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I shake my head, choking on the air in my lungs as her wide, tear-stained eyes blink up at me with so much fear and gratitude.
She licks her lip, her tongue coming back bloody. Her brows crash together as though she’s just realizing she’s hurt, and maybe she is. Maybe it’s the first time she’s letting herself feel anything other than the terror I saw on her face.
Her finger swipes at the tiny trickle coming from her split lip and she stares at the redness staining her porcelain skin with wide, doe-eyes.
I swallow roughly and close the distance between us, unable to take the broken look marring her beautiful features. She should never look this way. She should never feel this way.
And if she were mine, she wouldn’t—
I put a stop to those thoughts by scooping her up, shaking her from wherever her mind had taken her. She sucks in a gasp and scrambles to clutch herself to me. Her thin arms wrap around my neck as I adjust her, cradling her to my chest like she’s the most precious thing in my world.
She is.
We stare at each other for a long moment, her lips parted with words that won’t come out and my heart lodged in my throat, choking me.
Then Marcus groans and Eve shudders, remembering he’s still here, and it propels me forward. I make it through the church, dodging pews, and through the front doors, in record time. Then light is spilling down on us, momentarily blinding me.
I blink, my eyes adjusting, my arms unwilling to let her go.
Eve tightens her hold on me as though she feels the same way and that little ball of emotions in my throat slowly unfurls, letting me find my voice again.
“Are you okay?” I know she’s not, but I need to hear her say it.
She bobs her head once, then shakes it once, before nodding again. My lip twitches despite the rage still pulsing through me. As much as it kills me, I slowly release her, setting her gently on her feet. I right her dress, making sure she’s fully covered, before taking a step back.
Not because I want space between us, because to be honest, I don’t want a single inch separating her from me right now. But because I have to see.
I grip her shoulders and bend, forcing her tear-stained eyes to meet mine. “Talk to me, Goldie,” I whisper, though there’s no mistaking the demand. “Are you okay?”
My thumb brushes over her cheek, the red mark from where he hit her even more clear in the bright afternoon light.
Fuck, I can’t wait to kill him.
I smooth my hand over the welt before tracing her lip. Her hand comes up, cupping mine as she leans into our combined touch.
“I’m okay,” she breathes. At whatever look she sees on my face, her mouth curves in a brittle but honest smile. “I promise. I’m okay, just—” she breaks off with a shrug. “Rattled.”
I nod and breathe deeply, needing to ground myself before I ask the next question. The question that might or might not keep me from spending my remaining years in a prison cell.
“Did he touch you anywhere else?” I rasp, my eyes locked on hers despite how badly I want to squeeze them shut. But I can’t. I have to know. I have to see the honesty in her eyes when she answers.
Her face shutters, the small amount of light she’d managed to find, disappearing at once. I snap up, trying to pull my hand away as a savage growl flies from somewhere deep inside me. Turning back to the doors, I prepare myself to take a life, seriously take a life, because if he, if he—
“Roman,” Eve cries, trying her damndest to yank me back to her. “Roman, no, stop!” I shoot her a look, one that has her brows crashing together with hurt. “Stop. He didn’t, I mean.” She shakes her head, her breaths sawing in and out. “He didn’t touch me. Not like that. He just said some shit, and then this.”
She gestures to her face and drops my hand, letting her head fall with it, as though she’s ashamed. Of what, I have no idea, but I can’t fix it right this second.
I will. I’ll try. But not now.
I step forward and cup her sweet face, forcing her to look up at me. To not hide, to not cower from the unseen enemy in her head. I swipe her cheeks, the tears steadily trickling from her red-framed eyes, and commit this look to memory.
The mark on her cheek, growing angrier by the second. The clotted cut on her puffy lower lip. The devastation in her usually light, joyful eyes. The way her body curves in on itself as if to hide from her own thoughts, her own heartache.
I commit it to memory, and then I vow silently to make him pay ten times over.
But I don’t tell her that. I can’t.
“I need you to do something for me, Goldie,” I breathe, smiling inwardly when she immediately nods up at me. “I need you to go home and ice your lip and cheek. Can you do that for me?”
