ten #2
“Hmm,” I say, stroking my chin. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened.”
“I’m going to bed,” Mercy says. “We can talk in the morning.”
She circles the bed and lifts the blankets, wedging herself in next to Saint, who’s on top of the covers.
“Your brother wanted to barge in and haul your ass out the second he knew where you were,” I say. “I told him to wait, that you’d have an explanation. But if you don’t…”
She looks like a trapped animal, searching for a way out.
“I guess next time we’ll pay you a little visit at the Slaughterpen,” I say.
“No,” she blurts, her eyes going wide as she realizes she’s caught.
“Let me get this straight,” Heath says. “You have someone leaving notes in blood on your door, letters coming with no return address—don’t think I forgot that one at Christmas—and now you want to be sneaking around with guys who run illegal shit on the bad side of town, and you’re not going to tell us any of it? ”
“I thought you were leaving the notes,” she says. “In blood and on paper. Saint put the tongue there, right?”
He nods grudgingly, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. The effect is ruined when Mercy’s cat jumps up and curls up on his lap, purring instantly. I admit, I’m a little jealous. I want it to tell Mercy I’m the good one.
“Yeah,” Saint says. “I figured that was message enough. I never wrote anything.”
“I didn’t either,” Heath says, and I nod in agreement.
“Well, then I don’t know,” she says. “It was probably the Sinners. They’ve been bugging me since day one.”
“Stop fucking around,” Saint growls, dumping the kitten off his lap and flipping over onto Mercy, straddling her and pinning her arms.
Mercy lets out a mewling cry, tears filling her eyes as she sucks in shallow breaths through her teeth. The grey cat stalks over to the desk, looking gravely offended, and hops up to perch on the surface, surveying us all with severe scorn.
“What the fuck, man,” I warn Saint. “Don’t hurt her.”
“I didn’t,” he grits out.
“She looks pretty hurt.”
“I’m fine,” she says quickly, her voice strained.
Saint yanks the blankets down from her, moving backwards.
She tries to grab them with one hand, her other hand covering her side.
His eyes light on the movement, and he tears her hand away and yanks up her shirt.
A bloody bandage is sloppily taped to her side, and whoever did it, they didn’t clean up around it very well.
Smears of dried blood paint her skin, going down under the top of her pajamas.
“What the fuck?” Saint roars.
“Fuck, M,” I say, hurrying to the bed and sinking down beside her. Her belly heaves with each shaky breath, and she rolls her eyes up, refusing to meet my gaze. I can tell she’s trying not to cry again.
“Who did this?” Heath demands, standing over her, knife already in hand. “Give me a name, and I’ll happily carve a smile in their throat from one ear to the other.”
“She’s dead,” Mercy whispers, a tear leaking down her cheek.
“Damn,” Heath says. “You killed ‘em?”
“No,” she cries, yanking her shirt back down.
“What happened?” I demand.
“It’s just a scratch,” she says. “Your cousins took care of it.”
“The bastards,” I swear. “They could have told me.”
“They didn’t know who I was,” she admits. “That I was… Yours.”
My mom used to read us How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year, and in that moment, I swear I feel the guy, because my heart definitely grows two sizes bigger, or maybe twenty.
I’ve never wanted a girl to be mine, but hearing Mercy call herself that is about the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I need to be near her, so I climb onto the bed on her other side, sliding under the covers and pressing my lips to her head.
“Damn right you are,” I say.
“Now, can I go to sleep?” she asks. “It’s been a long night, and I’m tired and sore.”
“We’re going to have to look at that tomorrow,” Saint says, but he grudgingly relents and covers her with the blanket.
Heath turns off the light and squeezes in on Saint’s other side, and the cat hops up on the bed a few minutes later and settles down into a ball at the foot of the bed.
Mercy’s breathing goes deep almost immediately, and I cradle her in my arms like a fragile baby bird.
Maybe she’s not so fragile. I make a mental note to ask my cousins about the girl they stitched up last night, maybe find out how the fuck Mercy ended up getting cut.
Even if she went to the Slaughterpen to watch Salem, and there are plenty of fights there even outside the ring, Mercy’s not the type to get involved in one.
That means someone there must have done something to her personally—probably some guy grabbed her.
But he wouldn’t have cut her, even if she refused him.
He’d probably just call her a bitch and say she was ugly anyway, or maybe, if he was a real piece of shit, he might have pushed or even hit her.
That would explain why someone considered the offense worthy of death.
But who avenged her that swiftly, and why?
I’m for damn sure talking to Maverick about it as well as Hemingway, and probably Colt Darling while I’m at it.
We went easy on Mercy tonight because she’s injured, but we can’t let her manipulate us with her tears and get out of answering questions.
If she’s really my girl now, she owes me that much. I don’t want any secrets between us.
And it might be time for me to hang up my strap at the club. I don’t want to be dancing with other girls when I have the one I’ve waited for all my life right here in my arms.