Strong.
Smart.
Not broken—just bruised.
And for reasons he didn’t particularly like examining yet, he was already thinking about how far he’d go to keep her that way.
Chapter Three
Mara woke up hurting.
For half a second, nothing made sense.
Then it all came rushing back at once.
The office.The locked door.Her boss’s face hardening as the numbers stopped being numbers and started being names.Hands on her.The stairwell.The street.The car.
The men who had saved her.
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t panic.Panic wasted time.
She forced herself to breathe slowly, cataloguing what her body was telling her the way she always did when something went wrong.
This wasn’t the sharp, frantic pain of fear.This was the heavy, grinding ache that settled in once adrenaline burned out.Her ribs throbbed with every breath.Her cheek felt tight and hot, skin stretched over swelling.When she shifted even slightly, something deep in her side protested and she hissed, curling instinctively inward.
Bruised.Badly.
But alive.
That mattered.
She knew where she was.
The knowledge anchored her before her eyes ever opened.She wasn’t in her car.She wasn’t on the street.She wasn’t in her office.
Her eyes opened slowly.
