Guard Me (Broken Heroes 4)

Fuck. It was her birthday… she was taken on her fucking birthday.

I inhale a deep breath but it doesn’t feel like I’m getting enough air. I don’t know why I do it but I force myself to finish reading her background check.

Parents deceased. Only living relative… a sister. Violet just got out of high school and she was enrolled in the local college, but the semester hadn’t started yet. She didn’t even have the chance to go to a single class… and now she never will. Now she’s on the road to being beaten, enslaved in a world full of hate, and sex. Instead of going to college she’ll be passed around, from man to man, being used, and abused, until they either kill her, or she kills herself.

“No.” I growl, wanting to scream. I shut the folder and toss it onto the table in front of me. I lean forward holding my hands in my head. I run my fingers through my longish hair. What the fuck am I supposed to do?

I can’t let myself feel anything more for her then I already have. I can’t let her in…and above all I cannot save her from the monsters hidden in plain sight, not when I’m part of the reason she is here. I’m weak…I can’t let her go,I can’t save her, and it’s killing me.

I scrub a hand down my face, and then shove from the couch, heading towards the kitchen. I open one of the cabinets that contain my favorite whiskeys. I grab the first one I see, and open it, bringing the bottle to my lips.

She’s nothing. Just another body, another pussy to be sold, another dollar bill. I tell myself this over and over again. I greedily drink from the bottle as if I’ll find the answer to all my problems at the bottom of it. The whiskey coats my insides with warmth.

Why do I want to save her?

Because you couldn’t save her.

I want to throw the bottle in my hands against the wall but instead I continue drinking. I drink for hours, or at least I think it’s hours. When I push up from the floor, my steps are unsteady, and I lean against the wall to stop myself from falling over.

Fuck. I squeeze my eyes shut to stop the world from spinning around me. I walk into my bedroom. I sound like a herd of elephants as I do, slamming into walls, and knocking over some shit on one of my tables, I don’t fucking know, and then I cross the threshold into my room and I see her.

Violet. My tiny kitten. So fucking perfect. So fucking beautiful. A temptress I’m willing to fucking risk everything for? I sag down onto the mattress beside her. The urge to hold her is so strong I grit my teeth and damn near sit on my hands to stop myself from doing so. Then as if the universe is testing my control Violet rolls over, snuggling into my side.

I press my nose into her hair. She smells like me, and roses, fucking roses. My mouth waters over roses and I don’t fucking understand this…her, me, what the plan is. I don’t fucking get it but while I have her in my arms I’m going to relish in her touch. I’m going to fucking hold her until I can’t anymore, until the morning light enters the windows.

“Fuck, Kitten what am I going to do with you?”

Chapter Six

Violet

I’m warm. Overly warm. So warm it feels like the sun is beating down on me. I want to lean into the warm, reach out in touch it. I groan into the soft sheets beneath my hands. Soft sheets? I don’t know what it is yet but something feels off…like I’m not waking up in the same place I went to sleep at.

“No. I’m sorry…I didn’t…” A voice shouts beside me. My eyes pop open, fear clinging to my insides like sticky honey. My gaze sweeps over the room, until they land on Ivan laying beside me, his face is scrunched up pain and sadness painted on his features.

“No. No. No. It can’t…she can’t be gone…” Ivan roars, and I push off the mattress, gripping onto his thick shoulders. Is he having a nightmare? What’s happening to him? I shake him, or try to at least. His arms flail back and forth, his fists are clenched and they land heavily against the mattress. He starts to toss and turn and I worry he may roll over me, and squish me.

“Ivan wake up. Wake up.” I shake his shoulders.

“I’m sorry Mira. I’m so sorry.” The anguish in his voice rips through me. Mira? Who could she be? I don’t know what he’s dreaming about but something is haunting him, chasing him even in his dreams and I can’t stand to hear him be so hurt.