Page 17 of A Tortured Temptress
"Move away from him." He's no longer laughing or smiling. I raise my gun and shoot him in the leg. "You touched my wife. You touched what is mine." I shoot his hand that is propping him up. I know I don't have much more time. "Go to hell and tell them this is what happens when you touch a Knight's woman." I shoot him between the eyes and toss my gun to Grady who will make sure that it can't be matched to the bullets in Britain's body.
The EMTs arrive and when they start for Britain, I yell at them. "Feck him, he did this to her." They head toward us and start working on Giselle. As they load her onto the back board she screams and goes unconscious, and I pray she stays that way for the ride so that she doesn't feel the pain of everything he did to her. She is naked and I worried for a brief moment that he raped her. I'll dig up his body and torture his corpse if he did. But I'm hoping because she still has her knickers on that he didn't.
The ambulance crew won't let me ride with them because as soon as they get her into the back, she flatlines and they start doing compressions to save her life. I watch as her blood drips onto the floor under the gurney and for the first time in a long time I pray. I beg for her life.
The whole way to the hospital I stare at my blood-soaked hands. Is this because of all the things I've done in the past. For killing the men of the family that stoned the girl in the square when I was in the military. Is this because I don't think twice about putting a bullet in a man that is willing to hurt women. Or that I'll kill any man that Aidan asks me to?
I question everything I've ever done.
"Don't do this to yourself, she's going to need you to be strong," Aidan says from next to me. I investigate the front seat where Seamus and Brody are seated. Grady stayed behind to follow Britain's body to the coroner's office where he will make sure evidence is destroyed to protect me. This is why Moira's father hates us because we run on the opposite side of the law to him. Except I know the truth about him, but that's not for me to tell her. She needs to figure it out herself.
"She's like this because I didn't protect her as I swore I would." My head falls against the window and I look out at the lights as we pass. When we pull up to the hospital, I make my way inside where I wash up before I check in at the counter. I'm led back to see my beautiful wife who doesn't deserve to have a failure of a husband.
Chapter Seven
SHANE
The doctors move around her body checking her over. Trying to stop the bleeding as fast as they can. Stabilizing her arm and hip. Checking her head and face.
Her friend and flatmate, Arianna is helping. My heart squeezes that I couldn't get to her sooner. That I didn't assign someone else to Aidan so I could be with her.
Now she's bloody and broken everywhere. She bears knife wounds where Britain just cut her for the hell of it. I know she'll have more scars and it will be hard for her to understand but I do know she's strong enough to make it through this.
I love her. But I failed her so badly.
She is so still, and it makes me worry that there is more damage than what we initially thought. I remember watching her shake her head around, looking but not seeing me. A thought hits me and I knock on the glass. Arianna moves toward the door.
"Her eyes." I know that if something happens to her eyesight, she might not ever recover from that. She won't be able to do her art, her passion.
"We are having a specialist come in. Before you got here, she freaked out and screamed that she couldn't see. The doctors think it's from swelling of her optic nerves. We had to sedate her." Her face is soft with worry, and like me is concerned about the amount of blood Giselle lost and the hit from the baseball bat that she obviously took to the body and head.
"Feck." I pull at my hair as I turn away for a moment when Arianna leaves me to head back into the room. I have to watch her; I need to know she's okay because I caused this. If I had been better, she wouldn't have been taken. If I had insisted that Phillip go with her or myself, she wouldn't be in that room fighting for her life. I pray that she will survive this attack too, just like she did years ago.
Hours pass and I don't move from my spot waiting to hear how she's doing. They've taken her to surgery to repair the knife wounds and set her arm and hip that were both broken. A specialist confirmed that she does have swelling of the optic nerve. They called it Traumatic Optic Neuropathy, a condition that could heal on its own or she could be permanently blind. It's just a wait and see. They think it came from the blow she took to the side of her head from the bat.
I love her but I know that she needs more help than what she can get here in the hospital. That she deserves to be safe and free. I look down at the phone number on my mobile. A number I haven't called in a long time.
I need help.
Help that I won't be able to give to Giselle. Help that I don't deserve to give her. She's going to have to be on pain meds and that could threaten her addiction recovery too. I want her but will she want me and my life when she recovers. Will she forgive me when she wakes up for allowing her to be taken?
The number rings as soon as I hit dial.
"Hello?" Her thick brogue still isn't tamed from all the years of living away.
"Lizzy?"
"Shane is that you?" She pauses and I hear her moving through the line. "Do you need Gabrielle? She isn't here right now."
"No, I need you. I need some help with a friend." I pause because doing this will definitely be the end of us. It has to be for Giselle, I want her to heal. I want her to feel safe and obviously I can't do that. "I have a friend that was attacked by her ex. He tried to kill her for a second time." I don't tell her that she is mine because Lizzy and Gabby will want me to come there to help with her recovery. But a voice keeps telling me that Giselle won't want me when all is said and done. Not only do I live a dangerous life, but I failed her in the worse way. I don't want Giselle to be the target for daft prats or vindictive mafia families coming after me or Aidan. I'll do the sacrifice that Aidan was never able to do with Fiona.
"I don't help with abuse victims," she says softly and then chuckles as she clarifies. "Okay, actually I do, but only if they are recovering from pregnancy loss too. Gabrielle can't offer her protection to your friend, because she's already helping with someone else."
"It has to be you Lizzy. He killed her whole family years ago and thought he killed her until her new identity was leaked. She was attacked and almost died again. She's really bad and I only trust you."
"I'm glad you trust me, but again my clinic specializes in infant loss. My groups are about recovering and moving forward from the loss of a child."
"Can you make an exception here? She suffered from pain killer addiction before, and I know she's going to go through that again. Gabby said that you've helped with that before. Please Lizzy, you're the only person I know like you, and I know that you can help her."
