Chapter 27
Belle
My teeth ached from trembling. Every muscle locked tight, holding me upright through sheer stubbornness.
The loan sharks were gone. The bookstore was a disaster—books scattered like fallen leaves, shelves cracked and leaning, that romance display I'd spent hours perfecting knocked sideways across the floor.
Gideon stood five feet away, chest heaving, blood dripping from his mangled hand in steady, dark drops.
I couldn't speak. Could barely force air past the knot in my throat.
He'd broken bones for me. Snapped his own fingers protecting me from men I should've told him about days ago. Men whose threats I'd swallowed down because admitting weakness felt worse than facing them alone.
The world refused to tilt back into place. Everything felt sideways. Wrong. Too sharp and too soft all at once.
My voice came out thin. Trembling. "We... we need to get you out of here."
Gideon didn't argue. Didn't protest. Didn't try to convince me he was fine when blood pooled in his palm and his fingers jutted at angles that made my stomach turn.
He just nodded once.
That single gesture somehow steadied me more than words could've.
I grabbed my keys from behind the counter with shaking hands, locked the register without looking at the numbers, and moved toward the door on legs that felt disconnected from my body.
My arm brushed his as I passed.
I startled. Not because it scared me—though every nerve still screamed danger, run, hide—but because the contact felt necessary. Essential. Like touching him proved he was real and whole and standing beside me instead of bleeding out on my floor.
He didn't pull away.
We walked through the wreckage together. Past overturned chairs. Past the table where we'd—
I shoved that memory down hard.
The night air hit my face like a slap. Cold. Sharp. Real.
He reached into his jacket pocket with his left hand—slow, deliberate—and pulled out his car keys.
For a moment, he just stared at them. Weighed them in his palm like they represented something far heavier than metal and plastic.
Then he held them out to me.
I froze.
"You're... letting me drive?"
The words came out wrong. Too high. Disbelieving.
"I can't." His voice emerged quiet, strained, still vibrating with leftover violence and adrenaline.
His right hand hung at his side, fingers swollen and bent at angles that made bile rise in my throat. Purple bloomed across his knuckles, spreading toward his wrist in ugly, mottled patterns.
My chest tightened. This was the first time he'd willingly given me control over anything. Not demanded. Not ordered. Not forced me into compliance disguised as choice. Just... handed me something that mattered because he needed me to take it.
I closed my fingers around the keys. They were warm from his body heat. Heavy in a way that had nothing to do with their actual weight.
"Which one is yours?"
He gestured with his chin toward the sleek black sedan parked three spaces down. The one I'd seen outside my apartment. Outside the bookstore. Following me through half my life without my permission.
Now I was climbing into the driver's seat.
The interior smelled like him—cedar and something darker, expensive leather and the faint ghost of his cologne. The seat was positioned too far back; the mirrors angled wrong, everything built for someone larger and more dangerous than me.
I adjusted quickly, hands steadier than they had any right to be.
Gideon folded himself into the passenger seat without complaint. Cradled his broken hand against his chest like something precious and ruined all at once. Blood spotted his shirt. His breathing came shallow, controlled, like he was holding pain at bay through sheer will.
I started the engine.
The hospital was fifteen minutes away if I pushed the speed limit. Ten if I ignored it entirely.
My foot pressed down hard on the accelerator.
Gideon's eyes closed.
Not in fear—in trust.
And somehow that destroyed me more than anything else tonight.
I risked a glance at him.
His face had gone pale beneath the streetlights flashing past, jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping beneath the skin. Sweat beaded at his temple.
"You need a doctor," I repeated, voice cracking on the last word.
"No." Flat. Final. Like the discussion was already over.
"Gideon—those fingers are broken. Badly. What if—"
"Belle." He cut me off with my name, soft and dangerous. "Drive home."
Home. Like his house was mine. Like I belonged there.
My chest tightened for reasons I refused to examine.
"This is insane. You could lose function. You could—" I stopped. The words lodged in my throat because I suddenly understood what he wasn't saying.
Hockey.
His career.
If a doctor filed reports, if the league found out he'd gotten into a fight off-ice, if anyone discovered he'd broken his own hand beating men bloody over a woman he'd blackmailed into his bed—
The consequences would end him.
