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“Not for me!” Liam roared. “And now this? I thought you said she wasn’t raped?”
“She wasn’t. When the doctor examined Raine, she confirmed that there was no trauma to her vagina. Her hymen was intact. But I think Bill sure tried.”
Raine must have fought like hell.
Liam’s fingers trembled, yet he was unable to look away from the photos. “Why didn’t you show me these sooner?”
If Hammer had, he might have understood Raine better, taken a different tactic with her, been more patient. It might have made a difference.
“What was I supposed to do, Liam? Haul you into my office the night you collared her and whip these pictures out for you? She doesn’t know I have them, and it wasn’t my place to tell you.”
No, it had been Raine’s. But to Liam’s mind, Hammer staying mute on the subject reeked far more of his desire to hoard the girl than to protect her privacy. He would only keep this terrible truth to himself because he believed that he alone should—or could—heal her. How ironic that he’d never even tried.
Liam’s mind wandered back to his first day at Shadows, after arriving from New York. He’d known almost instantly that Hammer had far more feelings for the girl than he’d been willing to admit. In fact, their first conversation about her had been eye-opening.
“Tell me about Raine,” he’d asked that first night.
Hammer had tensed. Anyone who didn’t know the man well might not have noticed, but Liam had. Then, as if Hammer had forced himself to relax, he’d shrugged. “She’s a runaway I took in. She works for me.”
“Really, now? Is that all? You watch her an awful lot, mate.”
“Of course. She’s an employee under my roof. I take responsibility for her safety.”
And he took it very seriously, too much for merely a boss. “I’ve heard whispers there’s a standing edict that no Dom is allowed to touch her. Is there a reason?”
Hammer had drawn in a deep breath and acted as if he’d been gathering his thoughts. Liam rather thought at the time that the man had been fighting his temper. “Raine was abused before she ran away. She’s not ready for what any of the Doms here would want or expect.”
“Even you?”
“I’ve never given it much thought, but yeah.”
Liam remembered sitting back in his chair, stunned at such a whopping lie. He’d bet money then that Hammer thought of the girl under him every damn day. Why had his best mate felt the need to lie to him?
“What do you think she needs in order to be ready, then? Maybe you ought to help her along.”
Almost immediately, Hammer had shaken his head. “Time, space, security, maturity. She’s vulnerable. No one touches her, including you. Any other sub under my roof is fair game, but not Raine.”
While Hammer had made his rationale sound so noble, Liam had known better. The man might as well have wrapped her in barbed wire and posted a no trespassing sign around her.
It was then that Liam had realized Hammer was in love with her. Which explained why the man had never once mentioned the girl in the last six years.
As Hammer turned down another residential street, Liam dragged himself back to the present. They had to be nearing her father’s house. Liam felt a fresh wave of fury that his old friend had kept so much from him for so long—the truth about Juliet, his feelings for Raine, and the extent of her damage at her father’s hands.
Such a bloody fucking debacle. How much time and drama could they have saved if Hammer had been willing to come clean?
Beside him, Macen let loose a heavy sigh. “I’d hoped she would volunteer the fact that her father had abused her. I’m sorry she didn’t.”
Pot meet kettle.
“Raine mentioned it, but…” Liam held up the last picture. “She never described anything like this. Did she tell you straightaway that her father had beaten her?”
“No. It took months for her to tell me bits and pieces, but I guessed. Why else would she run away from home with nothing but the clothes on her back?” Hammer gritted his teeth. “The private investigator I hired located the violent prick in two days. When I went to visit him, he had fresh stitches on his cheek.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“She admitted later that she fought Bill off with a kitchen knife. She slept with it under her pillow.”
Liam could feel something slide sideways in his mind as the rage and frustration congealed. “Why didn’t you kill the miserable wretch?”
“As much as I would have liked to, I had to make a deal with the devil.”
“What?” Liam stared at Hammer as if he’d lost all his wits.
“I visited him and introduced myself, explained that I owned Shadows. I told him that his daughter was now under my care and that, under no circumstances, would he ever see Raine again.”
