Hidden By His Side (Wicked Defenders)

1. Prologue

Prologue

R amiro wasn’t supposed to be on that bridge that night. The crap car Zeta had assigned to him crapped out about a block away. He would have ditched it anyway, but he rarely hoofed it anywhere anymore. It’d been a while since he was that dead-end street kid with no way to feed himself. Now he worked for an asshole who used him and would keep using him until there was nothing left.

Still, following orders was easiest. The thought of anything different was a blank emptiness Ramiro hated the looks of.

He tapped out a text to Zeta asking for pickup, but it didn’t get read. Nino Zeta acted like Ramiro was important to him to his face, but when push came to shove, he didn’t really give a shit about Ramiro.

The bridge loomed in the darkness. It wasn’t over a river or anything scenic. No, it was a shitty road over a shitty highway. Headlights dotted the highway beneath, despite how late it was .

Midway down the bridge, standing on top of the barrier meant to keep idiots from falling, hovered a young girl. Her bare toes hung over the edge of the cement barrier as she peered down at the traffic below.

Ramiro slowed as he drew closer, not wanting to startle her into splatting onto the highway.

She looked about ten years younger than him, somewhere in her late teens. Her dress hung on her frame, one of those summer ones with flirty skirts, but too loose, like she hadn’t been eating. Ramiro knew what it was like to go hungry.

Even with that, the dress was nicer than what anyone in the neighborhoods he grew up in had worn. Her blonde, flowing hair and pale skin glowed in the moonlight. Well, pale skin except for the dark bruise near her wrist.

Her bare feet drew his eyes. Something about them made her seem even more fragile.

She probably belonged to that rich neighborhood his mark had been in. The neighborhood that would be all up in arms once the body was found. They always acted like violence couldn’t touch them, but money didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of shitty people living there.

Violence was everywhere.

Even wherever this girl had come from.

Her feet shifted farther over the edge, her skirt fluttering around her knees .

Ramiro had thought of ending things a time or two over the years, but he was too goddamn stubborn to go through with it, or too much of a coward.

Her life had to be fucked if she wanted to die badly enough to jump.

He stared at her wrist, not liking the bruising on her skin. He’d seen his share of evil things—done a lot of it himself—but he still didn’t like bruises on women.

Ramiro leaned against the barrier as close as he dared to get.

“Someone hurt you, baby girl?” he asked, keeping his voice low and soothing.

She startled anyway, her arms flailing for balance as she edged away from him, her toes curling around the edge of the concrete. Her face turned away from the hypnotizing traffic below to meet his gaze.

She had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, sparkling with the warm glow of the flickering streetlight. Tears slipped out, following the path of others down her cheeks.

Something about this slip of a girl punched him right in the gut.

Ramiro cleared his throat, unable to look away. “Tell me who, and I’ll kill him for you,” he offered. He had enough blood on his hands. One more would barely mark his soul at this point.

Besides, the prick obviously deserved it, whoever he was, and killing someone would ease the ache that was building in his stomach .

The girl closed her eyes, more tears leaking out as her bottom lip trembled.

Ramiro used her distraction to heft himself up on the ledge, swinging his feet around to hang over the edge. Now he was close enough to grab her if it came to that. He tilted his head, peering up into her drenched face to watch her eyes open again.

They widened as they met his, her body swaying.

“Come on. Just give me a name,” he tempted her. “He should be facing death, not you.”

Her lips twisted, and her toes uncurled before curling around the edge again. “It wouldn’t change anything.”

“Maybe not, but at least I would feel better.” He shifted his hand, settling it over her right foot. His hand covered the whole damn thing. Her cold skin sent a chill through him. “How about you tell me why, at least?”

A sob escaped her, hanging in the air. She shook her head, her face going even paler.

“What’s it matter if I know, if you plan on being dead anyway?” he asked.

The wind swirled her skirt again, and her body shivered.

“Please,” she cried softly. Her eyes squeezed shut. “Please, don’t stop me.” Her foot tried to shift under his hand.

