“Where is she? Is she okay? What happened?” I blurted the second I got to him.
He glowered with the force of a nuclear power plant. “How dare you show your face in this place.”
The outrage of it should have blown me back, but I stood ground.
“She’s my wife.”
“You no longer get to claim that.”
I angled toward him. No matter how much I respected him, I wasn’t about to stand down. “You have every right to hate me, Mr. Marin. I get it. Accept it. But she is my wife, and I’m not going anywhere.”
His protective demeanor shifted, his shoulders sagging to the floor, horror in his expression.
“She was beaten.” The words fumbled from his mouth in a roll of confusion. “I…I called the ambulance when I found her. Who would do this?”
Rage singed through my body. A flashfire. Nothing left but the need to hunt down whoever had done this.
Had promised her that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
And this?
Guilt clutched me by the aching throat, and I swallowed it down, focused on the only thing I could change.
The one thing I could do.
Protect her.
“Where is she? Is she okay?”
When Emily had woken me, she didn’t have any information other than Violet’s father had called her from his car in hysterics, asking her if she could come pick up Daisy at the hospital since he couldn’t leave her with Mrs. Marin.
They didn’t have anyone else they could trust.
I was flying out the door ahead of Emily before she could stop me.
Wasn’t like my sister didn’t know what reaction she was going to get out of me, anyway.
His head shook.
“I do not know. I cannot bear to take Daisy back there.”
Helplessly, he gestured to the little girl who was curled up on two plastic chairs, her head propped on a rolled-up blanket that had been ripped off her bed, child fast asleep.
My spirit throbbed.
Affection rushed to occupy my chest.
A straight-up invasion.
It got whipped up with the intense need to decimate.
To destroy.
“Give me one second.”
Panic seizing my breaths, I moved to the reception desk, voice a desperate growl, “You have a patient…my wife…Violet Ramsey. Need to know where she is.”
Knew she went by Marin. But legally? She was mine.
Mine.
My wife.
My reason.
My life.
My light.
The woman clicked into her computer before she looked up at me. “She’s in room 3B. You can go back.”
That was right when Emily and Royce came rushing in. Worry was written all over my sister’s face, her attention darting everywhere, looking for an answer. “Oh god…Rich…what’s goin’ on? Have you heard anything? Is Violet okay?”
“We don’t know yet. We need to get back there. Watch Daisy so I can take her father back, yeah?”
Her brow pinched. “Of course.”
We moved back to Mr. Marin who had sunk down onto the chair next to Daisy.
Helplessness slumped his shoulders. The man weary and worn. Weathered and worn to the brittle bone.
I curled my hand around his shoulder. “Come with me. Emily and Royce will see to it that Daisy is safe.”
I sent Royce a look at that. My eyes cutting with the message.
Guard that little girl with your life.
Evil’s afoot.
He gave me a clipped nod, tat on his throat bobbing with aggression, hands already in fists.
Mr. Marin pushed to his feet, and I kept a hand on his upper arm to guide him toward the double doors. The receptionist buzzed us through.
Anxiety battered me with each step.
Heart on the thrashing floor.
Because I would never fuckin’ forgive myself if something happened to this girl.
If I failed again.
My eyes jumped over the numbers outside the draped-off enclosures.
Second I saw hers, we moved that way, my heart beating a storm of chaos.
I pushed the drape aside, holding my breath, and I peered in to find Violet propped up on the bed.
Eyes open.
Heart beating.
Brutalized but whole.
Relief rocked me. Body and soul and mind. It butted with the rage that curled and twisted and glowed like a hot iron searing a brand on my spirit.
A crush of protectiveness rose so fast that I couldn’t see.
Couldn’t feel anything but the need to hold this girl.
Care for her.
Love her the way she’d always deserved to be.
My eyes swept her. From her head to her feet and back to that gorgeous face again.
That fury flashed. Hatred boiling my blood when I saw the way her jaw was swollen, clearly taking the brunt impact of a fist.
But it was the fear and shock in those violet eyes that was going to destroy me.
“Oh, mi amor,” her father wheezed in pain from my side when he caught sight of his daughter.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
He rushed to her side while I hung back at the far side of the enclosure.
He flitted around her, uncertain, desperate to make it better but having no idea how to make it right.
I did.
Hunting the fucker down and ending him sounded about right.
Thunderbolt eyes found mine from across the space.
Energy lashed. Surges of intensity. Of possession. Of greed.
I eased that way, going around to the opposite side of the bed from where her father was.
I was struck with her aura.
Violets and dreams and the girl.
The one real thing in my life.
Light. Light. Light.
Compelled, I leaned in, unable to stop myself. I brushed back the hair matted to her cheek, my gaze adoring as I stared down at this girl who’d been battered. And for the sake of what?
