Chapter 1
Chapter One
MOST PEOPLE GAVE THE streets around here a wide berth after midnight, but Roman Hayes had been walking them for years.
Partly because insomnia felt like less of a curse when you were walking, and partly because he was intent on punishing himself for his failure to protect her.
To save his sister, like he’d always promised he would.
He kept his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans as he strode through these dark, deserted streets—the streets that had claimed her, despite his efforts. The streets that were now a torture to him, a living testament to having let her down.
He came out here to be alone with his thoughts, so the sound of people nearby was not something he relished.
He grimaced, his square jaw setting in a harsh line as he instinctively turned down an alley that would take him further from the other humans occupying his space.
Only something stilled him, his long strides arresting automatically.
“Don’t! Please, don’t!”
A woman’s voice, panic evident in the shrill tones.
His chest tightened with a familiar burden, a weight pressing down on him to do something.
Then, a scream. A visceral, terrified scream.
His long legs began to move, faster now.
His hands came from his pockets, moving rhythmically at his sides as he broke into a jog, heading not to solitude but instead towards the cry for help.
Turning the corner, he saw legs first, then two shapes hunched close to the ground.
A handbag had been emptied, its contents tipped unceremoniously over the concrete floor.
As he approached, one of the figures stood, oblivious to Roman’s presence, and began to unfasten his jeans.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he ground out, pulling back one leg and kicking her in the stomach. “This’ll be over before you know it.”
Roman swore under his breath and ran faster. The alley was deserted and dark. Only a sliver of moonlight illuminated the attack that was in progress.
“I like hearing her scream,” the other dickhead retorted, and they both laughed then, a sound that sparked fury inside Roman, bringing back an avalanche of his deadbeat, drunk dad laughing as he pounded on his mother, then turned on Roman.
As he got nearer, he slowed, eyes sweeping over the woman, who had her hands held up in a classic gesture of both defiance and a plea.
“I’d think long and hard about what you’re about to do,” he said, words calm. Calm because he’d had a lifetime of dealing with this sort of thing; calm because he knew he could take them with his hands tied behind his back. They didn’t look much older than twenty, and both had a scrawny build.
“Fuck off,” creep number one said, hand down his pants.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Roman ground out. “Step away from her.”
The woman whimpered. His eyes flicked down to her.
She was bleeding from her temple, blonde hair matted with oozing red liquid.
Her shirt had been torn to reveal the top of her breast. He tightened his jaw at the same moment creep number two stood and evidently decided to pick a fight with Roman. Of all people.
Roman who stood six and a half feet tall, and had the breadth of a professional athlete.
The strength of one too. Roman who’d learned never to let his strength go, never to forget how to defend himself, even though it had been a long time since anyone had been stupid enough to attack him. Until now.
The creep’s fist cracked ineffectively against Roman’s cheekbone. He might have a bruise the next day, but that was about it. He reached out as though he were swatting at a fly and caught the man’s wrist easily, his reflexes swift, his strength unquestionably superior.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I told you to step away.”
“And who the hell do you think you are?” the other one demanded.
Roman twisted the first creep’s wrist up his back, then grabbed his other one, restraining him easily. The woman at his feet groaned. She clearly needed medical help.
The other jerk off apparently decided Roman had his hands too full to defend himself, and launched at him, but Roman spun easily, using the weedy guy he was restraining as a barrier, while kicking out one leg and tripping his would-be attacker.
He fell to the ground with a curse, his face hitting the bitumen hard.
Roman moved quickly, pulling off his belt and using it to tie up the guy’s wrists, then kicking the back of his knees so he crumbled to the ground.
It was satisfying to watch him struggle against the restraints, to attempt to get back to standing with his hands pinned behind his back.
But the other loser was already stumbling to have another go at Roman.
This time, Roman didn’t hesitate to strike back.
As soon as the guy had connected a fist to Roman’s face, he followed suit, an expert in knowing how to hit to subdue without causing serious damage.
