest scars.
It hurt knowing Dereck had been responsible for those, too.
God, I was so tired of it. Tired of him dragging me around like a rag doll.
Disregarded.
Always his last concern when he’d always been my number one.
My oath to take care of him more than just a fleeting promise. It was my last connection. An act of my love and eternal loyalty.
And there that concern was again, ballooning up in me and pushing out every other thought.
“Is he going to be okay?”
Something passed through Silas’s features. Something deep as he lifted his hand again, that time to brush the pad of his thumb along the edge of my mouth.
My stomach tightened, disgusted that I liked it so much.
“Look at you.” His voice had gone grumbly. Too soft for my own good. “Confined here without knowing why and the one thing you’re worried about is him.”
“He’s my brother. The only thing I have.” I probably shouldn’t admit it, but maybe this guy needed to understand what was on the line.
My entire heart.
His nod was slow. “I get it, but I’m going to need you to be fighting for yourself.”
“Fighting is about the only thing I know. But it makes it difficult when I don’t know who’s supposed to be the enemy.”
Every unforgiving edge of his body sharpened. “You’re safe with me.”
“Am I?”
Because nothing had ever felt so perilous as right then.
The quivering of my belly and the shivering of my soul.
He ran his knuckles under my chin. “Want to do a thousand different things to you, Brinley Webber, but hurting you isn’t one of them.”
The desire that bubbled up inside me was so distinct there was no mistaking it any longer.
And that was probably the most dangerous part of all.
“I thought you told me that I didn’t have to pay off my brother’s debt with my body?” I snarled it, looking for restraint, for a way to toss back up a wall, knowing I was teetering on a crumbling ledge.
Standing at the edge of a canyon to get a better look. But I wasn’t about to be too reckless to realize I was about to fall to my death.
A wicked smile took to his terrifyingly beautiful face. “There’s no debt to repay, remember?”
My fight or flight kicked in.
So rather than pummeling him in the chest with my fists like I had half a mind to do, I ducked away, winding myself from his trap, shaking myself off as I stared at him from three feet away.
“Then I guess this ridiculous job is no longer necessary.”
He angled back casually. Cruel satisfaction climbed to his face as he tucked his tattooed hands into his pockets.
