Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Wade
The Rolls had barely stopped when I stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of Meridian, the warm air wrapping around me.
Music drifted through the open doors—something with a slow beat that promised expensive drinks and another evening of going through motions.
Three supermodels were waiting inside, women who would be excellent company for as long as it took me to remember why none of this satisfied me anymore.
I'd taken maybe three steps toward the entrance when something slammed into me.
Not something. Someone.
Small, moving fast, barefoot on pavement.
My hands came up automatically to catch her before she fell, fingers closing on shoulders that were trembling muscle under torn fabric.
The impact was solid enough to make me take a step back, and for a second, the world narrowed to just the weight of her against my chest.
"Help me." The voice was raw, scraped, barely more than a rasp. "Please, help me."
I looked down, and everything else disappeared.
She was destroyed. That was the only word for it. Blood ran down her legs from cuts that covered her skin like someone had dragged her through glass. Her feet were shredded, leaving dark, bloody prints on the pavement.
Her shirt hung in tatters, soaked with blood, and her arm—it looked burning hot, welted, angry, and raw.
But it was her face that stopped time.
Even covered in grime, blood, and God knew what else, she was breathtaking. Her dark eyes were huge and desperate, framed by lashes thick with tears. Twilight brown skin was marked with cuts and bruises, but luminous beneath it all.
Her braids fell loose around her shoulders, matted with blood and leaves, but still somehow wildly beautiful in their disarray.
She was holding my shirt in her fists. Not cowering against me, not collapsing—just standing there with her fingers twisted in expensive linen, shaking but upright.
Strong even when she looked so broken. That single tell, those white-knuckled fists pressed against my chest, was the only indication that she needed someone on her side.
I understood that tell perfectly.
"Please." The word came out choked, and her eyes—those eyes—locked onto mine with an intensity that felt like being seen for the first time. "Help me."
"You're safe with me, darling." The endearment slipped out without thinking, natural as breathing. It fit her perfectly. I kept my voice calm, the tone I’d used to coax my children to trust me with something precious. "I promise you, you're safe."
She blinked, trying to focus on my face through tears and whatever she'd been running from. Her grip on my shirt tightened, then loosened slightly. Like some part of her, the part still capable of rational thought, recognized my voice. Recognized truth.
"I don't know who you are," she whispered, and her voice was shaking. The adrenaline was starting to drain, leaving pain and exhaustion in its wake. "But I’m trusting you."
The words hit deep in my chest and settled there like they'd been waiting years to find a home.
Then her knees buckled.
I caught her before she fell, scooping her up against my chest without thinking of the blood soaking into my shirt and pants. A beautiful woman had just run into my arms, asking for help, and I was only doing what was right.
What was necessary.
She made a sound, pain or relief, and her head fell against my shoulder. The canvas bag she'd been clutching stayed pressed between us, held tight even as her body started to give up the fight.
Her good arm wrapped around my neck, the gesture almost instinctive, and I could feel how light she was. Too light. Like she hadn't been cared for properly in longer than I wanted to think about.
"Thomas!" I called toward the Rolls, and he was already moving, opening the back door before I reached it. "The estate. Now."
I slid into the backseat with her still in my arms, cradling her fragile frame. "She needs medical attention, but she's obviously running from something. Someone. We take her to a hospital, and whoever she's running from will know exactly where to find her."
Thomas' eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, understanding clicking into place. "The estate has security."
"The estate has everything." I looked down at the woman in my arms, at her eyes starting to flutter closed. “Call my doctor. Tell him I need him at the estate immediately. Tell him to bring his full team and everything they might need."
"Yes, sir." Thomas spoke low and quickly into his phone, giving voice commands and sending apologies to the women, inventing some urgent business that required my attention.
He knew me well enough to understand that whatever had just happened, those supermodels were no longer part of tonight's plans.
We pulled away from the curb, smooth and fast, leaving the Meridian and the evening I'd planned behind as if they'd never existed. They'd been erased the moment this woman crashed into me.
She was quiet now, consciousness slipping away as the adrenaline finally gave up. Her breathing had gone shallow and rapid, her skin too pale beneath the blood and dirt. I could feel her heartbeat against my chest, fast and fluttering like a trapped bird.
"Stay with me, darling." I shifted her slightly, trying to find a position that wouldn't aggravate the wounds covering her body. "Just a little longer. Stay with me."
"The girls," she mumbled, the words slurred. "Have to help the girls. The evidence bag…”
"Shh." I touched her face gently, brushing blood-matted braids away from her forehead. Her skin was hot, a fever already setting in. "We'll help them. Whatever you need, we'll handle it. But first, you need to let me take care of you."
Her eyes opened slightly, unfocused but trying so hard to stay present. "Promise?"
"I promise." And I meant it, even though I had no idea what I was promising. I didn't know who these girls were, what the evidence in that bag contained, or what she'd escaped from that left her this destroyed.
It didn't matter. I'd made a promise, and I kept my promises.
She nodded slightly, the movement barely perceptible. Then her eyes closed completely, and her body went limp in my arms.
"Darling?" I checked her pulse—still there, still fast, but steady enough. She was just unconscious, her body finally surrendering to the trauma it had endured. "That's alright. Rest now. I've got you."
I settled her more carefully against my chest, mindful of the welts on her arm, of the cuts covering her legs, of how she was still clutching that canvas bag even in unconsciousness. The blood was spreading across my shirt, soaking through to my skin, warm and viscous.
I didn't care.
The streetlights painted patterns across her face as we drove, illuminating features I was just beginning to understand. She was significantly younger than me, perhaps in her late twenties, and so beautiful she probably made men stupid and dangerous in equal measure.
