Chapter 15

Q

~You crawled into the darkness, set my monster free, so scream, bleed, call out to me, but never say stop, never flee…~

Suzette wrung her hands as the doctor administered the anesthetic.

Franco waited in the doorway, watching me come apart. I couldn’t see straight, my heart was a fucking rabbit in my chest, and my body felt like it would never calm down.

I held Tess’s hand as she slipped away into sleep, and I wanted to throw the heart I’d cut from the ringleader into the fire and watch it fucking burn.

“Move away from my patient. I want this room to myself while I work,” the doctor said, pushing me aside.

“No fucking chance. I’m staying right here.” I crossed my arms, daring him to argue. The rage inside was ready to smash him if he tried to separate me from Tess again.

We scowled at each other before his eyes dropped to my bloody clothes.

“It’s not sanitary for you to be near while I operate. Go have a shower and come back. Your maid can keep watch.”

Suzette blinked, coming out of her shock at the state of Tess. I didn’t blame her for looking like a ghost—Tess was no longer recognizable. Her golden hair lay dank against the pillow in clumps.

Her collarbone pierced her skin with hunger, and her beautiful bruised cheekbones looked too stark for her beauty.

The sheet wrapped around her broken finger was crusted dry with blood, and that was without seeing all the contusions.

I stumbled away from the bed, holding my head in my hands. “Fix her, goddammit. Just fix her.”

I couldn’t be there while the doctor stripped Tess and inspected her injuries. Just the thought of another man touching her set my blood to boil. I did the sensible thing. The only thing I could do.

Pointing a finger at Franco, I ordered, “Watch him.”

Franco nodded, stepping further into my room. Without a backward glance, I stalked to the bathroom and slammed the door. The second I couldn’t see Tess, anxiety twisted my spine.

I itched to go back out there and make sure she was exactly where I left her—laid out like a fucking corpse on my bed.

My tower room, where Tess and I had indulged in blood play and whips, seemed like a joke now.

It no longer gave me pleasure or satisfaction; all I saw was Tess so tiny and exhausted, bleeding and drugged.

I may never have my strong ~esclave~ again. I may never string her up and hit her because we both got off on belonging to each other.

I may have found her, but that didn’t mean a damn thing.

“Fuck!” I roared, punching the tiled wall. Instantly, my knuckles screamed and I shook my hand to release the pain. The doctor was right.

I shouldn’t be around Tess when I was covered head to toe in another man’s blood. Her immune system already fought so much.

Shedding my clothes to burn later, I stepped into the shower and proceeded to scrub every inch as if I could erase the last seventeen days from existence.

Make it all disappear and pretend that Tess had been beside me all along, always safe, never hurt by anyone but me.

Once I was clean, I repeated the process until my skin burned from scrubbing and the bathroom wept with steam. The stitches in my arm from the gunshot irritated, but surprisingly didn’t hurt.

The scar would be a constant reminder of what I did to get Tess back. I would wear it with pride.

By the time I entered the bedroom again, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, the doctor had cleaned Tess with the help of Suzette and wrapped her chest with bandages.

He saw me looking. “She has two cracked ribs from coughing. She’s severely dehydrated and needs to be put on antibiotics to stop the pneumonia.”

Pneumonia.

~Those raping fucking bastards.~

I couldn’t stand still. I gritted my teeth, dragging hands through my hair as I paced.

“She should be in a hospital, but because you won’t allow that, I’ll have a few nurses stay here and administer around-the-clock care.”

Damn right I wouldn’t allow her to go to the hospital. She needed to heal here. Where I had a top-of-the-line security system and a crew of men ready to kill and then ask questions.

She would never be out of my sight again.

“How long before she’ll be well again?”

The doctor eyed me with annoyance as if I was a rabies-infected dog sniffing around his dinner. “Time heals everything. You need to be patient.”

I stopped, glaring. “Don’t give me bullshit answers. How long?”

He looked back to Tess, applying antiseptic balms to the shallow cuts and bruises all over her body. “It will take however long it needs to take. You’re to be gentle with her until then.

“No rushing her. She’ll be fragile as the drugs leave her system. She needs someone strong and collected, not—” He stopped and looked up, waving at me with the tube of antiseptic.

“—not a feral animal who looks like he wants to rip her throat out.”

Suzette shifted, anger radiating off her tiny frame. “My master found her and brought her back. Don’t say he’s—”

I held up my hand. Suzette was sweet but I didn’t need her interference. “I’d never fucking hurt her, doctor. Just do what you have to do.”

Suzette looked at me with tears shimmering in her eyes and I glanced away. I couldn’t look at her right now. Not while I hung on to my sanity so delicately.

If anyone showed me any pity or compassion, I would most likely do one of two things: beat them stupid or burst into fucking tears.

And I didn’t do tears.

Ever.

