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Rafe sighs. “Eight alive. The others—starvation. Maybe lack of oxygen. There’s no fucking food or water in there, Dom.”
They left the girls to die.
Though it makes no sense. Sales on dead bodies earned nothing.
I set my teeth as a low growl rumbles in my chest, threatening to explode through my shirt. I’m cradling the girl to me, no longer needing to look elsewhere as the boys will care for the others. By some miracle, her body shifts slightly enough that I notice. Her eyes, fixed on me, observe me right back, but they don’t widen in fear like I expect. Because this is a girl who expects death to come for her.
Shewantsto die.I know that look.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I swear as softly as I can, unwilling to bring her any more fear. God knows she’s had a lifetime’s dose of it already. Gunfire opens up just outside the warehouse, and I duck on instinct. “I thought we got all those fuckers.”
“Must’ve missed some. Are you good to get her out of here?”
“I’ll put her on the front of my bike.” If I take the truck they arrived in, the boys will have no way out, and if they’re outnumbered … well, I don’t want to find a new employer in the morning.
“Catch.” I toss the keys to the truck at Rafe, cradling the weightless girl against my chest as I walk back out the way we came in. Her breath comes shallow, and she barely responds to each bump and step, though I try to make my stride smooth. She’ll need a whole lot of TLC to bring her back to the edge of the living from where she dallies with death in my arms. I might be an asshole on Sundays, and a killer all week long, but I know I’m up to the task.
Tommy grabs one of the other girls and follows me out. “I’ll put this one in the truck.”
I nod, grateful the sweaty bastard is eager to help at least in this instance, even if he can’t cope with the bigger tasks.Small favors.
The girl’s fingers curl around my shirt, and she starts to tremble.
“That’s good, honey. You keep shaking. Let me know you’re fighting.”
Let me know if you’re alive.
She’s so fine, and her breath so shallow, I can barely feel each time she sucks in air.
We reach my bike without incident, and I shove my helmet on, sliding her around the front of me. Her tiny frame almost disappears against mine. I push my leather jacket gently over her arms, bundling her against my front, wrapping my arm around her waist.
Her head tilts back, and I know she’s looking up at me. Keeping my eyes forward and not letting her offer the fatal distraction she could be, I study the docks around us. Apart from Tommy running back to the warehouse from the truck, there isn’t another soul in sight. Kickstarting the bike, I hold her tight, rejecting the need to rip at my skin and tear the filthy scent of this fucked-up place off me. No shower will be hot enough to remove what Singleton did to those girls, from my body or my mind.
Her face raises in question.
I smile beneath the helmet, though she can’t see it. “Just taking you somewhere safe, honey. Get you a nice shower, maybe a bubble bath. How long has it been since you’ve had one of those?” I make a final sweep of the place but nothing has changed. “Is that okay?”
To my surprise, she raises one hand and wraps it around my wrist where I grip the handlebars from the outside. Her fine fingers barely make it around my wrist, her pale skin almost as translucent as my pristine shirt.
“You were in there for a while, huh? Hold on, now.” I keep up my one-sided conversation as I peel away from the place where she endured terrors, heading for the exit.
By the grace of God alone, no one chases us. The drive home is an interesting one, though. The farther we get from that place, the more she presses back into my chest. Her other hand reaches out to curl around my thigh, and I feel the imprint of her fingertips beneath my black combat pants under my knee.
It isn’t quite what I meant when I saidhold on, but what the hell ever. If I make her feel safe, then that’s what we’ll do. I never release my arm from around her waist, holding her back against me tightly, driving one-handed.
I have more than four hundred hours on this bike, and it’s an extension of myself. Rather than pulling up around the front of Rafe’s estate, I drive around the back of the block and use the remote in my pocket to open the loading bay doors at the rear of the compound.
I drive straight up the ramp and into the private garage where Rafe keeps his personal collection of soon-to-be classic cars. The man loves his European builds—don’t we all?—while my corner houses a few bikes in random states of repair, a sleek black Lambo, and a four-wheel-drive I’ve modified that more resembles a tank than anything else.
I release the girl, and she sits upright on her own on the bike seat, completely still. Taking the helmet off, I shake my hair out, raking it back with my fingers, and look down at her.
She returns my study, and I know she’s taking in everything at once. It’ll be a wonder if the trip back doesn’t overload her. Her eyes skim the millions of dollars of vehicles, and settle on me. Her head tilts as she gazes at me in utter silence, and I wonder at the differences between us.
Me, the size of a small building, all dark hair, and olive skin. The leather jacket and tactical wear implanted with Kevlar and tungsten threads I wear is worth more than the average man’s wages for a year. On her, my jacket looks more like a dress, her slim legs dangling from underneath, her tiny feet bare.
“Come on. You don’t wanna walk through the workshop barefoot. God knows what’s on the floor.” I hold up my arms, but yet again she does the unexpected, sliding her hands out of my jacket, leaning away from me.
I shake my head and hold a hand out, palm up. “Keep it. You need it more than I do.”
