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“Maybe later?” Freddie said, just the barest hint of shyness there.
I let him off the hook immediately. “It’s a date…whenever you want.”
“Awesome,” Liam said as he came out of the bathroom. “C’mere, Hellspawn. Shower time.” He glanced at Rome. “You can get your own.”
He snorted but kissed my fingers as I stroked his face on the way past. I paused near Freddie and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. He brushed his pinky to mine and I hooked them together, a pinky hug.
“I’m okay,” Freddie promised. “You want coffee?”
“I would love coffee.” I was still a little worried about him.
“I’ll get it. Go shower. Make him eat you out or something and think of me…”
“Fuck you, Freddie,” Liam said, a laugh in his voice.
Chuckling, Freddie squeezed my finger once, then let me go. I drifted over to Liam but tracked Freddie as he slid out of my room, followed by Rome.
“Rome will look after him,” Liam said, pulling me back against him. I closed my eyes and rested on his strength. “That was a big step for him.”
It definitely was. “Thank you for not minding,” I whispered.
He gave me a wordless kiss and then tugged me into the shower.
CHAPTER29
FREDDIE
Sharpe was unconscious…again. Doc had him hooked up to another IV, and we’d hosed the guy down ‘cause he stank. One upside to the refurbished fridge, the drainage was a lot better.
“Spit it out before you choke on it,” Doc said as he glanced over at me from where he was going through his medical bag. He’d removed the shock pads and added new ones after we cleaned him up.
He’d also given him a vitamin shot, which I thought was weird, but no one asked me, so—whatever. We weren’t letting the fucker die.
“I don’t get it,” I said, dancing the knife on my fingertips. “He has no pain tolerance that I can identify. If we bruise him, he collapses and snivels more than I did when I was seven.”
“So why isn’t he just breaking?” Doc asked, and I sighed.
“Yes.”
Unscrewing the top off a water bottle, Doc shook his head. “We need to find the leverage he can’t withstand. Everyone has a breaking point, a place where the right amount of pressure cracks them open. Not so easy with this guy, even if he is weak.”
“You think he’s more afraid of his brother.” I’d been trying to reconcile all of this. At least my abusers never pretended to be family. Their abuse wasn’t about their pleasure but their pocketbooks. Sure, they probably had some sick fucks who enjoyed it—but I’d never had someone Icaredabout do that to me.
Watching her watch him when she’d been hoping he’d throw her a bone—even an ounce of regret or remorse, and she might even have forgiven him—had been hell. I wanted to skin him alive for the wounds he’d inflicted.
I didn’t think anything could erase her pain. The day she confessed her secret in Pinetree, her darkness had a name. The same darkness haunting her also haunted me. She fought back. She rose above the shit they tried to drown her in, even if they dressed it up in fancy clothes and hung jewelry on it.
“I know he is,” Doc said without an ounce of irony or pity. “What kind of man lets his wife’s rapist go on to become his daughter’s abuser too?”
“I almost hope he is terrified of him,” I said, even though I didn’t think he was.
Doc eyed me before taking another long drink. We had another round of questioning. Kel and Milo were talking to Doc’s team. They had a possible lead on Bradley Sharpe. Better to make sure we pulled on all the threads.
“You don’t think he is?”
I shook my head, then glanced at my phone. “He has to know we’re going to kill him. Obviously. So how does fear of his brother compete with that?”
Doc frowned.