No one spoke a word while the doctor set up an IV and started Tess on the course of antibiotics.

“Without having the results of the blood work for a few days, I won’t know what drugs they made her take, but I’ve added a few things to counteract the effects of withdrawal.

“She’ll still feel pretty low, but it should be bearable.”

Bearable? I didn’t want Tess to bear through it. I wanted her to be repaired and given her wholesomeness back. I wanted her to rest in peace, not bear through agony.

“Give her something stronger.”

The doctor shook his head. “I’ll assess once she comes around again.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job and I won’t ask how you came to paint yourself in someone else’s blood.” His eyes hardened; we had a pissing contest of wills.

Suzette cleared her throat, breaking the silence.

I moved toward the window, glaring outside. I needed to do something—~anything~ to stop myself going crazy.

The doctor took his time with the full exam, then turned his attention to repairing Tess’s finger. He cringed once he unwrapped it.

“Who the hell were these people?” he whispered.

My chest swelled with pride. He used ~were~. Past tense. Even the shiny doctor and his morals knew the bastards weren’t alive.

~That’s right. I struck the match. I doused them in gasoline. I stole their lives and made them fucking burn in an old fish factory in Rio.~

The memory of the blazing fire helped purge my mind a little of what I’d done. Almost as if it put a giant full stop at the end of a dark and disturbing sentence.

What happened in there would live with me forever, but the fire made it all disappear.

The doctor sluiced Tess’s hand in orange sterilizing liquid and Suzette held a handkerchief to her mouth, gagging at the horrible sight. She bolted upright. “I, eh… I’ll come back.”

Franco sidestepped from the doorway, letting Suzette leave. I motioned for him to go, too. He nodded and disappeared.

I stayed right where I was as the doctor realigned the bone and added a few stitches where her skin had been pierced.

Once completed, he smeared more orange stuff all over and wrapped it up with a splint and gauze.

“Will she be able to use it?” My voice was calm but I wanted to slam my fist into the wall.

The crushing weight of blame stole oxygen from my lungs. I did this to Tess. I let her be taken. I let her prance around with a fucking tracking beacon in her neck.

How was I going to live with this overwhelming guilt?

Tess fell for the wrong man—a useless man who would never~ ever ~forgive himself.

The doctor nodded. “In time, yes. Don’t expect a miracle overnight, but the human body has an amazing ability to knit together and overcome injuries that look unfixable.”

I exploded. “In time. In ~time~! That’s all you can say.” I threw up my hands, glaring at the curtain that hid the St. Andrew’s cross where I’d whipped Tess.

Normally my cock would harden. It would twitch and swell at the memory of hurting her, but nothing. Nothing because the strong woman who made me so fucking hot for her just by answering back was gone.

She’d been replaced with someone incapable of receiving any more violence.

I lost the fighter and been given a broken fucking bird and I honestly didn’t know what that meant for me.

The beast inside mourned heavily—dug a pit to curl up in because he would never be free again.

Yes, I’d rehabilitated hundreds of women, paid for their healing, coaxed them back to life—but I never stood by their bedside and nursed. It wasn’t in me to tend to something so weak.

Sickness and frailty were things I couldn’t be around, and yet, I couldn’t leave Tess to heal on her own. I would be with her every step of the way.

But by seeing her so weak, my lust would die, my need to hurt her would shrivel. I would distance myself to protect her all because she could no longer handle what I needed.

~I have Tess back, but it’s not enough.~

The doctor stood, snapping his bloody gloves off, giving me a sad smile. “She’ll survive. Now that she’s warm and in a healthy environment, her body will heal.”

He gathered his things and headed for the door. “I’ll come back and check on her in a few hours.”

I never took my eyes off Tess. “You forgot one thing.”

He raised an eyebrow, looking at his unconscious patient. “What?”

I pointed at her neck. “Cut it out.”

His wide eyes met mine. “Excuse me?”

He probably thought I’d gone mad. I sure sounded like it.

“She has a tracker in her neck. That’s how they found her. I want it out. This fucking instant.”

“In order to do that, I’ll have to make an incision. I’m not sure we should, given the state of her body.”

I shook my head. “You’re not listening to me. Now, doctor. I won’t ask again.” I let some of my anger show. I was ready to order him at gunpoint if that’s what it took.

I’d already lost her once to fucking stupidity. I wouldn’t do it again.

He gulped. “Fine. But I want you out of here.”

“Not going to happen.” Giving him a consolation prize, I headed to the far end of the room and sat in a wingback. “I’ll sit right here and won’t say a word, but I’m not leaving her.”

The man sighed, heading back to the bed.

“You sure don’t make a happy working environment.” He reached for his bag of tricks and placed a green medical cloth on the mattress by Tess’s neck before laying a sterilized packaged scalpel on top.

Snapping on fresh gloves and opening the scalpel, the doctor brushed Tess’s hair away, ready to begin.

