AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was exhausted, emotionally and physically.
When I didn’t answer, he jumped up, lithe as a jungle cat, and stalked closer. He was magnificent in his anger but at the same time terrifying.
I stared at him with wide eyes, wondering if this was a test. Did he think I knew who’d attacked me?
My breaths came in short bursts, and I was struggling for air. I couldn’t read his expression, other than that he was clearly pissed off.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the roaring in my ears. I took a deep breath in. And out. In. Out. I just had to keep breathing.
He didn’t move, and he didn’t talk, allowing me a moment to calm down. When I was sure I had myself back under control, I slowly opened my eyes and stood up, feeling at too much of a disadvantage sitting on the floor. I met Lucius’s gaze and was taken by surprise at the anguish I saw. The anger was gone, replaced with a sadness that seemed too great to comprehend.
He reached out, tracing the bruises on my throat, his eyes following where the tips of his fingers travelled.
Without thinking, I placed a hand on his arm that wasn’t touching me. The urge to comfort him was laughable. He wasn’t the one being held prisoner. Or getting hurt. Yet I couldn’t help myself, the draw too strong. His muscles tensed under my hand, but he didn’t move away.
“Give me a name.” His voice came out broken, the hand that had been caressing my throat dropping back to his side. Even though the touch had barely been there, I still felt its echo down to my soul.
I studied my hand on him, liking the feel of his muscles playing under my fingers and hating myself for it. “I don’t know who it was. I’ve never met him.”
We stood in a silent standoff before he finally relented.
The fight left me, my hand dropping back to my side, curled into a fist.
“Lock the door behind me, and don’t open it for anyone.”
He seemed to take all the warmth with him when he left the room, and I slumped over in exhaustion.
Somehow, I didn’t think my story would have a good ending.
8
LUCIUS
“Don’t move from this door unless you see Santino or myself,” I barked at one of my most loyal men, who was standing guard.
To say what happened had shaken me was an understatement. I’d spent the last two nights looking for answers about who hurt Everleigh. My instructions had been clear when she arrived: “Don’t touch the girl.”
But someone seemed to have a death wish. Defying my orders was enough reason for a swift sentence. But hurting the one thing I cared about in this godforsaken place was reason for a slow death.
I hadn’t slept since the incident, and I had only visited her once before tonight—the night after it happened. I had to see for myself that she was okay.
We had cameras all around the property, and I’d seen her walk through the house when she wasn’t supposed to. Santino was now sporting a black eye for leaving her by herself.
If he wasn’t already punishing himself enough about what happened, he’d have a lot more injuries to add. She’d done the impossible and gotten through to Santino who had been trained to be the perfect soldier since he was a little boy and didn’t know much else. But it was impossible not to like Everleigh. And while her spirit may have been slightly bent, it thankfully wasn’t yet broken.
But despite our relentless search for answers, we were missing something. The sunroom had a few cameras that picked up Everleigh walking inside before she disappeared under a blind spot.
She’d gone inside in one piece, only to stumble back out broken. And all we’d been able to get from the security footage was the top of someone’s head.
But the attack couldn’t have been planned since Everleigh wandered off at random. Nobody would know she’d be there.
I’d turned the area upside down, trying to find something that would lead me to her attacker, but came up empty.
“You need to sleep.”
Santino’s voice broke through my thoughts. I’d walked to the surveillance room to review the camera footage once more. But he was already there, studying every single tape of not only that day but the one before and after.
I stepped up next to him. “So do you.”