“Are you okay?” It raked from my throat. Barbs and thorns. “Tell me who did this to you.”
“Why are you here?” she asked instead of answering.
I kept brushing my fingers tenderly through her hair. “Because I don’t know how to be where you are not.”
“Richard—”
My head shook to cut off the defense I knew she was going to give. “Not going anywhere, Violet. This? This just fortifies that. I never should have left you. Never.”
Those eyes softened, but in them swam the turmoil. Confusion and pain and fear.
“Tell me you’re okay.” Didn’t mean for it to come out a demand, but that was honestly the only answer I could handle.
She heaved out a mirthless laugh. “Physically? Yes. Or at least I’m gonna be. The rest of me, I’m not so sure.”
I attempted to rein in the fury, but it was getting loose. Seeping from its confines and igniting in my bloodstream. “Did you see the attacker?”
Violet winced when she barely moved. That made me want to end someone, too. “No. I didn’t see anyone. Didn’t get a chance to before a bag was pulled over my head to keep me from seeing.” She blinked rapidly. “I don’t understand…why would anyone attack me that way?”
Anger grabbed me, claws sinking into my flesh.
Terrified that I’d brought this to her doorstep.
My mind immediately moved to that prick who’d shown on our property, prying for something.
I forced the words around the tight clamp in my throat, “Did he say anything? Say what he wanted?”
Fear blanched her face, and Violet’s throat trembled when she swallowed. “Can we talk about this later? I’m tired.”
Her eyes told me there was more. That she couldn’t burden her father with more than he was already shouldering.
She turned to him, trying to force a smile, but there was no hiding her worry. “Where’s Daisy?”
“Emily came,” he assured her. “She is going to watch over her so I can be with you.”
Relief flashed across her face before she flinched. “Did she witness anything? Did she see me like this?”
“No,” he said. “She was in the house when I went down to check on you when you didn’t answer my texts or calls. I made sure she stayed inside while the paramedics attended to you.”
His words were a balm, the girl slumping down lower, her shoulders sinking into the bed. “Thank God. I can’t…if something would have happened to her—”
I was back to holding her face.
Not with force.
With care.
With the love that was never going to stop. “It won’t. Won’t let anyone get near her. Just like I won’t let anyone get near you again.”
The promise echoed through the tiny space, and her dried lips parted, those eyes watching me like they were desperate for a way to believe.
Mr. Marin edged forward and captured her attention. “I’m so sorry, mija. I am so sorry.”
A frown dented between her eyes. “It’s not your fault.”
“How could I not have known someone was on my land? How was I not there to protect you?”
Grief churned through his eyes.
I touched his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known. I won’t let anything happen to her again.”
I was going to end this.
Ensure she was safe.
My attention drifted back to her. She was fighting tears. Wisps of that black hair was spread out on the pillow, girl so pretty it hurt.
My dream.
My fantasy.
Battered and bruised.
“You need to rest,” I murmured, “I’m sure the doctor will be in soon enough to poke and prod you.”
She almost smiled at that, and I wound her hand in mine, brought her knuckles to my lips, whispered, “Why don’t you sleep a bit until then? We’ll be right here. Watching over you. You don’t have to be afraid.”
She nodded again, and her eyes dropped closed.
I sat down on the hard-plastic chair next to her while she slept. Her father was on the other side. Both of us refusing to budge.
Two of us just…watching over her.
An hour must have passed before he spoke. “Please, don’t hurt her again. You already wrecked her spirit. I can’t stand to watch you return to ruin her life again.”
A knife of shame sliced through me.
“Ruining her is the last thing I want to do,” I told him, voice barely loud enough for him to hear.
He looked up at me in a challenge. “Do you know anything else?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. How to be everything she needs me to be.”
His gaze drifted back to her sleeping form. “This beautiful girl should never be a test.”
Guilt constricted my chest. When he found out what I had done, what would he think? How far would the hatred go? Could there ever be forgiveness?
Didn’t expect forgiveness.
Didn’t deserve it.
But I’d fight for it anyway.
Give this man back a little of what I’d taken.
The confession left me. No reservations. “I love her. I always have, and I’m not ever going to stop.”
He blanched when I claimed it, and his lips pursed in confusion. “Then why would you leave?”
“Need you to know, I never wanted to. I wasn’t left with another choice. That choice was taken from me the day I was forced into a battle I’d never signed up to fight. I left because it was the only way to keep her out of it. The last thing I wanted was for her to be a casualty.”
His chin lifted, his mouth warbling at the side. “I see secrets in your eyes.”
I gave him a tight nod of affirmation.
No sense in denying it. It would only make it worse in the end.
He looked at his daughter before he looked back at me. “Are you responsible for this?”
Knew he wasn’t asking if I’d physically hurt her.
