Page 2 of Cruel Savior

"What the hell? Oh my—" Theresa didn't finish. She started screaming bloody murder. Her ear-piercing screams nearly made me fall off my chair. I had to jump and make sure she wasn’t currently being stabbed to death. She wasn’t, but there was blood, and lots of it. Her hands were covered, and the terror on her face startled even me.

I ran around the pool and grabbed her by the shoulders, but nothing stopped her screams. "Jesus Christ, Theresa. What is wrong? What happened?”

Tears streamed down her face and there seemed like no hope of her getting out a coherent sentence. Her breathing had already gone straight into erratic and she was either going to have a heart attack and drop dead or pass out.

I hoped for the latter. The woman was meaner than a snake, but that didn't mean I wanted her to die. Plus, I didn't want to be the one with her if that happened. My father would probably kill me. Or at the very least cut me off again.

I shook her harder. "Look at me, Theresa. Focus. What is wrong? Where are you bleeding?” I tried surveying her body for some sort of injury, but she refused to be still and was stronger than I expected in the throes of panic.

I grabbed her face and turned it until she was forced to meet my gaze. "What the fuck is going on? I can't help you if you don't take a damned breath and tell me what is wrong."

Her screams quieted, but the incoherent whimpers did not.

"Take a breath. A deep one and hold it." She sort of followed my directions, but her eyes were unfocused and wild. Whatever it was, she was scared witless. I turned and surveyed the area around her and that's when I finally noticed the package laying on its side, facing away from me.

A black cardboard box.

Something in my gut twisted, and her fear transferred to me. Something in that box that had sent her over the edge. I wanted to know—needed to know, but my instincts screamed that I didn't want to know.

I turned back to her. "I'm going to check it out, okay? Do you think you can stand here quietly while I do?”

She shook her head frantically as her body shook. I'd never seen this woman speechless, and without an insult for me hovering on her lips. It unnerved me to see her reduced to this whimpering mess.

"I have to," I said as gently as I could. "Whatever it is, we'll deal with it." Her eyes widened and her body shook. "I'll deal with it," I promised. Surely whatever it was, I could handle it. I was a trained operative. I'd been undercover and seen and endured the worst of humanity. Of course, she didn't know that.

Nobody did. I'd tried to talk to a therapist, but I'd yet to get the words past my lips. I wanted to pretend everything I'd endured on the Mazzeo compound didn't happen. Or at the very least, it had been worth it, because Frank Mazzeo had lived up to his end of the bargain.

My much younger, and far more innocent sister remained safe and happy at boarding school without ever realizing how much her life had cost me.

It was worth the price, I reminded myself. I did that on the daily. When I'd been on the job, I'd swept everything under the rug. Since then—not so much.

Enough.

I shook those thoughts from my head. I had a scared woman in my hands who looked like she'd break at any moment. And if that happened, the consequences would fall on my shoulders—again.

Whatever was in that box...

"I'm going to help you into this chair, and then I'm going to investigate. I'll call the butler to bring something to clean you up and a first aid kit. "Can you tell me if you're hurt? Do I need to call for an ambulance?"

That seemed like a dumb question, but I could find no source of blood other than her hands. What the hell had arrived in that package?

I eased Theresa into one of the lounge chairs, and even though she'd officially dissolved into a steady stream of tears, I couldn’t wait. I had to investigate. Whatever happened, she'd be all right for a few seconds.

Turning back to the package, I could now see a pool of blood forming underneath the box. It seemed like a lot...

Careful not to touch anything, I stalked closer until the opening came into view. My heart stuttered and nearly stopped beating. Maybe it did. My chest constricted so hard nothing would surprise me. It wasn't an animal or a limb or anything that benign.

It was a human head. A male human head. And despite the blood oozing from the box, I recognized it. Paul Danvers. One of the men who'd worked with me on the Frank Mazzeo task force. I was pretty sure he worked for the FBI.

Fuck.

I bent at the waist and tried to fight off the rising nausea. I'd seen dead bodies. Hell, I'd seen people killed in front of my eyes. But this was a severed head and it had come to my house, addressed to me.

I tried to stand and lost it, throwing up all over the crime scene. Whoever had done this...

My stomach jerked and pulsed until nothing else came along with the heaves. Of course, it was during that shining moment both my father and James arrived.

"What the hell is going on? What was all that screaming for?"

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