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The space inside was huge and ominous in the low light. Just beyond the doors sat Kendall’s late-model red truck covered in grime. The van he’d abducted Raine in was nowhere to be seen, and Liam suspected he’d dumped it elsewhere.
Breath held, he crept around the vehicle, Hammer just behind him. Then they both spotted Raine.
Hammer froze. Liam’s heart stopped.
Oh, dear god…
Raine sat naked and crouched on the floor. In one hand, she clutched a knife dripping blood. The other she wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth, staring at Bill beside her, unmoving and lying in a puddle of his own fluids.
Her swollen right eye and the bleeding gash in her bottom lip told them that Bill had beaten her. As she gripped the serrated blade, crimson stained her fingers, her face, and her body. Liam felt his heart seize. His poor, wee lass had battled her demon again, and it had taken a toll on her.
But thank God she was alive.
Hammer approached Bill, gun pointed. Bending slowly, he pressed two fingers against the carotid artery. “He’s dead.”
Liam went limp with relief. Thank the fucking stars Bill Kendall could never, ever hurt their girl again. She had fought and won—for the final time.
“Raine,” Liam breathed, afraid to dart toward her too suddenly and risk scaring her more.
She didn’t respond, simply stared fixedly at the body lying near a metal-framed cot. Bill had once tied her to it, judging from the rope still hanging off the corners.
Hammer shoved his gun in his holster. Before Liam could call out to him, Macen ran toward Raine, kneeling beside her. He reached for her, then stopped and clenched his fingers into a fist as if afraid to startle the terrified girl. His gaze flittered between her face and the knife, still tightly gripped in her hand.
“Oh, baby. Sweet Raine. We’re here, precious.” Hammer’s voice broke. “Can you hear me, sweetheart? Look at me. Drop the knife. You’re safe. Bill can’t hurt you ever again. He’s dead.”
At the sound of her father’s name, Raine clasped the knife tighter, refusing to take her eyes off his prostrate body. Suddenly, she screamed, a blood-curdling sound that reverberated through the empty cavern of the warehouse, turning Liam’s veins to ice. Gooseflesh prickled across his skin.
Hammer jerked back and stood. He flashed Liam a look of helpless horror.
“She’s in shock, man,” Liam murmured. “Don’t raise your voice. It’s freaking her out.”
Hammer glowered. “Damn it—”
Liam laid a hand on his shoulder and swallowed down his own anxiety. “She’s naked, armed, and non-responsive. She’s covered in blood, which might be hiding wounds of her own. And it’s freezing in here. She needs Beck. Go get him. I’ve got this.”
“I can’t leave her now,” he shot back, his face contorted with devastation and shock, with remorse, guilt, and terror.
Liam couldn’t help them both at once.
Fighting his own panic, he tamped down his urgency to rush to Raine. “Let me handle her.”
Hammer swiped angrily at his face, struggling to gather his composure, clearly torn. Finally, he nodded. “Bring her back to us.”
Liam remembered Hammer saying nearly those same words to Raine just before she’d made love to him a few hours ago. Now they sounded like an eerie echo. “Call 9-1-1 and get Beck. Tell him to bring his bag.”
“I’m on it.”
When Hammer ran for the entrance, Liam inched closer, visually examining her for other injuries. He couldn’t tell with all the bloody streaks coating her skin.
“Raine, can you hear me?” He kept his voice deliberately low, not taking his eyes off her. He didn’t want to see her shredded clothes littered around the metal cot or the instruments of torture—a heavy baseball bat, a power drill, screwdrivers, hammers, pliers—lined up on the makeshift table nearby. What had Bill done to her?
Fuck.
An empty gin bottle lay nearby. The air around them reeked with the stench of copper, along with the contents of his bladder and bowels, which he’d voided as he’d died. Based on the man’s ashen skin, starkly white in the gloom, Liam guessed that Bill had bled out. He lay on his back, eyes staring wide in surprise, pupils dilated and fixed. At some point in Raine’s ordeal, Bill had removed his pants. His flaccid cock lay exposed.
Liam wanted to kill the bastard all over again.
Raine’s voice rose once more in an unnerving wail of distress.
Easing closer, avoiding the pool of blood surrounding Bill so he didn’t contaminate evidence, Liam took off his coat while speaking softly to her. The distance between them chafed. “There, love. He can’t hurt you now. Not ever again.”
This time she moaned as if she heard him and broke apart inside. But she never tore her stare from Bill, as though she feared the animal would rise up and finish her off.
Liam crept closer still, crouching before her and putting himself between her and the body of her nemesis.