He watched me work through it. Watched understanding dawn across my face.
"Ice," he said quietly. "A splint. That's all I need."
"Are you serious?" The question came out sharp, disbelieving.
Something flickered in his expression. Dark. Old. Painful in ways that had nothing to do with broken bones.
"I've had worse."
The two words carried weight that made my stomach drop.
I thought of that childhood photograph in his study. The hand on his shoulder that looked more like restraint than affection. The way he'd flinched when I mentioned his father.
My anger wavered.
I hated that it wavered. Hated that violence and fear and pain were somehow stitching us together when they should've been tearing us apart.
I pressed harder on the accelerator.
The lake house materialized through the trees—all glass and steel and cold perfection. I pulled into the circular drive too fast, tires crunching on gravel.
Gideon reached for the door handle with his left hand. Struggled with the latch.
I was around the car before he could stand, gripping his good arm without thinking, steadying him when he swayed.
"I can walk," he muttered.
"Shut up."
His eyes widened fractionally.
Then—impossibly—he almost smiled.
I helped him through the front door, his weight heavy against my shoulder—not because he couldn't support himself, but because he let me bear it, anyway. That alone made my chest ache in ways I couldn't name.
The house was dark and silent. Cold in that expensive way that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with emptiness.
I guided him toward the kitchen, flipped on the overhead lights with my elbow. The brightness felt harsh after the violence outside, exposing too much.
I pulled a chair out from the table. The legs scraped against tile.
"Sit."
He did.
No challenge. No sardonic comment about me giving orders in his house. No fight. Just quiet obedience that unsettled me more than any command he'd ever issued.
My hands moved on autopilot, gathering supplies I barely remembered him having.
A bowl from the cabinet—I filled it with ice from the dispenser, the cubes tumbling and cracking against stainless steel.
Clean dish towels from a drawer I'd opened exactly twice.
The first-aid kit he'd bought weeks ago, still pristine in its plastic case, tucked beneath the sink.
For emergencies, he'd said then.
I hadn't realized he meant this kind.
When I returned to the table, he was watching me. Eyes dark and too focused, tracking every movement like I might vanish if he blinked.
I set everything down carefully. Pulled another chair close. Sat.
His injured hand rested on the table between us—swollen, discolored, fingers bent at angles that made my stomach turn.
I reached for it slowly, giving him time to pull away.
He didn't.
The first touch of ice against his knuckles made him wince. Just barely—a tightening around his eyes, a sharp inhale through his nose—but I saw it. Pain he was trying to hide. From me.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
The words escaped before I could stop them. Honest. Raw. Unnecessary.
Gideon's expression shifted. Something unreadable flickered across his features—surprise, maybe. Or disbelief.
His voice came out rough, strained. "You're apologizing to me?"
My fingers trembled as I adjusted the ice pack, trying to be gentle with something already broken. "You got hurt because of me."
"No." The word came out sharp. Final. "I got hurt because of them."
I looked up, meeting his eyes despite every instinct screaming at me to look away. "You didn't have to—"
"Yes." He cut me off, voice dropping to something quieter. More dangerous. "I did."
My breath caught.
I couldn't look away from him. Couldn't force my gaze back down to his mangled hand or the ice melting between my fingers or anything safe and distant.
Because the truth sitting between us felt too large. Too real.
He'd broken bones for me. Snapped his own fingers rather than let those men touch me. Destroyed his hand—the hand he needed for everything that mattered to him, for hockey, for control, for the life he'd built from violence and discipline—without hesitation.
Not because I'd asked. Not because the contract demanded it. Because something inside him required it.
The same something that fed me when I couldn't eat. That bathed me when I couldn't stand. That tucked me against his chest at night like I was something worth protecting instead of something he'd bought.
My throat closed.
"Gideon..." His name came out broken. Confused.
He shifted, using his good hand to cover mine. His palm was warm despite everything. Solid.
"They're not coming back," he said quietly. "I promise you that."
I believed him.
That was the terrifying part.
I believed every word.
His voice softened, more raw than I'd ever heard it. "I won't be at the game tomorrow."
My chest tightened. The ice pack slipped slightly in my grip. "Gideon..."