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Chapter 4

four

Nevaeh

Big Guy is here in my hospital room. Big Guy from the other night at the club. Big Guy who I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I met him, felt his hands on my hips, heard the rough timbre of his smoke heavy voice drenched in that wicked accent, rumble against my ear.

My big protector—the very man who drove Antonio into a jealous rage that had him hiring a psychopath to deliver me a message that very well could have killed me—that Big Guy is here.

I feel like I’ve seen a ghost.

He looks like he’s seen one.

But it’s the devil I see raging behind those glacier eyes that has me crumbling. Because this rage I see—it’s for me. Because of me.

What I must look like to him.

I can’t help the tears that spring to my eyes. Haven’t they gotten the memo? I’m all out of tears—or I should be. I’ve cried and vomited so much that I have an IV drip for dehydration currently rehydrating me.

Maybe that’s where the tears come from. Damn drip.

I drop my face into my hands and whimper at the pain of contact. I know what I look like. Beaten and bruised. Damaged.

And that’s the reality. I am damaged. So painfully damaged.

Antonio has made sure I know it, too. Know that he’s the most powerful man in the room, capable of hiring monsters to do his dirty work so that he can keep the appearance of clean hands, the adoration of his political worshipers. He knows there’s no monster big enough to go up against him—not one I could find, anyway. And he’s made sure I know it, too.

The very harsh reality is that there is no man brave enough to go against someone like Antonio. At least not a man with his sanity intact. Because with the power he holds, and the reach his power has, he knows he has me. He’s made it clear that he has me, willing or not. He’s made it clear that any man unlucky enough to try his hand at saving me will be destroyed in the process.

I’m stuck. Well and truly helpless.

And Big Guy might look mean, but I wouldn’t even sic Antonio and his goons on Uncle Miguel, who I know can hold his own.

It’s checkmate.

That ring in the bottom of my purse—I’m going to have to put it on again. Like a prison shackle. I may as well have been tossed overboard with an anchor around my ankles. I feel like I’m drowning.

“What the hell, Kane, get out!” The pretty nurse they call Candy hisses. I know it’s her, even though I’m not looking at them.

Big Guy—Kane, apparently—makes a noise. It’s a sound between a growl of agony and something more dangerous. A warning. A threat.

“You’re scaring her, for fuck sakes. Get out.”

“Sunshine.” The word is as gentle as a feather’s touch, echoed by the sound of his footfalls coming closer. I’m so ashamed, I want to hide. “Did he do this to you? Your ex?”

More footsteps enter the room and I drop my hands in time to see the officers appearing, as well as the doctor. Dr. Palmer, I think. The beeping on my monitor is letting the entire ER department know I’m nearing a cardiac state.

“Sir, come with us,” the first officer says coolly, clipped.

Kane shrugs him off easily, but I can see he’s going to get into trouble if this continues, escalates. I don’t want the poor man getting a charge because of me.

“It’s okay,” I croak, even though my throat is killing me, and I haven’t spoken apart from the single sentence I used to tell them someone broke in and hurt me.

Really, it’s no wonder it’s raw after the violence of being choked so many times. I hadn’t known being choked—hands wrapped around the outside of my neck—could make me feel like I’ve burned the inside raw.

“Let him stay,” I choke out again when it seems like the officers are going to force him out. “He’s—my—friend.”

Hells bells, it hurts to talk.

Still, I don’t miss, can’t miss, the way pretty nurse Candy looks at Kane in confusion and a little bit of worry. Or is that fear?

Is he the boyfriend I heard her talking about to one of the other nurses? Oh no. What if I thrust myself into the arms of a taken man?

Please, no.

I’ve touched myself to thoughts of him. I’ve come undone over the image of this man in my mind. The memory of what it felt like to have his hands on my hips, the heat of his big body at my back.

Heat flushes my face, but no one seems to notice. It’s possible there’s too much bruising to see the blush. The quickening of the heart monitor is another matter entirely, but the only ones who look that way are Dr. Palmer and Nurse Candy.

Kane moves away from the officer to stand close at the side of my bed. His hands are fisting and un-fisting, as though he’s trying to release waves of violence through the motion alone. There’s also a dangerous light to his blue eyes. A promise of ruthless pain. Vengeance.

I shudder, knowing inherently somehow that he’ll never unleash that pain on me.

The pain in my body uncoils just a little as a feeling of complete safety—the first time I’ve felt even a semblance of it since the attack—moves through my body. It’s as though my bones whisper, ‘You’re safe with him, with Kane. He’s yours.’

I startle at the last bit of my thought, because—what?

My attacker must have hit me one too many times in the face. He knocked a screw loose and now the marbles have been spilled. They’re rolling amuck, causing all kinds of mayhem.

Kane is careful not to touch me or the bed as he inches closer, his voice impossibly low, “Did he do this to you?”

