She stops too and we stare at each other. Both shocked. Her by my reaction, me by her appearance. Minor bruises! Fucking hell. Her face is so swollen and blue-black I can hardly recognize her. Then I start advancing on her. My gait is that of an angry bear. I want to be normal but I can’t be. The raw fury simmering inside me is making me shake.
I reach her and she touches the blood splatters on my clothes. Then she looks up into my eyes—hers are huge pools of fear. I see her eyes change, widen. I am alien to her. In her nice candy-floss world what I did to her attacker is wrong. ‘What have you done?’
‘Gangster rules,’ I say harshly.
‘Is he dead?’
‘No, but he’s wishing he was.’ Tears are slipping down my face. I just can’t help it. My mate has been badly injured.
‘What is it?’ she whispers.
‘You need to go to a hospital.’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m fine. It looks worse than it is.’
I have never experienced this fierce need to protect before. Ever. The way I feel shocks me to the core. This is not me. I’m tough. I’m in and I’m out. I don’t trust anyone. In this business you can’t. A king is never killed by his enemy but by his courtiers. They are the only ones who can get close enough to poison the wine, stick the blade in. I’m not saying, ‘Et tu, Brutus,’ to anyone. The easy way—never let anyone get close.
Except her.
She opens her arms. Her lower face is too swollen for her to smile but I see it in her eyes, a smile of comfort as it is I who have been attacked and am in pain. The tears fall faster as I catch her to my body and hold her tight. She’s still here. She’s still mine. I squeeze my eyes shut. And then I lift her into my arms.
‘I can walk,’ she whispers.
But I don’t put her down. I turn around with her in my arms and Melanie wordlessly opens the front door. I walk out with my baby in my arms.
I could have lost her. But I didn’t. Never again will I be so careless with her.
I put her on my bed and she looks up at me drowsily. The stress has worn her out. She looks so small and defenseless in my bed. Her fingers are curled into a light fist. I circle the wrist, shocked at the fragility of the bones in her hand. Gently I rub my thumb along the pulse leaping on the pale underside of it. Her vulnerability terrifies me. Scares me. Makes me feel weak.
‘Sleepy?’
‘Hmmm…’ she hums.
I sense her slipping away, drifting into dreamscapes where I will not be. I pull her closer toward me. When she is awake there is always a part of her that remains aloof and watching. She is like a forest. Deep and dark. You can lie or howl in it. She murmurs something that I don’t catch, and snuggles in, accidentally scrapes her face against my forearm, and winces.
My breath catches. I can’t bear to watch her in pain.
She is wearing cotton pajamas. An erotic seduction it is not. It is so demure it makes her seem a child. I guess this must be what fathers feel when they watch their daughters sleep—absurdly protective. The collar of her top shifts and my heart fucking stops. I stare in horror at her neck.
Fucking bastard bit her.
Bit her so fucking hard he broke her skin. That piece of shit marked my woman! I ease myself out of the bed carefully and pad into the living room. The rage is nauseating and gut-churning. It is so all encompassing I can’t even think straight. I want to go back to his fucking poky little flat and finish the job, but he won’t be there. He’ll be behind glass in Intensive Care by now. I go to the bar and pour myself a large measure of Jack Daniel’s. I drain it in one swallow and slam the glass on the bar surface, so hard the noise reverberates like a gunshot. I press my palms to my temples.
‘Stop. Just stop,’ I tell myself.
But the desire to go out and bash his sick head in is so strong I have to physically fight myself. I stride out to the balcony. It could rain anytime. I throw my head back and take large gulps of air. I feel like a volcano about to erupt. I would have loved to go out running. A couple of miles and some of this pent-up energy would’ve been gone, but I can’t leave her alone.
‘He’s not worth going to prison for. I have already broken his legs and hands in at least a few places and smashed his kneecaps. Not to mention the shitbag’s ribs and jaw.’
I reach into my pocket and retrieve his mobile phone. Before I click into his photo file I take a deep breath. Then I press the button. The shock of seeing her pinned on the ground, her eyes full of fear and horror is harder to take than I had anticipated. I stare at it hard. And yet she didn’t want to call the police!
My fists clench hard as I force myself to calm down. ‘Let it be. Leave it be.’
Eventually my pulse returns to normal, the boiling rage goes. In its place comes guilt. I shouldn’t have left her alone and unprotected. I should have protected her better. That was my job.
I take the battery out of the phone and toss them both into my safe. I very much doubt it, he is a little coward, but I might still need it. Chance favors the prepared mind.
I go back to the bedroom and stand over her. Her hair is fanned out on the pillow, her lip is split, her face is swollen and bruised. How strange that the split, the swelling and the bruise have only made her more precious and intriguing. She moves, dislodging the sheet down to her waist and exposing a small strip of skin between her pajama top and bottom. It is milky white and flawless and it gives me great pleasure to claim ownership of it.