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I refuse to answer, tightening my lips and glaring at him through swollen eyes. He raises his brows when he catches sight of my face, causing my cheeks to burn hot from anger. For a moment, he looks furious, though I can't tell who with.
He twirls his finger in the air, indicating that I turn over.
“I have to clean up the mess you made,” he tells me, his face smoothing into an unreadable expression. “You’re getting blood everywhere.”
Huffing, I roll onto my stomach, tensing when I feel his fingers brush my t-shirt up my back.
“It’s not my fau—”
“Everything is your fault here,” he interrupts, his voice deepening with severity. “Don’t ever forget that.”
He rustles through the supplies, sighing like this is a huge inconvenience for him.
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your day of trafficking women,” I mutter, stewing in my fury. His response is to place an alcohol-soaked pad on my ripped stitches. The burn is startling, and I hiss through my teeth, curses building on the tip of my tongue.
Fucking asshole.
“Your mouth is going to get you in worse situations than this,” he informs me. “What’s it going to take for you to learn your lesson? Getting a girl killed?”
Swallowing, I choke out, “I’m sorry.”
A loud, booming laugh bursts from his throat. I snap my head to him, enraged as his shoulders shake with mirth. His dark eyes are twinkling with the first real emotion I’ve seen thus far. It’s almost as terrifying as him being angry.
“You’re laughing at me,” I say with disbelief.
“Baby girl, I’m not the one you need to be afraid of. I much prefer that mouth of yours.”
“You just said—”
“You mouth off without thinking it through, and that’s what you need to learn to control,” he cuts in, his smile dimming, but his eyes still alight with amusement. “As sexy as your fire is, princess, that’s the last thing you want in this place.”
I curl my lip in disgust, thumping my head back on the bed while he resumes cleaning up my back.
“Don’t call me sexy,” I snap, only because he’s right, and I have nothing better to say.
“Z gonna kill me for it?” he challenges airily, feigning indifference. Although, that’s not how he sounded when I awoke in that van and overheard Rick and him discussing if the Society will offer them protection from Zade’s wrath.
I shrug. “He’s going to kill you anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”
He’s quiet, and just when I’m convinced that he’s not going to say anything at all, I hear him whisper under his breath, “I know.”
As Rio is leaving, Francesca comes barreling down the hallway, her heels resounding on the floor. Her hand wraps around Rio’s arm, stopping him at the door.
“Is her back worse?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, they’re superficial. She’ll be fine,” he answers, though his last words sound like they have a double meaning. When she turns away from him, he casts a wink over his shoulder before walking off, leaving me confused.
He’s so fucking hot and cold.
Francesca storms into the room, appearing frazzled with her wild hair and eyes. Her dress is ripped at the collar, and I wonder just what kind of tantrum Rocco was throwing.
“Get in the beauty room. Now.”
Her abrasive footsteps carry her right back out of the room. I scramble from the bed, rubbing my dry eyes while I hurry after her. Rio clipped my broken nails and cleaned them up for me, but I still feel broken. Every step is a reminder of what happened in that room, and my stomach turns as I draw closer. It takes all my strength to focus on the lineup of girls and not the spot where I lost my mind.
None of them catch my eye. Except for Sydney.
Her bottom lip is fitted snugly beneath her crooked front teeth as she bites back a grin. She finds this funny, and I decide that Sydney—I do hate.
