Page 109 of Brutal Obsession

It takes too long to reach a modest mansion set way back on around ten acres of Kings’ land, enclosed by a fifteen-foot wall and hidden by shrubbery.I’m so amped, I nearly crash through the front gate.

I key through the entrance, the gate pulls apart, and I speed the last half mile into the mansion’s garage.

I carry her out of the car, through doorway after doorway, up a million fucking stairs to the nicest room in this whole giant, uncomfortable, empty place. She’s warm. Her pulse is still strong,thank God,despite her closed eyes and limp frame. I find everything I require in the en suite bathroom.

First aid. Emergency tools. King medical equipment technologies.

Placing her on a cot, I cut Harper’s clothes off to assess her injuries. I take a sample of the blood dripping from her stomach and scrape it on a little microscope slide, sticking it in a computer on a nearby countertop.

The computer will analyze her blood for whatever Enzo drugged her with and spit out any immediate countermeasures I should take, straight from the mouth of the doctors at the medical unit back on the estate. They’ll be expecting the sample to come through.We alerted them on our way to the De Luca warehouse facility.

After snatching a sample, I sponge the rest of the blood off her and send a picture of her injury to the medical team too. The source of all the blood seems to be a cut a few inches long on the lower left side of her rib cage. My first thought was a stab wound, but it’s too clean and precise.

Too surgical.

In fact, the only reason she was bleeding at all is because she popped her stitches.

Enzo cut her open and sewed her up when he was done.

Rage and bile fight all the way up my throat, but I swallow them both back, refusing to imagine what this injury means. What was done to her…

Remember the plan.

I clean the laceration site and apply bandages.

There’s a sizable bump on the back of Harper’s head and blood caked in her hair. I wash her clean as best I can and find clothes to dress her in before carefully moving her to the bed.

The report from her blood sample inches out of a nearby printer. The second it’s done, I rip the sheet from the machine, eyes devouring the contents.

Enzo drugged her with quite the cocktail. I want to kill him so badly, but then I remember he’s already dead. And I helped.

That’ll have to be enough.

What I’m desperate to find in Harper’s report is there. Six little glorious words.

Blood Contamination Assessment: Non Life-Threatening.

Thank you, God.

The report on her cut is a little less clear. The doctor needs to examine her in person to see what was done and to check for any internal injuries, but if it’s just the laceration, it should heal within a few weeks. She’ll need to take it easy and avoid exercise or heavy lifting, but…

Harper should be okay.

Physically, at least.

Uneasiness remains in the corners of my heart.

Whether her mind or spirit’s been broken, I won’t know until she opens her beautiful eyes. Whether Enzo forced himself on her, violated her, I won’t know unless she chooses to tell me.

If she even wants to see or speak to me again after my monumental failures landed her in this situation to begin with.

I promised to protect her every step of the way if she just came back to New York with me, and that promise was broken only a half hour after we set foot on Empire soil. How will she ever trust me again? Forget forgiveness.

It’s exactly like she said.

I ruined her life.

The only reason she’s here is because of dumb luck. If I hadn’t backed right over her, I never would have found her. I would have checked every holding cell on that entire property andneverfound her. She was some place she shouldn’t have been. Probably trying to escape on her own.

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