Page 13 of Dark Savior

Rachel took a sip of her coffee, a surprised look crossing her face at the taste of the Kahlua before she shot a look up at me and a small smile twitched at her lips.

Something tight in my chest loosened at the sight of her small, grateful smile.

“I just went to the gas station down the street,” she began to recount. “I’d already grabbed a pack of cigarettes and was filling my car up, but those pumps are so goddamn slow.” There was a true hatred for those pumps in her voice when she spoke. “I was ambushed from behind. Chloroform rag over my nose. I tried not to breathe, but fuck. If the body wants oxygen…” Her voice trailed off.

If the body was starving for oxygen, it would force you to breathe.

“I woke up in a basement. Head was hurting. Thought I was gonna throw up. I began searching the room and found a steel pipe I could use as a weapon since there was nothing else I could use in the room.” She reached up to hold the back of her head, like she was afraid her brains were going to spill out at just the mere mention.

She definitely needed a doctor, and if her head wasn’t feeling any better by tomorrow, I was taking her—to hell with what Carter wanted. I wasn’t playing games with her health.

“I hid in the darkness, and when they came into the room, I bashed in the skull of the one with a broken tooth, and then swung on the one with an eyepatch, bashing his skull in, too.” She drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment like remembering was painful. “One of them mentioned something about their president wanting me,” she announced.

The leather on my chair creaked beneath my tight grip. Carter glanced at me for a moment, a warning to keep myself in check, before focusing back on his little sister. But I hadn’t missed the storm brewing in his eyes beneath that warning.

Neither of us were letting that fucker get his hands on Rachel.

She was mine. My woman. My feisty little kitten.

“I hot-wired their car and drove until the car ran out of gas, which is when I called you.”

“You were in different clothes,” Carter remembered. “The clerk’s clothes.”

Rachel grunted in acknowledgment. “I vomited all over myself from the pain in my head, and I had blood on me,” she explained. “Didn’t want to risk stopping and pulling over.”

I curled my hands over Rachel’s shoulders, so fucking proud of her. What she’d gone through would not have been easy for anyone, yet she’d come out the other side of it. She’d taken back her freedom with both fucking hands, regardless of her pain.

Carter leaned back in his chair and stroked his hand over his chin. Brittany leaned forward, her elbows braced on the table. “Well, it’s clear you can’t go anywhere by yourself any longer,” Brittany said. Carter grunted in agreement. “I’m sure everyone at this table will agree with me.”

Rachel grimaced. “A protection detail will get annoying real quick,” she muttered.

“Don’t care how you feel about it,” I gruffly told her, agreeing with Brittany. Rachel’s shoulders stiffened beneath my grip. I massaged the tense muscles, hoping to soothe her, though I knew it probably wouldn’t work. Rachel was independent as fuck. “I’ll try to make sure you’re stuck with me, but when I have to deal with club shit, you’ll get assigned a different bodyguard.”

“Yay,” Rachel muttered, her voice full of sarcasm. A smirk twitched at my lips.

Brat.

Carter pointed a finger at Bruce and Orlando. “Put your ears to the ground to see what you can find out about why Eli wants Rachel. I don’t care how insignificant something seems. Bring it to me when you find out. Grandad’s in the hospital, and my little sister was just fucking kidnapped. The stakes are up, and we’re playing a dangerous fuckin’ game. This shit cannot happen again.”

Bruce and Orlando both nodded. Carter pinched the skin between his eyes before looking at Rachel, his eyes softening. “I’m sorry I failed you.” His voice was strangled.

She sighed, her shoulders deflating. I rubbed my thumbs along the column of her neck. “You didn’t fail me, Carter. I was stupid—went to the gas station by myself because I thought I should take advantage of a moment when you wouldn’t be here to hound me and ask me a thousand and one questions. This is on me.”

He clearly disagreed, and I did, too. I could see the disagreement and the guilt in the tense set of his jaw, but the pain flitting through her features must have kept him from arguing. Instead, he just dropped it, looking up at me. “She’s under your protection,” he told me gruffly, pushing back from the table. “Get her back to bed. I’ll have someone bring food to you guys.”

“And pain pills. Something strong,” I told him. Regular over the counter meds weren’t cutting it.

He nodded once before turning away, heading for the chapel doors. “On it.”

I wheeled Rachel back from the table, and when I leaned down to lift her from the chair by her thick thighs, she didn’t even protest—just wound her arms and legs around me, allowing me to carry her.

It was a silent testament to how badly she currently felt. No doubt, apart from the pain in her head and back, her entire body was sore from the tensing of her muscles during the numerous adrenaline rushes she endured the day before.

She’d need a few days to recover. But that was okay. I didn’t mind taking care of her. In fact, I liked it.

But I’d also remain prepared for when her bratty side came back out to play and she wanted to push my buttons.

Because if there was one thing I knew about Rachel… she acted out when she was out of sorts. And she was about to be out of sorts for the foreseeable future.