16. Dominic
Dominic
The hospital was a formality, a necessary step in the documentation of what had happened.
Elena submitted to the examination with a numbness that worried me more than tears would have, her responses to the doctor’s questions mechanical, her eyes distant.
They found no physical injuries beyond minor abrasions from the restraints, no evidence of sexual assault, no indication that Marcus had hurt her in ways that would leave visible scars.
The invisible scars would take longer to assess.
Detective Mitchell interviewed her in a private room, her questions gentle but thorough, building the case that would ensure Marcus never saw freedom again.
Elena answered with admirable composure, recounting the abduction, the cabin, Marcus’s delusions with a clarity that suggested she was compartmentalizing the trauma, storing it away to process later when she felt safe enough to fall apart.
I stayed beside her through all of it, my hand in hers, my presence a silent promise that she wasn’t alone.
When Mitchell finally finished, when the doctors cleared Elena for discharge, when the administrative requirements of trauma had been satisfied, I made the decision that had been forming since the moment I’d seen her tied to that bed.
“You’re coming home with me.”
It wasn’t a question. Elena looked up at me, her eyes searching mine, some internal debate playing out behind her exhausted expression. She nodded slowly, the acceptance coming from a place beyond rational thought, from the same instinct that had kept her alive in that cabin.
“Okay.”
Lucia met us in the hospital lobby, her face streaked with tears, her arms wrapping around Elena with a fierceness that spoke of hours of terror. They held each other for a long moment, Lucia whispering reassurances, Elena accepting comfort with a passivity that wasn’t like her.
“I’ll get her things from my apartment,” Lucia said, her eyes meeting mine over Elena’s shoulder. “Bring them to your place tomorrow. Take care of her, Dominic. Please.”
“I will.”
The drive to my loft was silent, Elena staring out the window at the city passing by, her hand in mine, her grip tight enough to hurt.
I didn’t let go. I wouldn’t let go. The possessiveness that had been simmering beneath the surface for months had transformed into something absolute, a need to keep her close that transcended reason or restraint.
My loft felt different with her in it, the space that had always been mine alone suddenly becoming ours.
I led her to the bedroom, helped her out of her clothes with a gentleness that contradicted the fury still coursing through my veins, dressed her in one of my shirts.
She moved through the motions with mechanical compliance, her mind somewhere else, processing horrors I couldn’t fully understand.
“I need a shower,” she said softly. “I need to wash him off me. His touch, his voice, the smell of that place. I need it gone.”
I ran the water, stayed close while she stood under the spray, her body shaking with silent sobs, her hands scrubbing her skin with an intensity that bordered on violence.
When she finally emerged, her skin red from the heat and friction, I wrapped her in towels, dried her with a care that felt inadequate for what she needed.
We lay in my bed, her body curled against mine, my arms around her, holding her together while she fell apart in ways she hadn’t allowed herself to at the hospital. She cried until she had nothing left, until exhaustion claimed her, until sleep offered temporary escape from the trauma of the day.
I didn’t sleep. I lay awake, listening to her breathe, feeling the rise and fall of her chest, cataloguing every sign that she was alive and safe and mine.
The rage that had driven me through the search had settled into something colder, more calculated.
Marcus was in custody, facing charges that would ensure he spent decades in prison.
The legal system would handle him with appropriate severity.
That should have been enough.
It wasn’t.