She never moved, deep in sleep, and it took an eternity for the doctor to drag the sharp blade down Tess’s neck.

I gripped the armrests until one of the leather studs popped and material tore from its seams.

Blood.

Her blood.

My mouth watered to taste, then a wave of nausea filled me. ~You’re a sick fuck. You’ll never taste her blood again because you’ll make it your life's work to keep her safe from any more pain.~

I would protect Tess from me. I would care for her, tend to her, but never love her the way I needed. Never again would I hurt her.

The thin trickle of red as the doctor inserted a pair of tweezers into her neck sent me reeling back to the warehouse.

~“Stop!”~

“Never,” I growled, digging my blade deeper. The knife sank through his ribs and I sawed through cartilage, sweating with effort. I cleaved him open inch by inch; he screamed louder with every slice.

I cut a hole in his motherfucking chest and licked my lips the moment he died.

The feel of his hot wet cavity as I pulled out his heart, rebirthed me to something monstrous. His heart grew cold while resting on my palm.

My first and only thought had been: I have to give this to Tess.~

“What do you want me to do with it?” the doctor asked, clanking the tiny tracker into a surgical tray, shattering my daydream.

Shooting to my feet, I rushed toward him and grabbed the tray. Tipping it upside down, I let the life-ruining device land in my open palm. Streaks of warm blood stained my clean hands.

The doctor curled his lip in distaste, but didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t wait another moment. Striding to the door, I found Franco in the corridor. The poor man looked fucking beat.

Eyes hollow, face gaunt, and a wiry edge that would petrify anyone if they’d known what he’d done to the rapist last night.

I’d seen the remains. I’d stepped over dismembered fingers, toes, and cock while holding a bleeding heart in my hands.

We were a nasty pair of work, but through killing together we’d been granted a kind of peace that we wouldn’t get if the pervert was sentenced to jail. We gave them fair justice. We ended it.

“Is she doing okay?” he asked, looking at my clenched hand.

“Yeah, the doctor is stitching her up now. I need you to stay with her till I get back. ~“Vous, ça va?”~ You good? I couldn’t remember the last time any of us slept.

It wouldn’t be much longer till we all crashed and burned.

“No. I got it.” He passed me, slapping my shoulder. “Pleasure working with you, Mercer.”

“Likewise.” I gave him a tight smile and headed down the stairs.

I managed to keep my calm all the way through the house.

I managed to smile at a few of the girls we’d rescued from Rio as Suzette and Mrs. Sucre arranged temporary staff to make sure they all had rooms and whatever they needed.

I kept walking at a normal pace right out the front door and away from the house, but the moment I was away from view, I ran.

I fucking bolted across the grounds, heading toward one of the many outbuildings at the back of the property.

Birds flew, squawking in indignation, and the freshly mowed grass filled my nose with freshness.

Skidding to a stop outside one of the many converted barns where my father’s priceless cars rested, I punched in the pin on the keypad and entered the hushed world of mechanics.

I hated these cars and never used them. I didn’t want to sell them either, as in my mind locking them up in a garage was a way of sticking it to my father one more time.

Plus when I got angry, I liked to take my rage out on the pristine paneling and immaculate upholstery.

I beelined for the back of the garage, toward the overstocked toolroom where any builder would’ve come in his pants with the top-of-the-line gadgets.

Bending, I placed the blood-smeared tracker on the concrete floor and paced toward the rack where all the hammers hung.

I selected the baddest, heaviest sledgehammer from the rack and turned to face the electronic nightmare on the ground.

Howling, I swung with all the rage trapped inside and brought the wrath of the hammer on top of it.

It smashed into a billion teeny tiny fragments. It turned from small to microscopic dust, but I didn’t trust its evilness was truly dead.

I hit it again and again and again. I swung until my back ached and sweat poured under my shirt.

All I could see was Tess tied to the bed in Rio. Her sweaty, sickly skin. Her protruding bones and dilated pupils. Her agony was caused by this shitty piece of technology.

~Vous avez tout pris de moi!~ You took everything from me!

I hit and hit. Growling, straining, ~cursing.~

It wasn’t until I had a crater the size of a bowling ball in the concrete when I finally conceded it was no longer operational.

Breathing hard, I dropped the hammer and let it rest where it landed. The last two and a half weeks caught up with me in a rush and I stumbled against the wall.

My head swam with tiredness; my bones screamed for a bed.

~You can rest. Tess is safe.

I fucking thought she was safe last time, and she wasn’t.

You’ve hit that wall. You have to rest.~

I let my body crumple to the floor and bent over my folded knees.

For the first time in my life, I let weakness consume me and I grieved. Grieved for what I lost when Tess was taken. Grieved for myself for what was stolen.

Because one thing was for sure.

Tess had changed.

And I feared I’d never get her back.