Page 48 of Slaughter

“What the hell is wrong with him?” my brother asks.

“Who knows?” I shrug with a sigh, remembering what happened just hours ago.

Lance enters the bathroom. “What happened?” he asks as I sit on my knees beside her.

“She slit her wrist. Found her in the tub.” My clothes have soaked up her blood, and my hands and arms are covered it in. I’ve dealt with blood before. I’ve killed before. My hands are stained with it. No matter how many times I wash them, it’ll never come off. But to have them covered in hers is different. The only woman I’ve ever loved.

“Presleigh?” he asks, his brown eyes wide when he gets a good look at her. He just stands there doing nothing but staring.

“Yes. Now fucking do something,” I demand.

He kneels beside her as well and lifts her hands. I had removed my belt and wrapped it around her forearm to close off the wound. “I think she was in shock.”

“It’s not as bad as it seems,” he observes.

“Of course, it fucking is!” Has he gone blind?

He shakes his head. “She has lost blood but not enough to warrant this kind of unconsciousness.” He stares down at her. “She needs to be admitted …”

“No!” I shake my head. “Treat her here.”

After a long pause, he finally nods.

I finish my drink and then pour another one. My brother starts laughing.

“Care to share what is so funny?” I ask, unable to see the humor in the situation.

“I can see where she knew there was no way out. You have cameras in the house. Countless men ready to restrain her at any given moment until you arrive. And an alarm. Plus, you had a tracker placed in her. So even if she is able to outsmart your men and get a head start, she wouldn’t get far.”

“Yeah, I knew she’d run but …” My voice trails off as his words set in.

“What?”

I set my full drink down and stand from my desk, ignoring his question. I pick up the remote and turn on my TV that hangs on the wall above the mantle and then the surveillance. I rewind it to earlier in the day. My brother turns to face it, and we see her standing in her bathroom with a bottle of scotch in one hand, my letter opener in the other, and she’s completely naked. We watch silently while the scene plays out in front of us in complete shock of her actions. When I press pause, he turns around, takes a drink, and looks up at me, chuckling. “Well, that changes things.”

I storm out of my office, ignoring his statement.

Darrell stands over in the corner of her room. He was to inform me when she woke since I’ve put her on suicide watch.

“Leave us.”

He walks out without a word, closing the door behind him.

She lies in her bed just as I left her with the covers pulled up to her chest and still naked underneath them. Clothes aren’t important when you’re dying. Her arms are the only thing not covered. They rest on top of the red comforter down by her side. A white bandage is wrapped around her left wrist. Her other arm has an IV in it. Lance turned her bedroom into a hospital room, giving her everything she needed. Thankfully, she didn’t have to have a blood transfusion. It could have been much worse.

I saved her. If I hadn’t come home, she could have died in that tub.

She’ll owe me big for that. Especially since I know it wasn’t suicide due to desperation. Now I understand she cut herself open due to determination. She wanted that tracker out so she could run. She cut herself horizontally, not vertically. But I couldn’t think straight. At the time, I just had to save her. She’s worth nothing to me dead.

My jaw clenches at the thought of her outsmarting me. She almost did. I could tie her to the bed or take her to the cellar and chain her to a wall. Where I’d starve her, beat her, fuck her.

There are several cruel yet appealing ideas I could do to her against her will that would guarantee she’d never get away, but I don’t want those. I don’t want her to fight me. Plus, that would make me no better than the men who want her.

She doesn’t need to know the details. She just needs to trust me as she did at one time. But she’s obviously smarter than I thought. That’s how we got to this point.

I want cooperation.

I want submission.

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