She went rigid. A look of panic replaced the heady look of desire just written across her features. “N-nothing,” she said, quickly, looking away.
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t like liars, baby… You’re not lying, are you?”
She didn’t answer.
My grip tightened reflexively on her chin and thigh. She jumped, and I immediately forced myself to loosen my hold, though the rage was already clawing at my throat.
“Are you going to tell me, doll?”
She bit her lip. For a moment, I thought she would come clean—tell me who had put them there: her father.But instead she tugged at her sweater, covering the dark marks I’d seen. “Nothing,” she said flatly. “It’s nothing.”
The rage that hit me was lethal.
I lifted her off my lap, set her back on the bench, grabbed my towel, my anger simmering into a cold, hard knot.
“Where are you going?” she asked worriedly.
“I need to take a shower.”
I needed the cold water. I needed to not look at those marks before I marched out of here to find her father and kill him.
Ingrid hesitated. “Do you want me to stay?”
I stopped. Turned. Marched right back to her, and crouched again so I was at eye-level.
“Of course I want you to stay,” I said. “I just…” My gaze flickered to her neck again. “I want to protect you. That’s all.”
She gripped the edges of her sleeves and looked down. “I don’t need protection,” she murmured. But there was no conviction in it, and I suspected she was trying to convince herself of that more than me.
“Ingrid,” I began—
“It’s nothing,” she said again, softer this time. Her hands fidgeted in her lap, eyes growing glassy. “Can—Can we just have a nice day? I-I made cookies.”
I didn’t say anything for a short while, my mind trying to think of a way to answer.
I made cookies. Like that was her reason, her proof that the day deserved to be okay even after I’d seen the marks on her skin.
“We can,” I said. I wanted to push—and then I wanted to deal some damage to the man who’d laid hands on her.
But there was a nervousness to Ingrid. I thought of how she hadn’t reached out to me for days when I first gave her my number, and again how she hadn’t after that jackass spilled the drink on her after my last fight. If Ingrid got scared, she was liable to run, even if it meant running from the man who could protect her from the world.
So, begrudgingly, I relented. “I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.”
“Thank you.”
I nodded as I rose, headed to the showers.
But at the door, I stopped.“For now.”
Chapter eighteen
Tristian
The chain rattled, the sound echoing through the silent gym.Thud. Thud. Crack.My knuckles screamed, but I welcomed the pain.
Ingrid and I had spent the rest of the day together. We’d stopped by the tattoo parlor just for a brief drop-in on James, check he hadn’t burned the place down in my and Kane’s absence. That had got us talking about art. Ingrid had asked questions about how I’d first gotten into it, how I’d developed my skills. Then she’d revealed that she was thinking of taking it up. She didn’t have many avenues for self-expression, she said, though didn’t go into it further. She didn’t need to. I knew fathers like hers: overbearing, controlling. Ingrid was under Samuel’s thumb.
So I took her to my favorite art supply store. The air tanged with cedarwood and turpentine, Ingrid had looked so small standing before a wall of charcoal and sketchpads, her fingers hovering over the expensive vellum like she didn’t think she was allowed to touch it.
