Page 58 of Forbidden Want

“Did he have an accent?”

“What? Who?”

“You said dark hair and stocky,” he said, coming over. “Look at these guys.”

Light from a cellphone signaled the device in his hand. She was still getting over the fact he was there.

“What do you want me to—”

He turned the screen to her and started swiping through images of guys on the street, one in a bar, one in an alley. Different guys, different places.

“Stop,” she said, closing her eyes. “I don’t know who it was.”

“You don’t absolve these guys, none of them will get mercy.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

It wasn’t easy to discern his features with the cellphone light in her face and the rest of the room in darkness.

“No one comes for a McDade without repercussions.”

“I’m not a McDade,” she said. “He finished with me.”

“Look at the pictures,” he said, swiping again. “Point to the guy who hurt you. It’s one or all, Sersha.”

And that was a warning to heed. Setting her focus, she eased his hand away and swiped, looking at each face in turn until she stopped. She didn’t even need to scrutinize it; she recognized him immediately.

“That’s him.”

Niall glanced at the screen while switching it off to put it back in his pocket. He just walked away, no further instruction or explanation.

“Wait,” she said when his fingers landed on the door handle. “What happens now? Are you going to kill him?”

“No,” he said like he was shooting the breeze. “Ire is.”

He left. Even as the door sank back into the frame, she just stared. Ire? Was going to…? He couldn’t mean it. Why would he do that? For her? For whatever he was protecting? She’d probably never know.

TWENTY-TWO

IN HER BATHROOM, she popped open a medication bottle. “Pain meds,” she said, smiling at the pill in her hand. “As long as I can take pain meds, I’m fine.”

Those were the words she’d said to her brother before kicking him out of her apartment a couple of hours ago.

Strat showed up not long after and she’d told him the same thing.

In her apartment, behind a locked front door, why wouldn’t she be safe? Especially given she had it on good authority her attackers were being taken care of. Not that she told Lachlan or Strat.

She’d have to be alone sometime. Would have to learn how to do basic things, even with her wrist immobilized in a splint.

In the hospital, she’d wrapped her forearm in a plastic bag and the nurses helped her shower and wash her hair. How she’d get by without their assistance remained to be seen.

For the first time, she was getting a look at herself. One eye was black and swollen. Bruises covered her forehead and cheekbone, disappearing into her hair. The jagged line of blood by her temple was a testament to her torture. When did that happen? When he slammed her to the wall the first time? When he threw her to the ground? Maybe it was as he dragged her back along the concrete.

Bruises and scrapes adorned her body. They’d heal, eventually. What went on inside her head wouldn’t be so easy to get over. She brushed her teeth with one hand and dragged a soft brush through her hair.

She’d wanted out of the hospital because she was sick of lying in bed. Now she was desperate for it.

Her silk robe was short and easy to pull on with its wide sleeves. Tomorrow she’d need to find shorts and some tanks to wear for sleeping. She wasn’t used to wearing anything in her own bed. Maybe it was being alone, but she just didn’t like the idea of being naked at all anymore.

---