Page 43 of Ink

“Everything I do is for nothing. I take two steps forward and get pulled back ten every single time. Madame Salem made me feel like good things were coming, but this does not feel like a good thing.” She cries, shaking in my arms. “It freaking sucks!”

Who the fuck is Madame Salem?

“I hate him. I hate him so much.” The tears have completely soaked through and are now rolling down my stomach. One trickles through the gap in my waistband, rolling right onto my dick. The feel of her tears right there has my dick hardening. I pray to fuck she doesn’t notice.

I’m going to hell.

“I don’t want to go back. I would rather die than go back.” Sutton starts hyperventilating, her breaths sounding short and tight.

“You’re not goin’ back,” I vow. “I kept you around for a reason. And I always keep what’s mine.”

My chest tightens again at the realization that this isn’t working. Propping Sutton up against the corner of the countertop so she has a wall to lean on, I quickly turn on the shower as cold as it will go.

She curls into me as I pick her up, either finding comfort in me being here or the fight is leaving her. Just as I’m about to place her on the shower floor, I think better of it. One of the worst feelings is the feeling of wet, soggy clothes that are freezing cold clinging to your skin.

“I’m goin’ to set you down for a second. You with me?” I get a subtle chin tuck in acknowledgement. Fuck. I haven’t been this nervous to take a girl’s clothes off since that time when I was fifteen and finally got Stacy Davidson alone for the first time. “I’m goin’ to turn around and let you take your clothes off. I just want you to sit in the shower for a second. I promise it will make you feel a little better, okay?”

Sutton’s lifeless eyes are staring a hole into the small dent in the wall from when I was kicking my boots off shitfaced one night and it went flying into the wall. Knowing she’s with me enough to understand, I turn around to face the wall as I wait for her to undress. My ears strain to listen for when she’s done and the curtain pulling back and close over the sound of the water hitting the shower walls, but I hear nothing.

“You in?”

Silence.

“Sutton?”

Once again, nothing.

“I’m turnin’ around.” I warn before slowly turning, expecting to see the outline of her shadowed figure through the curtain inside the tub. My heart drops at seeing Sutton in the same spot on the bathroom floor that I set her down in. Tears are streaming down her face as her eyes hold no emotion but so much emotion all at the same time.

Her eyes, in this moment, will always haunt me. If I could take every ounce of pain and hurt away so she never experiences it again, I would. I’d do it in a fucking heartbeat.

Her knees are pulled against her chest as her quivering arms are locked around her shins, keeping her in a tight ball.

“Alright, bunny. I’ll do it,” I murmur before crouching down to her level. “I know you aren’t ready to talk yet but I’ve gotta ask, did he—fuck,” I curse, hanging my head. I can’t bring myself to say it. If I say it and it’s not the answer I want to hear, I won’t stop until I find that piece of shit tonight. Clearing my throat, I try again, “Did he force himself on you?” I’m barely holding it together here and the longer she takes to answer, the more on edge I become. “Sutton?”

I stop breathing as the tears flow even harder until they’re pouring off of her jawline.

Fuck.

I’m going to fucking kill him.

Inhaling deeply, I try to rein it in.

“It’s okay, bunny. I’m here.” I try my best to comfort her, but it’s hard to do when I’m picturing myself cutting off his dick and shoving it up his ass. “I’m goin’ to see where Doc is.”

I start to stand, bringing her with me to set her back on the counter.

“I’ll be right back. Whatever you do, don’t get in the shower yet. The rest of my space is yours, though.”

“No,” she says barely above a whisper.

“Bunny.” Fuck, this is not what I want to be talking to her about. “Justice will be served for what he did to you. Regardless if you want something to happen to him or not, it’s fucking happenin’. I won’t be gone long. I just need to step out for a second to talk to my brothers.”

For the first time since I brought her back here, she lifts her head and looks me in the eye. “He didn’t rape me.”

“Sutton, now is not the time to cover for that piece of shit. Look at your fuckin’ throat,” I growl, the rage I had so carefully contained coming out.

If I was a good man, her visible flinching would have me apologizing and taking it back, but I’m not a good man. I’m the man that’s always going to find my own form of justice. I’m the devil disguised in tattoos, ready to kill any motherfucker who gets in my way.