Page 86 of Protector

“Who?” he pushed.

“Cobra.”

“What’s he doin’?”

My skin burned red hot as I was forced back into hell. “He,” I licked my lips. “He’s in the chair in the bedroom, watching me—” I clutched the front of my dress in my fist. “He tore my dress… and his teeth—”

My turn.

“What three cards did you just have?” He asked, blowing a puff of warm cigar smoke toward my face.

“I—an ace—” I tried picturing the table but could only see Cobra sitting in the dealer’s chair, smirking down at me. I pushed myself. “T-two and a six.”

“Good girl,” he praised. “Now, think about what I had. Can you remember?”

I hiccuped loudly, and his hand covered mine. “You had two fours and a—”

You’re doin’ great, sweetheart. Absolutely fuckin’ perfect.

I cried out, bucking against the hand on mine. It was too much. Short bursts of air escaped my nostrils, sounding almost like panting.

Their panting.

I shuddered and slumped forward in the chair with a strangled gasp.

When I opened my eyes, I was in Jamie’s lap on the floor. He tilted my chin up, watching me with eyes that were dark and unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked. “I can’t make myself be normal—I don’t want to be broken like this—”

“Don’t fuckin’ apologize to me. You ain’t broken. A broken woman wouldn’t have gone after a gangbanger on her own. A broken woman wouldn’t have forced herself to confront her own demons. Nah, you ain’t broken, darlin’. You’re a motherfuckin’ warrior.”

The cigar lay on the floor near his boot, and I stared down at it in disgust. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life cowering in fear. Pulling away from his grip, I reached for it with trembling fingers. “This isn’t about the game, is it?”

“No,” he said quietly. “By the time you sent Manny to the Reaper, he was broken down. Before that, though, he wanted me to know everything he’d done to you; everything he wanted to do to our girls. Hawk and Cobra will be the same.”

I rolled the cigar between my fingers, fighting against the urge to throw it as far away from my body as possible. I felt Jamie’s chest against my back, saw his legs on either side of mine.

He’d made himself a human shield.

For me.

“They’ll try to trip me up… get me to do something stupid. You said that before…”

“They won’t have to try hard. Everybody that’s sat at a table with you knows that you ain’t the same as before. That’ll get back to them. If they know your weaknesses, they know how to break you.” His arms moved around my torso. “They knew how to break me.”

I was his weakness… and that night was mine.

Jamie had pushed me to cry; to grieve the things we’d lost, but he couldn’t stop the war from raging in my mind. That was something only I could do.

“What do the books say about this?” He’d offered them to me several times over the last year, but I refused to crack the spine on anything that repeatedly used the word victim to describe me.

I was so much more than that.

I’d likened killing Manny to an addict getting a fix; leaving me feeling invincible.

Euphoric.

Desperate for my next hit.

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