She propped herself up on her elbow, her eyes on me. I gripped her shoulders to help her, and she groaned as if my touch branded her skin.
“What hurts, baby?”
“Everything.” She slumped against the couch, then shoved the blanket from her thighs.
My mouth fell open at the sight of her skin. It looked much worse than what I saw in the video from Cal. She had deep cuts starting at her inner thighs, the gashes long and bloody, spanning down to the ankles. She had black and blue marks around her wrists from the restraints. I lifted her shirt to appraise the bruises covering her ribs and stomach.
“Jesus,” Marcello said from behind us. “That fucking bastard.”
“You’re seeing a doctor,” I told her. “Your ribs are so bruised you might have broken them. At the very least, you need x-rays and bloodwork.” She frowned as our eyes met. “It’s non-negotiable. I can’t have you dying on me in your sleep from internal bleeding.”
She laid her head on the couch. “I’ll survive, Luca.”
“For now, maybe. It’s not up for debate. You’re seeing a doctor when we get home.”
“You’ll get your revenge, Alex,” Marcello said in a calm tone. “We tracked down Cal’s men. It won’t be long before we have Cal, too.”
She looked up at him. “Is Cal the one with the skull tattoo?”
He nodded.
“He’s mine,” she said in a murderous tone that thrilled me.
Marcello dropped to his knees beside the couch. “Whatever you want, princess.”
She leaned forward and threw her arms around his neck, smacking a kiss on his cheek. “You saved me again.”
“It was a team effort,” Marcello said as he released his grip on her. “Luca, the Knights, Alpha Command, my cousins, the Irish… Everyone helped get you off that island.”
She kissed his cheek again. “Thank you.” Then she turned to me and kissed my lips. “Thank you for saving me, Luca.”
“Any time.”
“There better not be another time,” she groaned.
“Never,” I promised. “Just promise not to run again.”
“I won’t.” Alex glanced around the room. “Where is Rhiannon? She came here with me.”
“Down the hall,” Damon interjected. “Those assholes pumped her full of drugs.”
Alex turned to look at Marcello and whispered, “You killed someone for her?”
He sighed. “What did she tell you?”
“You have a history with her. And that I know a different version of you than she does.”
“You do,” he said without hesitation because it was the truth.
“Who did you kill?”
“Not now,” Marcello grunted.
She nodded. “She said you ditched her for me.”
Marcello bit his cheek and looked away from Alex.
“It’s true. Isn’t it?”
He sighed. “Yeah. But it’s not what you think.”
“You like Rhiannon, don’t you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Are you in pain?” I asked Alex to distract her from Marcello’s drama with Rhiannon.
No one knew about their past. We didn’t need to spill our darkest secrets in front of my cousins. Sure, they were family, but we couldn’t trust anyone with Marcello’s secret. The man he killed to protect Rhiannon was too important to overlook.
Alex glanced at her cuts and bruises and nodded. “I think what hurts me most is knowing I did this to myself. That I could have prevented this from happening.”
“This isn’t your fault, baby. It’s mine.” I cupped her cheek with my hand. “You never should have been in this position. I fucked up.”
Marcello pushed himself up from the floor. “I’m going to check on Rhi.”
I nodded.
Alex held my gaze, looking as if she were seconds from passing out again. “I’m mad at you and Aiden for keeping secrets from me. I wouldn’t have left the house if you two hadn’t conspired against me.”
“We didn’t conspire,” I promised. “Just let me explain everything after you’ve had some time to decompress.”
“Do you have any idea what it was like for me? That asshole held me down, slapped me around, and cut me until I passed out. And when he wasn’t doing that, his goons drugged me. They left me chained to the floor in some nasty room on a dirty mattress with nothing to eat.”
“Food and water are coming.” I took her hands between mine and kissed her skin. “I’m sorry, Drea. I fucked up. I shouldn’t have pushed you away last year. If I could go back and change everything, I would. So would Aiden. We thought keeping you out of the loop was best for all of us.”
“Best for who? It wasn’t the best decision for me. I spent close to a year mourning my twin brother, wondering if he was dead. And all this time, he was living in our old house in Devil’s Creek as if nothing had ever happened.”
“That’s not true. A lot has happened.”
A tear fell from her eye, and I wiped it away with my finger. “Why did you hide my brother from me?”
A few topless strippers appeared with plates of food for Alex. They set them on the table beside us and walked out of the room. Damon had a thing for strippers, creating his own harem with the girls who worked for him.