AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I followed the sound of her voice into the lounge. For a moment, I couldn’t see her, my attention focused on the smears of blood across the wooden floor, but then I spotted her curled up in the corner, covered in blood and half naked.
“Kaja?” I rushed up to her, scooping her up. She wound her arms around my neck, crying against my chest. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
“Rasmus,” she said. “It was my dad.”
The name stopped me cold.
“He did this to you? Where are you hurt? Where’s all the blood from?”
He threatened to—” she broke off.
“Threatened to what?
“Mutilate me. He was furious I’d had sex with you.”
For a second, I didn’t understand what she meant, and then it dawned on me. Genitally mutilate her? Was that what she meant? That fucking son of a bitch. How could he do that to his own daughter? But I realised it happened all the time in other parts of the world.
“Did he...?” I couldn’t even say it.
She shook her head against me. “He didn’t. He cut me but not there.”
“I’m so sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Kaja. I should never have got you involved in all this. I was wrong.”
“If you hadn’t taken me, I’d still be stuck with him.”
“But you wouldn’t be hurt.”
“But I wouldn’t have hope.”
Tam, Hallie, and Jayden appeared in the doorway, exclamations of shock coming from them.
Hallie clamped her hand to her mouth. “Jesus Christ.”
Tam took charge, instructing Jay. “We need to search the house and grounds, make sure no one’s still here.”
“They left,” Kaja said. “They’re not here.”
Even so, I knew Tam would want to check for himself.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Hallie asked.
“Can you find her some clean towels and something to wear?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
I carried Kaja into the bathroom to inspect her injuries. She didn’t look at me as I did so, ashamed of what her own father had done to her.
Rasmus had cut up the insides of her thighs and had most likely broken her nose, too. Her eyes were already swelling.
“I need to get you to the hospital,” I told her.
“No, please. They’ll know I’m not in the system. They’ll send me back home.”
“Okay. I’ll get someone else here. Someone on our books. They know to keep their mouth shut.”
I used cotton wool and a steriliser to clean her wounds, and quickly the sink filled with blood. The wounds were superficial, though. Rasmus was an evil fucker, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to seriously harm his only daughter.
One thing was playing on my mind. Rasmus had done this and then left, instead of waiting here for me to kill me. He had a motive behind that action. He’d done to me what I’d done to him with the videos I’d taken. He’d left Kaja here for me to find because he knew it would hurt me.
