Page 24 of Where Broken Wings Fly

No. No.

He won’t lay another finger on her.

I’ll take the beating myself.

Casting his arctic-blue gaze around my bedroom, devoid of any personal effects, a sneer overtakes his handsome features. The world doesn’t see him as I do. His picture-perfect exterior hides a devilish truth.

When his eyes stray over to the marble fireplace, my heart erupts in my chest. I’ve been sneaking into his bedroom in the dead of night to search through his belongings for cash. We’re so close to being ready.

“We have a very important gala to attend tonight.” He glances back over me, his lips curled in a sneer. “You need to cover yourself up and put a damn smile on. Don’t let me down.”

Laying still until he gets bored of trying to intimidate me, I breathe out a sigh of relief when he disappears. The moment he’s gone, Arianna comes bounding into the room, her face soaked with tears.

There’s a bright-red handprint on her cheek, and the sight of it drags me from the bed to capture her in a tight hug. She throws her arms around my neck, her shoulders shaking with each sob.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” I murmur into her hair. “I’ll make it better, I promise.”

No matter how long it takes.

No matter what I have to do.

We’re getting out of here.

* * *

Startling awake, I force my eyes open and blink until my vision settles. Wooden beams are stretched across the ceiling above me, hand stripped and rustic. It takes a moment for the ringing in my ears to die down.

When I try and fail to sit upright, blinding pain rips through me, crackling its way down my spine. I can barely lift a finger, and my eyes flit around the room in search of answers.

I’m in a sprawling family-sized kitchen, laying across a huge table with a pillow propped beneath my head. A multicoloured, knitted blanket is pulled up to my chin, and when I peek beneath it, my blood freezes.

My clothes have vanished, leaving my entire body on display beneath my bloodstained bra and panties. Someone has re-wrapped my ribs and tended to the new cuts and bruises that have appeared.

“Ari!” I shout hoarsely.

Nothing.

I’m alone.

Attempting to work some feeling back into my stiff limbs, I wiggle my toes and try to sit up again. An adhesive dressing has been smoothed over my sternum. My chest still aches, but it isn’t the awful pressure that I experienced before.

That’s when it hits me. Before. The woods. Rocky outcrops and steep banks. Trees. Moonlight. Falling. Screaming. Blood. Water. Voices and hands lifting me.

“Arianna!”

Battling for every breath, I stifle a terrified wail when loud footsteps approach and the door to the kitchen slams open. A very familiar looking stranger arrives like a bat out of hell, following the sound of my yelling.

Filling the entire wide door frame, the wild beast wearing human skin stalks into the room with the ease of a trained killer. His eyes land on me, and I recognise the fiery, burnished-brown depths from my memories of the car ride here.

I’ve seen my fair share of burly, over-muscled thugs who were paid a small fortune to protect my husband, but this mountain of a man is in a whole league of his own. The muscles that carve his frame look like beams of polished steel under his skin.

“Who are you?” I scream at him.

“Stop moving,” he rasps in a smoky voice, reminiscent of aged whiskey. “You’re going to hurt yourself if you’re not careful.”

“Where is my daughter?”

Scraping a hand through his shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair that looks permanently bleached by sunshine, he sighs. “She’s safe.”

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