His grip tightened, unwilling to let her go.

“Convince me I should let you die.”

The wind almost snatched her next words. “You won’t want me to. ”

“I already don’t want you to.” He stroked his thumb along the side of her foot. “You can say it. Pretend I’m not here.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s impossible.”

Ramiro was kind of hard to miss. He was a big guy. It served him well when trying to intimidate people. For the first time, he wondered if his size could work as a shield just as well.

“No one else needs to know. I can keep a secret. I’ve got plenty myself.” Ones from his own past and tidbits he picked up in the business. Knowledge was power, and power was something he’d need to break out of the hellhole he’d dug his way into.

“This isn’t a secret.” She looked down at the traffic. “Everyone knows.”

“I don’t. Tell me.”

Her tears welled, falling faster. “I can’t. I can’t do it!” Her hand moved to her stomach, the nails digging into the material there. “I can’t have this baby, but no one will listen.”

Ramiro tightened his hand on her foot. “You’re pregnant?” She had to still be in high school. His mother had been just as young. He stared at the girl’s flat stomach under her clawing fingers. Even her fingers looked too thin. Her body was frail, as if the next gust of wind would sweep her over the ledge. Much too frail to have a baby.

Why was no one feeding this girl?

“It’s crawling inside me. I don’t want it there. I don’t!” Her nails dug in tighter. They had to be marking her flesh through the thin dress, and he wanted to drag them away. “This piece of them they left behind is growing, taking over.” Her chin dropped, her other arm coming around to clutch at her shoulder. “My body is no longer mine. It’s theirs. They took it.”

“They?” Ramiro asked. The vague picture of some prick knocking her up changed, shifting into something else.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Her lips trembled. “But now that he said it, it feels true. In my nightmares, there’s more than one voice. Too many hands. And laughter. Why would they laugh?”

A bunch of fucking pricks with their hands on her—he wanted to shatter the image. Ramiro’s other hand curled into a fist. “He said? He who?”

Her nails dug into her shoulder as well, her lips clamping shut. Her head turned toward the neighborhood where his job had been.

“I shouldn’t have gone there.” She tried to shift again under his hand. “Let me go.”

Ramiro’s grip curled tighter around her bare foot. “Where are your shoes, baby girl?”

She blinked, her eyes drifting down to where he touched her. “Oh.” Her hand finally loosened on her stomach to wrap around herself instead. “He screamed that it wasn’t him, that it could be any of them, and grabbed me. It hurt. I couldn’t…” She swallowed. “I ran. I forgot his parents asked me to take off my shoes.”

“His parents were there?” At least the little prick didn’t fall far from the prick tree .

She shook her head, but not in denial. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have gone. I just thought—” She shivered. “My parents won’t let me, but maybe his—” Her eyes closed. “It was a mistake.”

Ramiro’s gaze moved to her bruised wrist. “He the one who did that?”

Her eyes followed his, and she shifted her arm out, staring down at her wrist. “This? This is nothing. After that night, the bruises—” Her breath caught.

“Tell me about that night,” Ramiro said, his thumb back to stroking her.

She shivered again. “I can’t. The memories are all fractured. It’s my fault.”

“How could it be your fault?”

Her tears started falling faster, the shaking taking over her body. “It is. I deserve this.” She swayed toward the ledge.

“No. You don’t.” His body turned toward her, his arms reaching up, ready to grab her, but also an offer. “Come here.”

Her eyes widened, so gorgeous in the moonlight, even drenched and sadder than anything he’d ever seen. She swayed toward him, and then she was launching herself against him, nearly taking them both over the edge.

He bundled her up against his chest as she sobbed out her story.

The story of a sheltered girl giving in to the pressure of her friends to join them at a party. Her first, and she was going to be good, so she accepted a soda, not any of the alcohol going around. The boy who handed it to her seemed nice. He flirted with her, and she liked it.

“No one had ever flirted with me before,” she confessed, like it was the biggest sin.

No, the biggest sin wasn’t hers by a long shot.