He watched with satisfaction as the man fell to the ground.
A moment later, he was reaching into his pocket, removing his phone and calling his head of security.
“Ping my location,” he said. “Get here, now.”
There was no need to say anything more. Garrett had been working for him for a decade. The other man would know that if Roman was calling at this hour, it was urgent.
He crouched down now, giving his attention to the woman, his eyes taking in the pale honey colour of her complexion, the bruising around her jaw and collarbone, the fact one of her shoes appeared to be missing.
Hair that might have been in a braid at one point was now loose and untidy, as though it had been pulled.
He ignored the tightening in his gut, the inevitable anger that surged through him at the idea of these men having done this to her—to anyone. At what those men did to his sister.
Creeps one and two were lucky he hadn’t killed them. They weren’t the men who’d ruined Grace’s life, but they might as well have been.
“Can you tell me your name?” he asked.
She blinked, looking at his face as though trying to focus. As though her eyes—or brain—were damaged.
He swore quickly.
“No—I mean, yes.” Her throat shifted in the moonlight as she swallowed. The guy on the ground groaned, and the other one asked him if he was okay. Roman’s lips formed a grim line.
“Don’t move,” he said to the two men. “Don’t give me a reason to subdue you further.”
He kept his eyes on the young woman, even as his senses—honed over years of living the way he had as a kid—were calibrated to notice the slightest shift in the thugs behind him.
“Help’s on the way,” he said, reaching out and taking her fine-boned hand in his. Her nails were neatly trimmed but not manicured. “Just stay still.”
But she did the opposite of that, moving as if to sit, face awash with renewed fear.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, quickly. “You need to stay still until you’ve been assessed.”
“I can’t—you didn’t call an ambulance, did you?” She blanched, face going paper-white beneath her bruising. “Or the police?”
He frowned. “No.” There was no need. Not only was Garrett his head of security, he was a former paramedic. It had always made sense to Roman to have someone on his staff who could take care of any and all contingencies—another lesson his childhood had taught him, he supposed.
“I can’t—” she pressed a hand to her forehead.
“I can’t go to hospital. They’ll send me home.
They’ll send me home. And I’m not finished yet.
I need to find him.” She was rambling incoherently, but her fear was evident, so too the fact she spoke with an Australian accent.
“Thank you for your help, but I’m okay now,” she said, pulling her hand away and bracing her palm against the wall, pushing to standing.
Her knees buckled immediately. She would have fallen to the ground in a slumped pile if Roman hadn’t caught her, his strong arms sweeping beneath her and cradling her to his chest rather than letting her hit the ground.
“You likely have a concussion,” he said, confidently. He’d seen enough to know. “And who knows what else. You need medical attention.”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I just want to get out of here.”
A car slowed to a stop at the top of the alley; a door opened and Garrett stepped out.
Roman began to walk swiftly, still holding the woman to his chest, decision made instantly.
“Please, put me down,” she said, but her eyes were blinking heavily, as though she couldn’t keep them open.
“Deal with them,” Roman commanded, as Garrett opened the front passenger door to the dark SUV. “Then come to my place.”
Garrett’s eyes swept over the woman; he nodded once. “Hospital?”
Roman considered that. Normally, that’s what he would have suggested.
But there was something in her frantic cries, something in the way she’d insisted she couldn’t go, that had gotten through to him.
He understood fear, and a person doing what they thought was best, even when it made no sense.
“No.” He reconsidered. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary. See you soon.”
Garrett nodded his agreement.
“Oh, and Garrett?” Roman said, as he stalked around to the driver’s side of the car. “They attacked her. If I hadn’t come along, it would have been worse. See that they’re dealt with accordingly.”
“Got it.”
Roman swung into the SUV, backed out of the alley and turned the beast of a car in the direction of his Tribeca penthouse, his blood seething at what he’d just seen—and the memories it had stirred right back to the surface.