41. Jenson
Jenson
T he sounds of Briar’s sobs are branded into my brain like my own personal fucking brand of torture as I throw the car door open and step out to look down the busy street.
I still have no idea what’s happened. Only her broken words.
She asked me to come.
Ahead of me, the queue of traffic stretches out, the ridiculously small street not enough to cope with the truck that’s trying to reverse around a fucking tight corner up ahead. Horns blast behind me as I slam the door.
“You can’t leave that here!” The guy behind me winds down his window. “Hey!”
“Go around it. Tow it. I don’t care.” His shouting fades as I take off, my heartbeat thumping in time with the pounding of my shoes.
It takes a few minutes before I get to her store. The door rattles, refusing to open, and my heart climbs into my mouth as I bang my fist against it.
There’s no answer.
I glare at the battered door. I’m getting her a new one anyway.
My first kick nearly splinters it through, the shitty materials no match for anyone with the slightest bit of strength. The aging wood wouldn’t hold up to a fucking light breeze.
My second sends it flying open, the broken remains crashing against the wall as I stride inside. “Briar?”
There’s no sign of her, her armchair and the chair behind her desk empty.
My heart turns over inside my chest.
And then I hear it.
A small noise. The bottom of my stomach falls in a swoop as I carefully make my way to her desk.
She’s curled up in the corner, on the fucking floor . Her face is buried in her arms.
Her whole body is shaking. “Briar.”
Another small, shaky noise that threatens to shatter my heart. “Briar. Look at me.”
Rounding the desk, I drop down into a crouch, keeping my distance. She doesn’t look up, and my panic threatens to explode.
“Jenson.” Her small whisper fucking hurts.
“Yeah, it’s me.” My throat tightens. “Please, baby. I need you to look at me.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll work it out. Whatever it is.” My voice stays low. As gentle as I can make it. “You’re scaring me. Please.”
She sobs, the sound broken as she lifts her face.
I stare at her for a long moment. Too long. Her face crumples as she raises her arms, before she drops them. “I’m sorry – I just—,”
She sucks in a wobbly breath as I scoot forward. “I’m alright. I am.”
My hands gently cradle either side of her face. She gapes at me.
But all of my attention is focused on her lip. Her bruised, swollen as fuck lip.
It looks like she’s been bitten .
“Tell me who,” I breathe. “Right now, Briar. Who did that?”
Her eyes shutter as she tries to drop her face, but I don’t let go. I stroke my thumb against her cheek. “It’s alright. You’re safe. But I need to know who hurt you.”
Because I’m going to hurt them. Rage focuses my senses to a razor-sharp edge, every part of them focused on the teeth marks that are embedded in her golden skin. “Was it the same man?”
I will fucking go to war with the Hearts if they lied to us. If she’s hurt because that fuck is still walking around—
The Diamonds might be low on numbers, but I will fucking annihilate every single one of them for letting this happen on their watch.
Briar’s head shakes slightly beneath my touch. More tears spill.
She’s shaking so badly. But she doesn’t reach for me, her hands clenched tightly in her lap even as I hold her face in my hands.
It fucking breaks something inside me that Briar feels she can’t ask for the comfort she so obviously needs. “Come here.”
Another sob. “I know you can’t—,”
I pull her forward without another word, into my arms as her hands lift and wrap around my neck. I can’t stop my body from tensing. But I wrap my arms around her, holding her against me as she starts to cry in earnest, every broken noise sending my anger soaring higher. I stroke my hands down her back, over the back of her head, carefully cupping her as she buries her face in my neck. Her bruised lips brush my skin, and the pained noise she makes is the final straw.
“I need you to tell me who did this.” My lips brush her ear. “They’re never going to touch you again. Do you understand? Never , Briar.”
I lift her, settling back against the wall and tugging her into my lap. She curls into me, her breathing still wet as her cheek presses, just about my heart. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Ever.
I’m not sure I’ll ever let her out of my sight again. Between my nightmares last night over what could have happened, and now this —
My mind is made up.
Her words spill out in short, halting sentences. Her father. Her childhood. Her fucking arranged engagement to the cunt that walked in here and bit her. And by the time she’s finished, my whole body is vibrating with the effort not to put her down and launch something through her fucking window. Preferably her fiancé.
Only the way she clings to me stops me from doing exactly that. I force the rage down. “They have used you, and taken advantage of you, and tried to force you into something you don’t want. You’re not going back to that house.”
Her breathing stutters. “What?”
“I’m going to ask you something.” I stare straight ahead, my jaw tight. I don’t want to see the expression on her face. “If you say no, I want you to know that it’s going to happen anyway. I’m asking because it’s the right thing to do, but it doesn’t fucking matter, because the outcome will be the same.”
She’s staring up at me. And fucking hell. The way these two men – one of whom is her fucking father – have abused her trust, when she’s so open, so gentle, so fucking submissive, makes me feel ill.
She’s a fucking gift. And they’re going to break her.
So I’m taking her.
I force myself to take a breath. It’s entirely possible that I’m going to be just like them. But I won’t lie to her. “You’re moving in with us. To Ravenhall. You can have your own room. Your own space. We’ll put no pressure on you. We can tear the fucking agreement up. But Briar—,”
I glance down, meeting her eyes. “I am not letting you go back into that house. I’m not walking away from you. Not today. Possibly not ever. So, I’m going to ask you. Do you want to stay with us?”
Her lips are parted. “If I say no—,”
“I will pick you up and carry you.” My arms tighten. “Nobody will stop me, I promise you.”
Someone has to intervene. She screams vulnerability from every fucking pore.
She’s a magnet for trouble.
And she has the survival instincts of a panda. If someone told her there was a puppy in the back of a windowless van, she’d skip right in with a smile and a thank-you to the scary masked man.
I don’t want her to change. So I’ll be the villain for her.
Even now, there’s no fucking fear in her emerald eyes. “I want to stay with you.”
Braced for a battle, the air releases from my lungs. “Good. That’s – that’s good.”
Even if she’s just proved my fucking point.
Her gaze traces my face. Her hands are resting on my chest. “Do you want me to move?”
“No.” I glance down, and my gaze snags on her left hand. “Take that off.”
The ring is grotesque. It’s a parody of what any male with a puffed-up sense of self-importance thinks a woman would want.
That fucker bit her.
I pluck it carefully from her fingers, not wanting it anywhere fucking near her. “Do you want me to make sure this gets back to him? You don’t have to see him again. Ever.”
“He deserves to lose it. But I don’t want it.” She nestles against my chest. “Will you take me back to Ravenhall?”
My heart thuds so loudly she can probably hear it.
“Yeah. Let’s go home.”