Think he already knew the answer to that.
Never.
I gulped down the agony, the fire that burned my throat and blazed through every cell in my body. “Not gonna lie. I’ve got enemies. And if one of them came to her through me? They will wish they never knew my name.”
His throat bobbed. Got the sense he felt the ferocity of what I was saying.
He’d have every right to kick me to the curb.
That’s where I belonged.
“There is so much pain in our lives right now. We cannot shoulder another burden. Please…take care of her. Protect her. Protect them.”
“I will. I promise you that.”
Violet and that little girl? They were mine.
My duty.
I slumped down farther in the chair, watching her sleep. Could do it forever.
Didn’t know if I’d started to drift, but I jumped when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I dug it out and swiped into the screen.
Royce: What the fuck, man?
I glanced over at Mr. Marin who had nodded off, his head rocked back against the wall, the rage I’d felt earlier still right there. Bated. Waiting on direction.
Me: Know, man. I know. No chance this isn’t related.
Royce: She get a look?
Me: Don’t think so. But she got something. Could tell from her expression. I will find out.
I sent another text right behind it.
Me: Daisy?
Royce and Emily had taken Daisy back to our parents’ house to sleep. Where we knew she would be safe.
Royce: Currently snuggled up next to Emily in her bed, asleep. Fucking cute.
I almost smiled. Could feel Royce’s affection through the miles. Guy wearing this shield of menace that hid the biggest, bleeding heart.
Me: And you got relegated to the chair. Poor bastard.
Royce: Not like I’m sleeping anyway.
I blew out a sigh of relief. Knowing Royce had this. That he would have our backs just as much as I’d always have his.
Me: Thanks, man. I owe you.
Royce: Nah. Family. It’s what we do. But you know this is messy? Don’t pretend like this complication isn’t going to come back to bite you in the ass.
I looked at Violet’s sleeping form.
My chest tightened.
Need.
Hope.
Desperation.
Light.
She was no complication. She was the incentive. The purpose. My heart’s single goal.
* * *
It was close to morning by the time they discharged Violet after she’d given her statement to the police.
My tongue burned with the urge to give mine. To lay it out. But it wasn’t time. Couldn’t do it until I saw this through to its completion.
With my arm curled around Violet’s waist to support her, the three of us stepped out of the sliding doors and into the witching hour. Night so still and deep you could imagine you were slipping into another realm. A time and a place where ghosts and spirits roamed.
Violet didn’t even fight me on it. She just leaned into my hold, limping out into the parking lot, making my heart roll and boom and thunder.
Emily had driven Mr. Marin’s car home since he had a car seat, so I clicked the locks to my truck, and I helped Violet climb into the front passenger seat.
Her spirit was all around.
Subdued.
Dampened in its uncertainty.
Wary and waiting for what was to come.
We both knew it.
Felt it.
The storm that gathered on the horizon like the sun gathering for the day. Building in energy. In intensity.
Eyes on the girl, hers on me, I reclined her seat a bit and leaned over her so I could buckle her in.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured as I adjusted the belt and then clicked it into the lock, my face an inch from hers when I angled back, voice gruff, “I’ve got you.”
&nbs
p; “Richard,” she whispered. Needy and low.
I cupped one side of her precious face, my thumb tracing the angle, my soul shouting for its reclaim. “Rest.”
Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip, and she gave a tiny nod. I stepped back and shut the door.
Mr. Marin got into the back seat.
Almost immediately, Violet fell back asleep as I headed in the direction of their house.
Her sweet spirit filled the cab.
Intoxicating.
Fascinating.
Entrancing me in a dream that this girl could be mine.
Really mine.
That I wouldn’t have to let her go.
That there was a chance she might not hate me when it was revealed.
Stupid, blind hope.
But that’s what it was.
This blinding, obliterating hope burning in me that one day—one day she would look at me and actually see the man I’d wanted to be for her. The husband I’d wanted to be. This girl the treasure.
The goddess.
And I’d be the one worshipping at her feet.
I kept glancing over at her, making sure she was fine, and I kept catching her father staring at me through the rearview mirror. The man unsure. As confused as me. Horrified by what had happened and willing to do anything to keep her safe. Not sure if that was with me or without me.
By the time we were making the final curve along the two-lane road approaching their house, a tinge of gray was striking at the edge of the sky.
It felt like wishing on a new day.
Like maybe there could be a chance that something better could come this way.
My truck bounced as I took the dirt lane and came to a stop in front of their house. I turned off the ignition, looked at the girl, my whole being overtaken.
Every cell compressed.
Filled with this devotion that made it impossible to breathe.
I climbed out and moved around to the passenger door. Mr. Marin warred, torn between stepping in to shield her from me and fully giving me that trust.
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