She started not feeling well, so the boy led her somewhere to lie down. Then things dimmed in her mind, the jumbled voices and hands and laughter becoming a vague nightmare.

She woke up naked and bruised and bleeding.

“My throat was sore, like I’d been screaming,” she mumbled against his chest. “I still wake up screaming. My friends said they didn’t hear anything, though. They said I acted like a slut, going off with him.” Her nails dug into his tear-dampened shirt. “I wouldn’t. I was going to wait until marriage.”

Fuck, how did he get this innocent girl in his arms? Just touching her was probably tainting her.

“They laughed. My friends. They laughed about how I wasn’t so pure now.”

He suddenly wanted to kill a bunch of young girls. He didn’t touch women, but maybe an exception needed to be made.

Her fingers uncurled, her palm flattening over his heart. “I told my parents. I was so scared, and I told them. They were mad at me. They said I got what I deserved, sneaking out to a party like that.”

He daydreamed about killing her parents as well, nameless fuckers who didn’t deserve the gift they’d been given. If he killed them, she’d be his .

She was already his.

She turned her head, an exhausted sigh slipping out. “They said I have to have the baby. I’ve already embarrassed them in front of the church. An abortion would be an even greater sin.”

Of course the hypocritical bible thumpers would convince this poor, sweet girl that she was the biggest sinner.

His mother had believed in God. She’d believed that those God called were the chosen few, raised higher than non-believers.

If God chose these fuckers, then Ramiro was thankful not to be part of His chosen. His mother was probably rolling in her grave at the thought, or she would be if he believed there was anything after death. As a child, he’d stared at the empty husk his mother had become and known for sure there wasn’t a God.

“I know I shouldn’t, but I hate this thing inside me.” Her hand left his chest, the fingers curling into her stomach again, as if she could rip it out herself. “I can’t.” Her eyes slid shut, and it was as if she drifted away from him even while his hands tightened around her. “I can’t,” she repeated, nails digging into her flesh. “It’s better if you let me jump.”

He was so fucking angry, not at her, but at every single person who had brought her to this moment, yet he couldn’t prevent the harshness of his fury from slapping at her. “You think it’s better to die than to get a goddamn abortion?”

She flinched in his arms, but he wouldn’t let her get away.

“The baby’s dead either way, isn’t it?”

“They said I couldn’t.” Her voice shook with more tears.

“You don’t need their permission. I’ll help you.”

She stiffened, tension twisting up her body. “No. Let me go.”

He pulled her in tighter. “It’s too late for that, baby girl.”

“What?” She was so close to his body that her head bumped his chin when she tried to raise it.

“If you don’t want your life, let me have it.”

She struggled up until she could look into his eyes. The moment she did, the tension leaked out of her body, as if she became so light, she’d just float away.

Her smile formed for the first time, changing her face into something so beautiful he had no words for it. Her hand settled against his bearded cheek, stroking.

“Oh,” she breathed. “I get it now. I already jumped. This is heaven.”

Her fingers and words sapped away every thought in his head. No one had ever looked at him the way she was looking at him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so weak.”

“You’re wrong. You’re not weak.” He rubbed his cheek against her hand. “But you want someone to take care of you? I’ll fill that role.”

“You’ll take care of me?” she whispered. Her lashes fluttered closed, and she rested against him. He preferred her head tucked under his chin anyway.

“Nothing can stop me from taking care of what’s mine,” he promised her. “And you’re mine now. You want to be mine, don’t you?”

“This feels like a dream,” she mumbled. “I never have dreams anymore, only nightmares.”

Ramiro had never been anyone’s dream.

He gathered her in tighter, his large arms easily lifting her body as he shifted them away from the edge. “I’m Ramiro. What’s your name, baby girl?”

Her body completely melted against his, letting him take care of whatever happened next. “I’m Summer,” she mumbled.

Of course she had a name like that.

Her breaths fluttered against his neck as he stood with her in his arms. He finished crossing the bridge, her body adding no weight to his steps at all. Instead, holding her made them lighter than they’d been before.