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“It’s difficult for her to speak,” Bo said as he stood behind the girl’s chair. “So it’s advised that any questions asked be essential.” He said to Theo, “We should get her to a hospital soon.”
“She hasn’t been yet?”
Again, me with the trigger-happy mouth.
“We needed to talk to her first,” Theo said for my benefit.
“But—”
“One of our doctors has seen her and okayed a few hours,” Theo cut in.
“She needs a bath,” I demanded. “Or if you would so deign, a wet sponge. Something to indicate that she’s not a wounded animal here for your inspection.”
Theo turned. “How many times do I have to convey to you that time is of the essence?”
“I understand that,” I said patiently. “Yet you seem to forget that innocent people are often caught up and very nearly killed when they associate with your brother. And they deserve respect. Attention. Kindness.”
His expression turned grim and I closed my mouth. I’d hit a mark, unintended but true. The girl before us had craved tenderness and been beaten. Left to fend for herself, but by God, she did. The kind of fight it took to get over that kind of threat was like an infection that infiltrated the blood, becoming an auto-immune response with no cure. I wasn’t about to let Theo walk all over this woman.
“She’ll receive it,” he said quietly. “And while it doesn’t look like it, Drea has been cared for. She is under watch, and a doctor associated with the Saxon name sees her three times a day. She needs a place to rest, yes, and a quiet room to recover—all of which she has. But for our visit, she’s been moved—with her consent—to this chair for a short time. I am not the beast you make me out to be.”
“And I’m not the innocent beauty you still think I am.” I indicated the room around me. “Does she sleep in the bathtub? Because that’s about the only thing that seems sterilized in this place.”
“And also one of the only areas my brother won’t think to look.” Theo signaled to the bouncer. “Bo, get Drea some water, please. Now.” He turned his attention back to me. “Can I get on with our mission, or do you have any other concerns you feel compelled to air out?”
I glared at him in answer. Damn it, I wanted some water, too.
“Good.” Theo knelt in front of Drea. She stiffened at the proximity, and I had the urge to rush over, drape my arm across her trembling shoulders, and murmur reassurances. But, considering her reaction to a man two feet away from her, I didn’t dare give her that kind of heart attack. I stood back, watching carefully and absently playing with my necklace.
Theo’s shoulders sloped and a hand relaxed on his one bent knee. By some sort of witchcraft, that same flow of calm reached his features, every muscle softening into a standstill. The scar seemed to disappear. His eyes became kind.
That same stare regarded me in the car. After the fishtail, his face, those airbrushed lashes, the dark shadow of his stubble, the clear blue of his irises, were all I could see. Pleading that I focus. That I’d be okay, if only I breathed him in.
“Can you tell me?” he asked Drea, his voice remaining low, a soft-flowing river of words.
She responded to his voice the way a beaten horse would. Shying away, skittish, but ultimately, painfully, looking upon her captor since there was nowhere else to run.
Those cracked lips parted, a ribbon of black between the bruised red. “He … hurt … me.”
“I know.” Theo didn’t touch her. His tone was his only tool of comfort. “That’s why I’m here. To find him. Contain him, so he never has the opportunity to do anything like this again.”
“There are … more? People like me?” Her brows furrowed, the action causing her pain as she hitched a small gasp.
“Than you’ll ever know,” Theo said grimly. After a moment of quiet, he murmured, “I’m one of them.”
Her attention flicked to his scar.
It was the most information I’d gleaned since running into him on the bottom floor of a yacht.Trace did that to him.And the when of it, the why, thehow, would remain a mystery. Would he ever come out of the darkness? To this girl, to me? It was a harsh reminder that I didn’t have a right to know anything about what he did. I never had that honor in the first place.
Especially after what I’d agreed to do to him when this was over.
Drea reached up, tentatively touching her fingers to the stitched-up gash on her cheek.
“Tell me what happened. If you’re able,” he said.
Her fingers trembled and she pulled them to her chest.
“If you can’t, or don’t want to, that’s okay, too,” Theo said. “I’m not here to force you to do anything.” Somehow, he remained in a half-kneel, despite the fact that his muscles must have been protesting. “But you must know, you are the first person we’ve found, in a long time, who could provide us with something, anything, that we’ve been missing for years.”
