“Just now?” Ryan asked.
“Earlier this evening.”
My pulse pounded in my ears. “We were there.”
Liam squeezed my hand.
“Was her body just found?” Nicky asked. “Wasn’t everyone here off duty? It must’ve been brutal for them all to get called in.”
“Not murder,” Liam answered without taking his eyes off me. “It was a sexual assault.”
My breath stuttered, my chest tightening. Liam released my hand and pulled me in close. His lips brushed the skin behind my ear, his breath warm, his voice soft. “Breathe, Firefly. You’re safe. I’m here and your friends are here.”
Nicky kept pushing. “That’s bad obviously, but not that bad in the grand scheme of crimes that happen in the city. So what’s really going on?”
Liam tightened his grip, glancing over at her. He spoke through a clenched jaw. “They think it may be connected to another assault.”
I’m not sure if he said more after that. The blood pounding in my head was too loud to hear anything. A serial rapist. Assaulting innocent women. In the park I go to. The park that I was just at. I might’ve walked right past the victim. Or the rapist.
“You’re okay,” Liam said softly near my ear. I jumped.
I nodded. I wasn’t okay, but I didn’t want to tell him that. He’d figure it out soon enough. If Liam hadn’t been there, it could’ve just as easily been me. How could I ever walk Thor there again? But if I couldn’t walk Thor, if I wasn’t safe doing the things I loved to do, the things I’d worked so hard to be able to do…Oh God. A tight band of panic cinched around my ribs, stealing my breath and hurtling me back to a time when I was too afraid to do anything. Why now? Just when things were starting with Liam, when I wanted to be my best for him, he was going to see me at my worst.
The conversation continued around me, and I did my best to look engaged, but mostly I tried to ignore the concern I felt rolling off of Liam. I felt Juliette and Nicky watching me, but Ishook my head at them. They knew I was on the brink of losing it, but I couldn’t talk to them about it here. I picked apart my napkin and tried to tune them out as they kept talking about the rapist, and the guys expressed their worry for us.
What if Liam hadn’t been there with me? I would’ve been there alone. What if...
What if the rapist wasn’t a stranger? What if he had a creepy smile and cold, black snake eyes and wore a hood or a hat to hide his menacing face?
Breathe in. Breathe out. I couldn’t panic. Couldn’t accuse a random man of being a rapist. Couldn’t even let Liam know I was thinking it. When I thought I could talk normally, I looked up from the surprisingly large pile of shredded napkins in front of me. “Do you think you can get me a description of the guy? The library has so many visitors. I can’t look at all of them as potential rapists.”
“Don’t you already do that?” Nicky said. I shot her a look. She was right, but I didn’t need her to point it out to Liam. Although, better he thinks that than to know it was only one specific creep I had in mind.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Liam
Goddamn motherfucker. I wanted to punch a fucking wall. I couldn’t sit here for another second while everyone talked about this fucking rapist like he wasn’t at the same fucking park as Jenna. The park she goes to every fucking week.
I felt Jenna pull away as her armor came down and her walls came up. She was still next to me, but she wasn’t there with me anymore. I saw her shake her head at Juliette and Nicky, denying their concern. She smiled at whatever the fuck the others were saying. She was determined to sit through this dinner like everything was normal, while I wanted nothing more than to throw her over my shoulder and lock her in my house until this fucking rapist was behind bars. Or better yet, underground.
Every instinct screamed at me that Jenna was in danger. Even if she wasn’t in actual danger now, she could’ve been earlier, and she was in emotional distress now, which wasunacceptable. What if it was that fucker in the park? I wanted to kick my own ass for ignoring him.
Now she was worried about a fucking rapist coming into her library. “I’ll get you all the info I can.” I tried to say it gently, but I could hear the bite in my voice. I relaxed my jaw and softened my tone. “It’ll be okay. I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”
Jenna looked up, meeting my eyes for the first time in too long. The tears shimmering in her eyes, barely held back, tugged at my heart. But even more than that, it was the trust in her gaze that made me tighten my hold on her. I would keep that promise, no matter what it took. No one was going to hurt my Firefly.
She blinked the tears away, then like the sun breaking through the clouds, a smile radiated across her face, tremulous, but still stunning. Fucking beautiful.
My hand moved on its own to trace a fingertip down the curve of her jaw. Her skin was so soft, and the tiny hitch in her breath nearly undid me.
I ignored the others as Nicky commented about the rapist being her client’s father and Ryan threatened to tie her to his bed to keep her safe, like it was some fucking joke. I only tuned back in when I heard him demand the girls go to his self-defense class. There was a session later this week they could go to.
“You’ll go?” I asked Jenna, hoping she’d agree willingly so I didn’t have to talk her into it.
She nodded, and we worked out the details.
“I’ll help with the class.” I told Ryan. I wasn’t a certified instructor, but I’d helped him out in a jam a few times before. I wanted—needed—to do everything possible to help Jenna be safe.