Widow nodded and a second later, after Delilah took Yumi off to give us some peace, I had a rundown version of everything that had gone on. Even the worst bits. The kind of things I didn’t think I would have handled half as well had I not spent too long – weeks from the sounds of things – being tortured, driven insane and having the worst sort of sick fantasy occurring around me.
“They are dead?” I blanched. “All of your family and the girls? Fuck. Please tell me Henley made it out? She is okay? The stalker lady told me she was gone too – she showed me horrid things but I… I didn’t know if they were real. I hoped they were not real.” I wanted to hit something, but I could barely walk.
Even leaning on Widow didn’t help much, as he led me to a squeaky blue couch on the other side of the room. So I could eat the bowl of hospital soup, bread roll, and fruit that Kiril silently came back with before he too left and gave us more peace. The food was vile compared to the cooking I was used to from my Kody, but seeing as I hadn’t eaten properly in way too long, I didn’t care. I would have taken a plate full of slop and was glad to be eating things again.
“Henley came back to us three days ago.” Widow’s smile had dropped, his hands clenched into fists as he sat on the nearby armchair, playing with his switchblade. “The entire thing was just so Rocky could get to her – so he couldtakeher.”
The soup almost came back up again. Almost.
I knew what Rocky would do. What he had done. If Henley had spent anything more than minutes in his company, she would be… she was…
Fuck.
“No.” my head shook harder, hands shaking. “Please tell me she is okay. I… just…”
Widow ran a hand over his face, cursing to himself a bit before he replied.
“She’s in rough fucking shape. I’m not gonna lie. The bastard tortured her – hetorturedher and he… he cut her. He carved the wordmineinto her fucking skin, amongst other things. And he fucked up her eye, and the doctors have done their best, but they don’t know if she will ever get her full sight back – they said that eye might be stuck at like, half blind orsome shit… and he… he…” Widow couldn’t keep talking about it and I didn’t blame him.
My tears were back, and Henley was just my friend. She was his family. Nearly the only one he had left.
“Is she here?” I had eaten half my soup in our conversation and a few bites of bread. And though I could have eaten more, I was feeling too sick to risk it and had places I would have rather been. “Take me to her please – if she would not mind.”
Widow did exactly as I asked, taking me to the room next door to my suite and was identical. It was full of light. Windows open wide, lamps on - the big light too. Not an ounce of space was left in the dark, nor was it occupied by one person. It was obvious that Widow had been sleeping in the room too, perhaps Delilah, by the looks of things, with some of her clothes and makeup lying around the chair. And curled up in the middle of a bed, sleeping hopefully without nightmares, was a very dishevelled and scarred Henley.
“Lilah, Kellan, and I crashed with her, so she wasn’t alone.” Widow confirmed my thoughts as I remained in the doorway, not wanting to disturb his cousin. “Yumi was in the next room being checked over, but she’s not too bad beyond superficial shit and a load of trauma. The doctor would have signed her out the first night she came but she wanted to stay until you were closer to waking up – I don’t think she wanted to be at the house without you, and I can’t say I blame her, even if she isn’t anywhere near as scared as the other women were. You are the only one of us she knew, even if it wasn’t for very long.”
The dead women were rattling around my brain like nails being stabbed into my flesh.
The ones who I had promised freedom to and had not delivered.
They’d been slaughtered in my house.My fucking house.
Henley had been taken.
Delilah had been bruised and forced to risk death so that Darius wouldn’t die.
Darius had been shot; almost killed.
The McCormacks had died. All of them nearly.
Retta had been injured.
Yeva had been hurt a little; she’d stained her hands with blood, too.
Diamond had been terrified, and I had promised her she would never be scared again.
I promised the bad men would never come back, and they had – they had come back, and they had…
“Whatever the fuck you’re thinking about, stop it.” Widow grabbed my arm, ordering me with his best stern gangster voice that did nothing to me, even if the thought was there.
“I think of nothing.” I lied as I ignored my trembling hands and the aches in my body as I stared at Henley and wondered just how long it would take me to make things right with her – to apologize for what I had inadvertently caused to happen to her.
“You look guilty, and I promise you’ve got nothing to be guilty over. We could have done loads differently, but we didn’t. There is no point living in the past of feeling guilt we don’t deserve — we should just concentrate on ending things. And on making sure Rocky fucking Mercer dies a very painful death.”
Widow kept insisting I had nothing to feel sorry over, and eventually I relented and changed the subject as I pinched the bridge of my nose, pretending to be calm as I watched Henley sleep, making sure her chest kept rising and falling. “Did Yumi told you her story? Do you know exactly what happened, or would you like to hear from me what I know?”
There was no fucking chance I was telling Widow what I had been through. Not now. Maybe not ever. I needed my uncle, my men, and my teddy. They were who would get to hear the truth, and they were who would know the depths of my pain. Nobodyelse could. I wouldn’t handle it. But I could speak about Yumi a little without going into anything to do with me and that was better to my brain – helping her out gave me something to focus on.
