Desolation Road (Torpedo Ink 4)

“I shouldn’t have fought them. I shouldn’t have. It was wrong of me. I never should have done it.”

Unexpectedly she pulled her wrist away from him and began rubbing her hands up and down over the faint white scars where the defensive wounds were.

“Scarlet, their intention was to rape you.”

“I should have just let them. If I let them, my sister would still be alive. So would my parents. They all blamed me for what happened. I blame me. I just should have let them do it. If I hadn’t told Robert what I was like in the first place …” There was loathing in her voice, as if she thought her need to have a man lead her in the bedroom was to blame for Robert Jr. bringing in his friends. “He wouldn’t have thought he could get away with it.”

“Scarlet.” Absinthe kept his voice gentle. She was slipping away from him, moving back in time, flashing back to that moment when someone had told her about her family. The emotions pouring off her were all too raw and real. “People aren’t thinking clearly those first few terrible moments of grief. Your parents just saw their daughter, that was all they could see, nothing else could come into their minds. Sorrow has a way of narrowing vision. You know that. You’re allowing that child, that seventeen-year-old devastated girl, to think for you with those same intense grieving emotions. I can hear the sorrow in your voice. That grief isn’t ten years old. It’s today. This moment.”

He took her wrists and she resisted him, pulling back. He released her instantly.

“Scarlet. Look at me.” He used his voice again, but only a whisper of command, threading it through the natural velvet brush of his tone she was already susceptible to. He waited, knowing the order would push and push until she couldn’t stop herself from obeying him.

She raised her eyes to his and blinked several times, clearing her vision. He reached for her arms again, taking his time, letting her see he was going to take both wrists. He did so, turning her arms over to inspect the damage the knife had done when she defended herself. Any doctor, any law enforcement officer would have been able to see that she had been attacked. The scars were from classic defense wounds and some of them had been deep. She’d needed stitches.

“Scarlet, every person has the right to defend themselves.”

“I’m strong. Priscilla wasn’t. She was always so gentle and kind. She didn’t understand meanness or why or how people could be ugly. She wouldn’t have known what someone like Robert and his friends wanted from her. They were getting back at me. Robert would never have considered going after her if I had just cooperated with him. But I took the knife away and that humiliated him. Then I wouldn’t be afraid when his father wanted me to. The moment I saw Robert’s smirk in court, I knew it wasn’t over, but I never thought, for one moment, that he would go after Priscilla.”

Her gaze started to shift from his. Absinthe shook his head. “Baby, keep looking at me. You were seventeen years old. You had no way of knowing those little fuckers were going to go after your sister. They didn’t even know about her. At that time, there was only you and them and he was threatening you with a knife, he’d drugged you and you’d made it clear you didn’t want any part of any of them at that point. Believe me, every member in this club understands what it is like to say no and say it clearly. To fight back and mean it.”

He brushed at the hair sliding over her face with gentle fingers. “You aren’t alone in fighting this battle anymore.”

“You don’t understand how powerful Holden Sr. is, Absinthe. He’ll kill you. He’ll put out a contract on you and every single person you love. Your brothers and sisters. Your club. He’ll do it. He’ll do it because he hates me that much.” She lowered her voice to a thread of sound and leaned into him. “I killed them. He knows I did. He can’t prove it, but he knows I did. I’m not going to let him kill you or people you love to get to me. I can disappear. I know how. I’ve got people I can go to.”

A hot flame licked at his gut. “Like Adrik Orlov? Because you’re not going to him. You’re staying with me.”

She went very still, and he didn’t care that the anger and suspicion began to build in her eyes.

“That’s right, now we’re at the you’re-going-to-be-pissed part. I told you that you would be. You were scared. In the library, you were always careful to check the exits and the windows all the time. I watched you, the same way you watched me. You were afraid someone was looking for you. I thought maybe an ex-husband or ex-boyfriend was hunting you. A stalker. That would fit. I kept thinking you’d tell me yourself, but you didn’t. You carried weapons, you were trained in self-defense and I could see you knew what you were doing. Things didn’t add up.”