We sit in the stillness for a long moment, and just when I’m sure she’s fallen asleep, she says, “You said that you guys want Damien dead for personal reasons.”
She tips her head so she can look in my eyes.She’s so damn beautiful, even all battered and bruised.
“Why? What did he do?”
I blow out a breath and kiss the top of her head. “Well, let’s see. He killed Carson’s wife, and then Carson spent time in prison because of him. It’s a long story, but that’s the crux of it. Every damn time we think we have him, he slips away again.”
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “Poor Carson. I’m so sorry that I ever thought?—”
“Like you said earlier, you didn’t know.” I kiss her head again because I just can’t stop. “I think that’s enough talking fortonight. I want you to sleep so you can heal up. Seeing you hurt makes me want to kill someone.”
“Youdidkill someone,” she reminds me. “Several someones. Thank you for rescuing me. I know that I had the gun, but I don’t honestly know if I could have pulled the trigger.”
She was trembling and bleeding and so fucking scared it made me want to burn the world to the ground.
“You’re not a killer,” I murmur into her hair. “And you never have to be because you have me to do that for you.”
With my girl still in my arms, I stand and carry her upstairs to the bedroom. After undressing both of us, and seeing that the bruises on her torso have only darkened, I gingerly help her into bed, then work my way through the penthouse, setting the alarm and making sure we’re secure in here. I’ve never done that a day in my life, but now I have someone precious to protect.
She’s already sleeping deeply when I return. I ease my way into the bed with her, and even in sleep, she shifts so she can drape herself over my chest, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders, tucking her safely at my side.
She shifts, and then her voice, thick with sleep, murmurs, “Why 12:37?”
I smile into the darkness, thinking of the watch that she etched into my side.
“That’s the first minute I ever laid eyes on you, and it changed every moment after for the rest of my life.”
“How is she?” Diego asks as he joins me outside my cells in the basement of my building.
“She’s still sleeping.” It’s past noon, and my girl woke up long enough to take more medication for the pain and then dropped right back into sleep. I didn’t want to leave her, but Diego and I have business to see to down here.
First, we walk into the cell holding Miguel. He doesn’t look so good. His burns are infected, and his breathing is labored. If I leave him in here, he’ll die soon without my help.
“Kill me,” he rasps, barely conscious.
“Lucky for you, the information you gave me was right. I’d prefer to draw this out, but I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”
With thoughts of what I’ll do to the man next door in my mind, I pull the gun from the small of my back and put a bullet in the side of Miguel’s head, then stride out of the cell.
“I’ll call the clean-up crew,” Diego says as we stride over to the other cell, where one of the men that dared put his fucking hands on Violet has been waiting all night.
I push through the door and see that my men did as I told them to, which was to strip him naked and put him all fours on the dirt floor, chained, so his broken nose had to fight against gravity all night.
That fucking hurts.
“Name,” I demand, and when he doesn’t answer right away, I kick him in the side, taking the air from his lungs. “I won’t ask fucking twice.”
“Paulie.”
I cringe. “You go byPaulielike you’re a fucking four-year-old? Do you still breast feed too?”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re definitely not my type.”
Diego smirks as I cross to the tool bench and choose a box cutter. I always prefer fire.Always.Julian’s typically the knife man. But the box cutter hurts, and this motherfucker needs to suffer for what he did to my Savage.
“So, Paulie, who do you work for?”