However, it wasn’t just the physical beauty that caught my attention.
It was something else. Something in the set of her jaw, in how she'd stood before me, broken but upright, and in the strength it must have taken to run barefoot and bleeding through the streets instead of surrendering to whatever she'd escaped.
I brushed another braid away from her face, my fingers gentle against skin that was too hot and marked with too much violence.
Someone had done this to her. Someone had hurt her badly enough that she'd run until she collapsed, had fought so hard for freedom that her feet were shredded and her body was one continuous wound.
And she'd chosen me. Out of everyone on that street, every person she could have run to, she'd crashed into my arms and asked for help with those desperate, beautiful eyes.
Wounded things seemed to keep ending up in my arms. Connor, years ago, with his trauma and sharp edges that cut anyone who got too close. Adrian, broken by a past he wouldn't talk about, learning to trust one careful step at a time.
And now this woman—this wounded, impossibly strong woman who'd grabbed my shirt and believed me when I promised she was safe.
I wondered what she'd been through. What had put those scars on her soul that I could see even through the physical damage. What had made her strong enough to escape whatever hell she'd been living in, but desperate enough to throw herself at a stranger and beg for help.
I felt something shift in my chest. Not the shallow attraction I'd felt for countless women over the years, but something deeper. More fundamental, like I'd been waiting my entire life for someone to need me the way she'd needed me in that moment, to look at me and see hope.
I wanted to be the ground she walked on.
Wanted to be the man she'd seen when she asked for help—strong enough to protect her, worthy enough to keep her safe.
I wanted to prove that her desperate trust hadn't been misplaced, that I could be exactly what she needed even though I had no idea what that was yet.
"Sir?" Thomas's voice was quiet. "We're almost there."
I looked up, saw the estate's lights appearing in the distance, perched like a beacon of home and safety. Security that money could buy and power I could enforce. Everything she needed right now, everything I could give her.
The Rolls pulled through the estate's gates, security cameras tracking our approach. The doctor’s car was already in the circular drive, the man himself waiting by the entrance with two nurses and enough medical equipment to handle whatever we were about to throw at them.
"We're here, darling," I murmured against her hair, even though she couldn't hear me. "You're safe now. I promise you're safe."
Thomas opened the door, and I stepped out with her still cradled against my chest. The doctor’s eyes widened when he saw the blood, saw her arm, saw the state she was in.
"Mr. Easton, what—"
"Not now." I started toward the entrance. "Guest suite, the one next to mine. Whatever she needs, whatever it takes, money is no object."
"Sir, I should examine—"
"You can examine her in the guest suite." I kept walking, keeping her held close against my chest. "She's staying here where I can ensure she's protected."
I carried her through the estate's entrance, past the glass walls and all the markers of wealth I'd accumulated over decades.
The team followed, their footsteps quiet on marble floors.
I took the stairs to the second level and down the hallway to the guest suite I'd chosen—large, comfortable, and most importantly, right next to my own room.
Close enough that I'd hear if she needed something. Close enough that I could protect her.
The room had a glass wall overlooking the ocean, and a massive bed with white sheets. I laid her down carefully on the bed, mindful of her wounds and the way she was still clutching that canvas bag. I attempted to ease it from her grip, but her fingers tightened around it.
"Leave it," I told the team, who were already moving forward with supplies. "Whatever's in there is important to her. Let her keep it."
One of my staff and nurses, Sylvia, a local woman I trusted, leaned over the welts on her arm and made a sound of recognition.
"Manchineel," she declared. "That's Manchineel sap. She's burned herself deliberately."
I stared at the destruction, at her skin that was red and inflamed.
“She did it to escape something worse." Sylvia met my eyes, understanding in her expression. "This burn... it looks like disease, like something contagious. If someone wanted freedom, this would do it,” she confirmed.
The pieces clicked together. The desperation in her voice when she'd begged for help, the way she'd mentioned girls, evidence, something she needed to protect. The fact that she'd been running barefoot through the streets like death itself was chasing her.
She'd poisoned herself to escape. She’d burned her own arm with one of the most toxic plants on the island because whatever she'd been trapped in was worse than that agony.
"Fix her," I ordered quietly, and something cold settled in my chest. "Whatever she needs, however long it takes. Fix her."
"Yes, sir." They were already at work, checking vitals and cleaning wounds. "But Mr. Easton, you should know that these injuries are consistent with long-term captivity. Malnutrition, old wounds, and the circumstances. Whatever she escaped from, she’d been there a while."
A while. The word echoed in my head, mixing with her voice pleading for help.
A while of whatever hell had left her this broken.
I looked down at her unconscious form, at Sylvia gently cleaning the blood from her face, revealing features that were even more striking beneath the grime. I looked at the strength it must have taken to survive captivity and still have the courage to escape, to run, to fight.
"I'll be right outside," I said, even though everything in me wanted to stay. To watch every breath she took, to make sure she kept breathing. "Call me when she wakes up."
I stepped into the hallway, closed the door behind me, and finally let myself acknowledge what had just happened.
A woman had run into my arms asking for help. A beautiful, broken, impossibly brave woman who'd grabbed my shirt with bloody hands and trusted me to keep her safe. Who'd chosen me out of everyone she could have asked, who'd believed me when I promised her protection.
And I was going to make sure that trust wasn't misplaced.
Whatever she'd escaped from, whoever had hurt her, they were going to learn what it meant to damage something close to Wade Easton.
I was already planning how to protect her, how to find out what she'd been running from, how to make sure whoever was responsible paid for every wound on her skin.