Knowing the prick, he probably just wanted to show him up.
My hands fisted tighter around the steering wheel, my knuckles torn to shreds and starting to scab, a reminder of the sleaze the asshole really was.
Thomas’s voice had become a constant whisper in the back of my head.
Bitches who don’t obey need to bleed.
What the fuck did that even mean?
Didn’t know if it was some chauvinistic bullshit tossed around like banter or some kind of true directive or command.
Probably wasn’t going to find the answer to it by creeping around his house in the middle of the night, but I couldn’t help but drive to his address.
Maybe I’d sit guard.
Cut him off first if the asshole was stupid enough to even think about going back over to Grace’s place.
I eased alongside the estate. It was at least four acres surrounded by a stone wall that was broken by sections of blackened wrought-iron. A passerby would only get blinks of the rambling lawn and expanse of massive, ancient trees that stretched over the property. That and the hint of the grandeur of the white house tucked inside was all a person could see.
Like they got off on the tease. Giving a tiny glimpse to those who weren’t quite good enough to take a look at the whole thing.
My chest fisted.
I hated this pompous shit.
Hated that Grace had been lured into it. Hated that her children were subjected to it.
I pulled to the curb at one of the breaks in the fence, peering into the muted lights that shown through the hedges. I could make out one side of an enormous fountain in the middle of the round drive and the very edge of a step of the front porch.
But it was a shadow off to the side that caught my attention.
I straightened, straining to see through the wisps of darkness that swayed and moved over the property.
What the fuck?
I had to be hallucinating.
Squinting, I angled to get a better look.
My heart took off at a sprint.
I was sure it would be impossible for me to mistake that posture. That overbearing demeanor of the man who stood facing who was clearly Reed Dearborne.
Lawrence Bennet.
Fear climbed my throat.
Locking it up in an excruciating kind of terror.
Not for me.
For her.
It felt like I was going to suffocate in the cabin of my car. Inhaling, I tried to break up the frozen shock, and I forced myself to shift into gear, releasing the brake so my car could roll away from the curb, barely accelerating and praying the rumbling engine wouldn’t draw attention.
When I got to the corner, I gunned it.
One sight in mind.
One reason.
One answer.
I’d promised her I would protect her.
And that was exactly what I was going to do.
Thirty
Grace
Frantic pounding echoed from the front door, cutting into my sleep and sending me bolting upright. With my palms pressed to the mattress behind me, my eyes darted around my room, confusion clouding everything. That was when I noticed my phone continually lighting up from where it sat on the nightstand.
Blip after blip.
Quickly, I fumbled for it. My heart that had spent the evening being subjected to the worst sort of turmoil jumped into an erratic rhythm when I saw who the string of texts were from.
Ian: Open the front door.
Ian: You have to be pissed at me. I know. I’m a dick.
Ian: But you need to open it right now. This isn’t about us.
I didn’t even question it. I threw off my covers and raced for the door, not taking the time to put on pants. I was barefoot, wearing just a tee and my underwear, fumbling down the darkened hallway to the door that a heavy fist was banging on again.
On the other side of the house, a light flickered on, and I knew Gramma had to have been awakened, too.
I rushed through the two locks and tossed open the door.
Ian was there, pacing on the stoop, gripping at mounds of that soft hair.
The man so menacing. So big and powerful where he raged at the door.
“Ian,” I whispered the shock, my mind struggling to catch up with what was happening. Why he would be standing there in the middle of the night after he’d spent the rest of the day and evening out in his car.
I knew keeping watch. Needing distance and not having the ability to fully walk away.
But after whatever had happened in the bathroom, my soul had ached with the reality that it had to. That after all of this was said and done, after the trial, after he saved my family, he had to walk.
He had to protect himself.
His career and his heart.
I knew, without a doubt, he didn’t have the full capacity of loving us.
Not the way I’d come to realize that I loved him.
His thick throat bobbed. The man stood in the wispy shadows of night wearing the same bloodied shirt, though the buttons were askew, the sleeves shoved up his arms. The man was a disaster.
His beauty so intense it was almost a tragedy.
“Grace.”
“What’s going on?”
His jaw clenched, anger blistering and crude, brutal possessiveness flashing in those strange-colored eyes. “We have to get you out of here.”
A bolt of terror stumbled me back. “What?”
Without being invited inside, he pushed through the door, angling as if he couldn’t stand it if our bodies were to touch. Like that might be the one thing that would finally push us over the edge.
As if we hadn’t already arrived at that point the first time we’d met.
“We have to get you out of here. You and the kids. Right now.”
I swiveled to watch him stalk into the house, and my sight caught on my grandmother who was standing off to the side, wringing her frail fingers together with her white hair sticking up all over the place.
I wanted to tell her everything was fine. To go back to bed and not to worry. I didn’t think I could pull off a lie that great.
Because I felt it—the disorder howling in the space.
Reaching out, I snatched Ian by the wrist before he had the chance to go busting down the hall. “Tell me what’s happening.”
He whirled around. I was taken aback by the fierce agony cut into every line on his face. “You’re in danger.”
“How . . . how do you know? What happened?”
“I don’t know, Grace. I don’t fucking know . . . but I know.” He stabbed his fingertips against his heart. “I know.”
He rushed for me and gripped me by the face with those big hands. Stealing my breath. Shattering my world. He’d been shattering it all along. “Please . . . you have to trust me on this.”
I couldn’t tell him that I trusted him more than I’d ever trusted any other man in my life. I couldn’t tell him that he was the one who felt like safety. Couldn’t tell him that he felt like the goal we were running for.
The only thing I could do was nod frantically.
Then his eyes raked down my body.
So hot, they licked across my flesh like the searing of flames, everything turning dark when he realized I was standing there in almost nothing.
He dropped his arms as if he were being burned and stepped away. “Get dressed.”
I nodded again and darted down the hall. He was right on my heels, moving into my childhood room. He filled it with that presence, bounding and pulsing, pouring into my lungs and strumming my heart into a frenzy.
I pulled on a pair of jeans, and the man was at my closet, throwing the doors open and grabbing a bag. He moved to my dresser and started to frantically stuff clothes into it.
I shoved my feet into my shoes, my nerves frazzled where they tumbled from my mouth. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe,” he told me, giving me no details.
It didn’t matter. I trusted him anyway. Trusted him with my life. With my children’s lives.
And I realized that was the most significant thing of all.
That I’d place them in his hands and trusted that he would do them no harm. That he would be the one to stand for them. Protect them.
Even when he had absolutely nothing to gain.
I wondered if he had any idea what type of man that made him. If he had the first inclination that when I looked at him, I saw someone giving and selfless and good, when he believed himself rotten and vulgar.
The devil when I saw a shattered saint.