My eyes hold his for a solid three seconds, before I let them flit over the group that stands behind Kane. Still, I say nothing. Not even a whispered word.

He sucks in a sharp breath, and without even looking over his shoulder commands, “Out. Everyone out.”

No one moves.

His fists keep working. Open, close. Open, close. Open… “Now.”

At the brook-no-argument tone of his bark, Dr. Palmer and Nurse Candy shift. No one else moves.

It’s the officer that asks me, “Do you want to be alone with this man?”

Slowly, but firmly, I nod.

The occupants of the room slowly begin to exit until it’s just Nurse Candy left. She touches a cautious hand to Kane’s arm, and whispers softly, “I’ll call Tav and Cash.”

Kane says nothing. Nurse Candy’s confused eyes come to me, and there’s something there in the depths. Something unsettling. Like she’s asking me to be gentle with him.

This man doesn’t need gentle. He’s built like a tank. Impenetrable.

She doesn’t wait for a reply of any kind from me, not audible, a nod, or even a lip-twitch—nothing, before she walks from the room on squeaky white sneakers. My eyes linger on the curtain that has been left open so long that Kane shifts, mutters something darkly violent under his breath as he crosses the space to whip it closed. Then he’s on the prowl for me again.

Only, I don’t feel hunted as he and his dark energy come closer. I feel incredibly safe. Cocooned by darkness and frosted blue. Shielded by Siberian ice not even the devil and his hot poker could penetrate.

His low voice is rough, but it touches me everywhere gently as he demands, “What happened?”

I give him a shrug that hurts. “I woke,” I pause and swallow hard. “To a man in my room. On me.”

A terrifying danger bursts within his eyes, and I think for the first time this man might be capable of things. Bad things. Terrible, awful, bad things.

“Did he,” his eyes sweep my body, and he makes a noise. A sound of—is that distress? “Did he rape you?”

I shake my head. “He hurt me.”

He pulls his lips in, letting them loose on a hard roll. “Was it him? Your ex?”

I don’t know how to answer this question. So, I say, “No. And yes.”

He frowns. “There were two men?”

I shake my head. “One.”

“I’m confused, Sunshine.”

“I can’t—talk—about it.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

I look away. I’m suddenly so tired. And I’m so, so deeply afraid. The threat my attacker left me with rings in my mind. He told me not to go to the police, and I won’t. But he didn’t say anything about speaking to a friend—he just told me not to sleep with him, for lack of better words.

Still, I don’t know what to say. What I can say…

“Sunshine?” Kane calls, and I let my eyes fall closed, savouring the sound of that name on his lips.

Then I give him my real name on a broken whisper. My throat hurts so badly. “Nevaeh. My name is Nevaeh.”

This voice is thick. “Heaven.”

My eyes open to land directly onto his. “What?”

“Your name. It means Heaven.”

I nod, swallowing hard. “Yeah.”

“Fitting.” He almost smirks. “A devil would fall for a woman called Heaven.”

The words make no sense at all, but they flood me with an impossible warmth. “What?”

He doesn’t answer or explain. He just demands again, “Tell me what happened, Nevaeh.”

I blink, struck dumb by the whiplash of his words. “I told you.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You didn’t.”

Again, I look away from him. This time, my gaze pins to the hands that knot in my lap. “My ex—Antonio—is a dangerous man.” I shudder and add as tears sting my eyes. Every word stings as it claws its way from my throat, but I force them out. He needs to know. He needs to know so he can drop it. “He’s a monster. He can’t be—I can’t fight him. He wants me to put my ring back on, smile like nothing’s ever happened. And I—I have to.”

He plants a palm into the bed, forcing my eyes to connect with his without even touching me. Danger and threat and organized chaos whirl in his eyes, ribbon through the soft of his tone as he declares, “I’m the bigger monster, Sunshine.”

A tear slips free. The weakness of it brands a hot streak on my cheek I don’t bother wiping away or trying to hide. I’m already broken beyond repair.

“You can’t fight him.” I suck in air that trembles in my bruised lungs. “No one can.”

“Wrong.” The word curls around me like a blanket of hope. Hope, I’ve found in my twenty-five years, is a fickle thing. It likes to come around and stay just long enough to tear the fabric of comfort from under your feet, leaving you to free-fall.

I’d been hopeful for my relationship with Antonio. Hopeful for a future with a man who loved me. Who told me I was everything he wanted. Who let me talk about babies and the house I dreamed of—with all the rooms I wanted to fill with children. The walls I wanted to collect laughter within. I’d been hopeful until I wasn’t.

I pull in a breath that hurts deep inside my chest. “Antonio is the son of the California State Senator, Andre Diaz. He has his own political career that is quickly growing. He’s powerful and wealthy and the public loves him. He’s not only a monster, but he has monsters on call. You can’t fight him. No one can.”

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