Page 63 of Indecent Secrets

“He’s dead.” Bryce’s tone was vicious. “And more mercifully than he deserved.”

I didn’t care as long as he was no longer a threat to me or anyone else.

Bryce picked me up, cradling me in his arms. “Let’s get you out of here, sweetheart.”

He carried me through the house—I assumed it was a house, since it was so large. I barely saw my surroundings. I kept my face buried in his chest. Bryce held me in a way he never had before. It wasn’t like the passion I’d felt from him in Jack’s office on the desk. This was like… like I was precious to him.

Eventually, I heard a car door open and I was placed inside. To my shock, I found my limbs getting heavy and my eyes closing in pure exhaustion.

“The adrenaline’s wearing off,” Bryce murmured, stroking a gentle hand over my cheek. “It’s all right. Sleep. I’m taking you home.”

Home? Where was home? The hotel room? I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t get my mouth to work.

For the second time that day I slipped into unconsciousness, but this time, it was with Bryce carefully buckling me into the car, murmuring assurances in my ear.

Chapter 24

Bryce

* * *

If there was a way to bring people back from the dead, I’d bring David back just so I could kill him all over again. Slowly and torturously this time.

Leigh was a fucking fighter. It was the bathroom mirror that saved me. I caught a glimpse of her movement behind the door just in time to duck, otherwise she would’ve smacked me unconscious—and given me a dangerous concussion while she was at it—with the lid of the toilet.

It gave me a grim pleasure to know that David definitely wouldn’t have ducked in time. She would’ve had him out cold, and possibly brain damaged.

I was shocked she’d managed to get free. I remembered how she’d looked in the damn photo, but additionally—probably in case she’d woken up—after snapping that picture, David had tied a rope to one end of the towel rack and then the other end…

Looking at her ankles confirmed it. He’d tied the rope around them. That would keep her from dragging her feet into the tub and allowing any kind of leeway to get out. Considering the angle she’d been at, she wouldn’t have been able to leverage herself up and haul herself out using her upper body.

She’d been well and truly fucked. And not in a good way.

Looking at the depth of the water in the tub as I held her in the bathroom, I couldn’t suppress a shiver of fury and horror. If she hadn’t hauled herself out, I would’ve probably been too late. Maybe I could have revived her. Maybe.

But somehow she’d gotten herself out. How?

As she’d collapsed in my arms, I had the answer—I could feel the swollen flesh and muscle around her shoulders.

She’d popped her arms out of their goddamn sockets.

Leigh clung to me and I stroked her hair, holding her tightly. There was nowhere else I’d rather be. I undid the tape around her wrists and then carried her out of the house to my waiting car. She was already passing out—hunger, pain, fear, adrenaline—so I buckled her in and left her there while I went back to clean up the bathroom.

There was no trace of Leigh by the time I was finished.

When that was done, I moved on to David. I took the signed papers with me to shred and dump them somewhere else, but left all the others, then got a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him with it in the exact same place I’d stabbed him with my knife.

Pulling the knife out, I took it back to the kitchen, washed it, and put it back in the knife block. There would still be traces of blood on it when the crime scene team properly searched it, so they’d think they had the murder weapon.

There wouldn’t be enough evidence to convict anyone, so the police would either give it up as an inside job without evidence, or given the papers, an assassination hired by someone else on the board, and a fruitless search would commence.

Once everything was taken care of, I went back to the car. Leigh’s head turned towards me, her fingers twitching. I took her hand and squeezed it, then started the car, driving one-handed.

I didn’t go back to the hotel. I took her to my place.

If the doorman had questions about why I was carrying an unconscious woman in my arms, he knew better than to ask. The staff in the building were aware of my profession and it wasn’t the first time I’d done something weird.

Leigh stirred when I finally got her into my apartment. “Mmm?”

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