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Texas returned with a broom and dustpan. "It's his arm," he offered, bending down to sweep several larger bits into the pan. "Looks like a previous knifewound."
"Knife wound?" I asked, but Texas was already heading back to the kitchen to dump his load. I sighed and turned to Grayson. "You're going to have to let him out of the handcuffs in order for me to look athim."
Marv looked to Grayson. "Can we trusthim?"
Grayson continued to stare at his brother before nodding. "Yeah, he knows if he hurts her, I'll break his arm," he said as he drew the keys to the handcuffs from the back pocket of hisjeans.
I rolled my eyes at the same time that Josh said, "Why would I hurt her? She's not a fucking prick likeyou."
"Oh, I'm the fucking prick?" Grayson asked, shoving his brother over so that he had to lean over his own legs while Grayson unlocked the cuffs and pulled them off. "You're right I am. I'm the fucking prick that put you in rehab and took care of you when our parents cut you off. I'm the fucking prick that found you in a murder motel on the side of the highway and brought youhere."
"You nearly broke my arm!" Joshyelled.
"Next time don’t swing at me or fucking runthen!"
"Guys!" I had to shout to be heard. "There are neighbors, can we please lower the testosterone for fiveminutes?"
Grayson and Marv continued to glare at Josh, but the only person Josh glared back at was Grayson. I chose to ignore the three-way pissing contest and made my way to the side of the couch where I sat and reached for the front buttons on Josh's dark-colored shirt. He pulledaway.
"I got it," he grumbled, dropping his gaze. Even so, I watched as his fingers shook while he unbuttoned the first few buttons, wincing the entire time. Once he finally got the shirt undone and revealed what was under the fabric, I couldn't hold back my gasp. Dark purple and yellow bruises lined his abdomen—some of them looking fairly recent, some faded and older. They lined the side of his stomach, stretching up towards his chest and around to hisback.
"What happened?" I asked as Josh shrugged out of thesleeves.
"Got in a fight," was all hesaid.
My eyes zeroed in on the long gash across his left bicep. It was raw and slightly open—still bleeding, though not too terribly. When I took the shirt from him my hand came away slightly wet and I glanced down. My eyes first took in the red stain on my palm, then to the open gash on his arm. Because of the dark color of his shirt, I hadn't even recognized that he was hurt. But there was no cut in the fabric—it must have happened before he put iton.
I leaned forward and examined the wound. I was no expert—less than a novice really since I had never really seen anything like this. I mean, sure, I had seen my fair share of scraped knees and even broken bones back in gymnastics, but it had been a while. Texas came back in and handed off the dustpan to Marv before he held out a bottle of antiseptic spray tome.
"Put that on the wound," he said, "before you bandage him." I nodded and did as he said. It wasn't until I started wrapping the gauze around his arm before I got the courage toask.
"So," I started, "whathappened?"
Josh avoided my gaze. "I told you—got in afight."
"Were you naked?" Iprompted.
He swiveled his head to look at me. "No."
I hummed. "I see." I continued to wind the stretchy material around his arm. "Then why wasn't there a cut in yourshirt?"
"Harlow," Marvsaid.
"It's a valid question," I snapped, keeping my gaze on Josh. I tightened the gauze around his bicep and then tied it off. "So, are you gonna answer me and tell me what happened or are you just gonna continue being vague aboutit?"
"Why do you care?" hesnapped.
I narrowed my eyes at him, clenching my fist and drawing a deep breath. "Maybe I don't care," I said slowly. "But right now, you're the only lead I have to Erika. So, by all means, we can ignore where you got that cut on your arm and we can jump straight to the good part—where isErika?"
He looked away. And that just pissed me off. I stood abruptly, but before I could do something stupid like smack the shit out of him—Grayson, of all people, stopped me with a hand on my arm. "Let it go," he said. "Don't worry, we'll make himtalk."
"What are you planning ondoing?"
Grayson's expression hardened. "Whatever we haveto."
"No," Marv said. “We can ask questions, but we will have to tell Knix about this and he’ll want to call Alex. They decide what else wedo.”
Grayson frowned, but didn’t say anything. I had the feeling that even he knew that Marv was taking the lead on this one. It didn’t matter that Josh was Grayson’s brother. After last night’s meeting, we had a whole lot of new concerns. I let my gaze return to Josh for a brief moment as Texas came back from the kitchen once more with a white bottle. He snagged the water he had left on the side table earlier and handed it to Josh along with a few small blue pills from thebottle.
