There were only two ways this could have happened, and neither one made the situation any better. Both meant someone had done something to her while she was helpless. While she was unconscious. While she had trusted them to fix her, not destroy her.
Picking up the test, she stared at it for a long minute before wrapping it in tissues and tossing it in the trash.
She reached for a towel and started cleaning the glass from the counter because honestly, she didn’t know what else to do.
Sloan’s blood smeared across the white surface, blurring through her tears. A sharp, jagged piece of glass sliced her thumb, and her blood mixed with his. Her silent tears turned into sobs of regret, loss, and fear. Sinking to her knees among the broken glass, she ignored the pieces poking through her thin sweatpants. In fact, she welcomed the pain, hoping it would somehow lessen the one tearing through her heart.
CHAPTER 11
Sloan stood only a few steps outside the bedroom door, his body raging as his mind exploded with pain and failure. He had failed her. The one person who should have been his number one to protect, and he had fucking failed her.
“Fuck!” he cursed, his black eyes narrowing with the need for vengeance.
He hated leaving her. Hated it more than he could even process at the moment, but he’d been too damn close to losing control, and Becky didn’t need to see that. Not from him. Never from him. He would never harm her, but the need to lash out, to destroy something, someone, was so strong he needed a minute to get his shit together before he went back to her.
The one thing Sloan had always prided himself on was his self-control. He had built his life on it, led Warriors with it and made decisions that others couldn’t because he never let emotion rule him.
That was before Becky.
Now every ounce of control he possessed was hanging by a thread, and that thread had her name written all over it. He could still see the fear in her eyes, hear the way she rushed to tell him she hadn’t cheated, as if he would ever believe that of her. As if she hadn’t already given him every piece of herself he never deserved.
His hand flexed, the cut across his knuckles burning, but he welcomed it. The pain kept him grounded. Kept him from turning around and tearing the fucking world apart before he knew where to start.
Someone had touched her. Someone had used her trust, her body, her fear, and turned it into something that had her looking at him like he may be the one who walks away from her.
Never.
Whoever dared to lay one finger on Becky would live to regret it. Then they would die in the most agonizing way Sloan could deliver, and God help anyone who tried to stop him.
Knowing he had to go to her, Sloan dug deep, pulling on every ounce of honor, duty, and self-control he had left. Becky didn’t need his rage. She needed him. Glancing down at his hand, he saw it was almost healed. He wiped the rest of the blood on his pants, then turned back toward the bedroom door.
Walking in, Sloan didn’t see her at first, but then he heard the sound of her quiet weeping coming from the bathroom, and it hit him so hard he almost went to his knees. Instead, he rushed that way, stopping dead when he saw her on the floor surrounded by glass from the mirror he had broken.
“Becky!” Her name came out rough as his eyes dropped to the blood on her hand, then to the glass around her knees. “Jesus. You’re cut.”
She looked up at him, her face wet with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and he could hear in her voice how much she meant those words.
“No.” Sloan stepped carefully through the glass and crouched in front of her. “Do not apologize to me.”
Her hand trembled as she held it close to her chest, blood slipping down her thumb. His jaw tightened, but he forced himself to keep his touch gentle as he reached for her. “Let me see your hand.”
She hesitated, then slowly gave him her hand. The cut wasn’t deep, but seeing her blood there, mixed with his on the towel, made something inside him go cold.
“I shouldn’t have left you in here with this.” His voice was low, controlled only because she needed it to be.
“You needed a minute,” she whispered through a sob. “I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do. I needed to be better for you. I shouldn’t have walked out like I did, but I had to regain control of myself.” Sloan looked at her then, really looked at her, and the pain in her eyes gutted him. He knew she wasn’t really hearing him. “Becky, listen to me.”
She shook her head, fresh tears spilling over. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“No, you don’t.” He reached for her, carefully pulling her out of the glass and into his arms. She came to him with a sob that torethrough him. “You don’t, because if you did, you’d know I would never think you cheated.”
Her body froze against his.
Sloan cupped the back of her head, holding her to him. “Not once. Not for one fucking second.”
“Sloan,” she cried, her hands gripping his shirt.
