Page 34 of Absolution
If it weren’t for my years of medical training, my hands would be shaking with the barely suppressed violent impulses that churn through me. But Abigail is injured, and she needs my help.
The long, thin cuts that mar her calves ooze beads of blood, already clotting. It took half an hour to get her out of the woods and then another twenty minutes to drive back to our house. We’ve only just made it into the bathroom so that I can retrieve my first aid kit from beneath the sink.
Residual terror clings to my psyche, sharpening all of my senses so that her blood is a shocking crimson against her porcelain skin.
When she’d called me, all I’d heard was her muffled cry and a man’s rumbling voice. The abject horror of knowing my little dove was in danger but out of my reach had been nearly debilitating. I’d stormed out of the clinic with a barked explanation at Meadows, and every second it’d taken me to get to her had felt like an agonizing eternity.
She’s safely in my hands now, but she’s not unharmed. My brave Abigail suppresses a wince as I gently clean her cuts, but I know it must sting despite my careful treatment.
Even the flicker of discomfort that pinches her lovely features is enough to draw a growl from my chest.
“I’m okay,” she promises shakily, as though I’m the one who needs comforting. Her trembling fingers trail through my hair. “I’m safe.”
“Tell me what happened,” I command, voice gravelly with simmering rage. “What were you doing out there all alone?”
She tips her chin back slightly, my imperious queen asserting her independence. “I went to the beach to take pictures for a series of paintings. It was meant to be a surprise.”
She blows out a sigh and relaxes her stiff posture. Her fingernails lightly scrape my scalp as she continues to touch me, as though she needs to feel me as much as I need to be reassured of her presence.
“You came,” she says softly.
“I will always come for you,” I swear roughly. “I should’ve been with you.”
She shakes her head. “You can’t be with me all the time.”
I would keep her on a leash at all times if I could, but I don’t admit that. She wouldn’t like it.
“You said it was Ron’s brother.” I shift the subject back to the danger she faced.
I have to know everything that happened so that I can formulate a plan to eliminate the threat.
She nods and swallows hard. “Billy must’ve followed me out there. He said I was a hard woman to pin down, so I’m not sure how long he’s been trying to get me alone. Probably since we came back from England.”
I force my gaze to break from hers so that I can continue treating her cuts. The shallow wounds are clean now, so I coverthe worst of the damage with small bandages to stop the last of the bleeding.
“How does Billy even know who you are?” I struggle to keep my tone calm and even as I say the dead man’s name. He’ll suffer and scream before he dies.
I recall Abigail’s wild eyes when I’d found her in the woods, her cheeks flushed red from running for her life.
She sighs again. “I should’ve told you,” she confesses. “I thought he was Ron. They must be twins.”
“What should you have told me?” I can’t quite keep the bite from my tone this time. My pet withheld information that put her in danger. The urge to turn her over my knee is almost overwhelming.
Her punishment will come later. I’ll make sure she never does something like that again.
She considers me warily, and I blink the ruthless spark from my eyes. The last thing I want is to scare her now.
“I saw Ron—Billy—at my apartment building on the day we came back to Charleston,” she admits. “When we were going out for my bachelorette party, he was in the breezeway. He was just as creepy as always, but I had Franklin and Stacy to back me up. They told him that you would hurt him if he tried to come near me again.” She takes a deep breath. “And then today, Billy seemed to think that I must know something about Ron’s disappearance. He thinks you did something to his brother, and I’m responsible.”
“You arenotresponsible for what I did to Ron,” I growl. “No more than you were responsible for what happened to Stephen. They brought their fates upon themselves. If they hadn’t threatened you, they’d be fine now.”
Her eyes search mine. “So…Ron is dead?”
She says it like she doesn’t quite want to believe it, but she must have suspected. She doesn’t seem shocked.
“Yes,” I say, cold and unapologetic. “And I would kill him a thousand times over for what he did to you.”
His brother will be next. Billy will die screaming.
