AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“They catch the guy at least?” Hawk questioned, interrupting our tense standoff.
“Yeah,” the doc confirmed, eyeing the destruction still being attended to—crimson-colored smears of blood looking like some kid had fingerpainted across the crisp white walls and floors. “The cops were here pretty quick. Hauled him away in a cruiser about fifteen minutes ago, and he did not go quietly.”
Not surprising.
I’d seen the lengths some of these bastards would go to keep their girls, and this asshole had already lost her once, then managed to get his hands on her again.
She was important to him. More than just another bitch to earn him money on a street corner.
“She’d taken a whole lot of pills. Any guesses as to the result she was trying to achieve?” Shay asked dryly as she pointed across the room to one of the cubicles, its curtain pulled open.
Alice.
I’d been carrying her photo in my pocket for nearly two weeks.
There was no mistaking her thick dark hair, though it was messy and matted. The thin hospital blanket covering her did not hide that she was clearly undernourished as her bony limbs protruded unnaturally.
“I just don’t understand. Why would that guy even bother to bring her in? He had to know someone would take one look at her and know something wasn’t right.” Shay exhaled slowly, shaking her head as she stared across the room at Alice. There was sadness in her eyes that piqued my curiosity. It was something more than just sympathy for a young girl who lost her way.
It was stronger. More intense. Less like an acknowledgment of how Alice must feel and more of an understanding.
Another puzzle piece.
“There are many reasons why he might have brought her in,” Hawk answered when I remained silent, my nephew watching me curiously out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe because she makes him money, and he doesn’t want to lose that income. Or maybe because of what she did. Taking the pills. If he had other girls, and they knew doing that had gotten her free from him, they’d probably all start trying it too.”
“Or because she’s his favorite toy,” I added, clenching my fists at my sides. “And he wasn’t done playing yet.”
A shudder rippled up Shay’s spine. “He kept calling her his girlfriend.”
“That’s how it starts.” I’d seen it so many fucking times and once, even within my own fucking club. “They date for a while, and everything is good. Then he starts asking her to do things with other guys. Tells her he’ll use the money to buy her nice things or maybe drugs. Saying shit like, ‘if you loved me.’”
The look on Shay’s face was pure hatred and disgust, her nose scrunched and head shaking as she removed the ice pack from her ribs. “Wish I’d cut his dick off while I had the chance,” she muttered under her breath, tossing the ice pack onto the desk with a hard thump before lifting her baby blue scrubs to show her stomach. The area was red—maybe just from the cold—but a hint of light purple began to show through.
She was lucky that was it.
Thankfully, she looked okay.
But despite repeating that mantra in my head a couple of times, I still clenched my jaw and barely resisted the urge to leap across the desk to help her as she took a little longer to get up from her chair, moving cautiously so as not to irritate her injury.
When she finally stood steadily, I released the breath I’d been holding in a hard huff, and she rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing, I’m fine.”
“Is that your opinion or a doctor’s opinion?” I countered, and the doc standing awkwardly at her side quickly cleared his throat.
“Our definitions of fine may vary just a little. There’s very minor bruising, she’s breathing okay, and there’s no signs of internal damage or bleeding.” Jesus Christ. Internal bleeding? “I’ll probably get her to come back in tomorrow and get X-rays and things, but I think she’ll recover pretty qui—”
“Why not do those things now?”
“Because I want to go home,” Shay cut in, an almost manic laugh falling from her mouth. “I’ve just finished a twelve-hour shift and had my ass beat. I think I deserve a sleep now.”
The doc scoffed loudly. “Given you managed to get him on the floor by yourself and pin him there by threatening to inject shit into his spine… I’d say that fight was more like a tie.”
Her face morphed into this beautiful fucking smile. For the first time since I’d stormed in there, I witnessed her realize the kind of power and courage she’d displayed.
How she’d saved a life.
And while I wanted to continue to remind her that she’d risked her own in the process, there was no fucking way I was about to dampen that light in her eyes. It was so mesmerizing that I couldn’t look away.
Fuck. I didn’t know how to deal with this shit. I didn’t take orders. I did whatever the hell I wanted.
