Page 94 of Hide and Seek

She shakes her head. “Not really, but I also don’t want this asshole to get away with it. He needs to be punished. I know this is Blackstone and crime is just a given around here, but hecan’t just be going around hurting people like that. What if there wasn’t someone there to call for help? What if I didn’t get here in time? I would have bled until—”

She cuts herself off, not ready to say what would have happened, but I hear the words loud and clear.

Died.She would have died, and I never would have survived it.

“Start from the beginning,” I tell her, holding her tight.

She nods again and I notice how her tears have finally started to dry up, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because there’s simply no more tears left to cry or because there’s nothing left to feel. Is she hollow inside? Empty?

“I had gotten another tattoo—”

“What?” I grunt, my head whipping down toward her, scanning over her body. Surely I would have noticed if she’d just gotten a tattoo. “Where?”

She lifts her hand to the space behind her ear, furthest away from me. “I got a cute little voodoo doll,” she says. “She’s gorgeous. A total badass.”

“A voodoo doll?” I ask.

Nervousness flickers through her gaze, and when she lifts her chin to meet my stare, I see nothing but love shining through those big green eyes. “I got it for you,” she tells me, glancing away, not able to handle the heaviness of my stare. “Because you call me doll, and every time that you do . . . I like it.”

Her cheeks flush as a shy smile stretches across her lips, but when it pulls at her stitches, she cringes. “No shit, huh?” I ask, grinning right back at her. Gob-fucking-smacked.

“If you tell anybody, I’ll deny it and say it’s because you’re obviously obsessed with me,” she teases. “But it couldn’t just be a cute little kids’ doll. It had to be cool. Hence the voodoo part of it.”

“Of course,” I say, the breath completely knocked out of my chest at the fact that she was willing to put somethingpermanent on her body that symbolizes our relationship. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Harper rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I was coming out of the tattoo parlor, you know the one that’s owned by Harlow?” I nod, knowing it well as that’s where I’ve gotten most of mine, and she continues. “I was parked right out front on the curb when this group of guys came up to me. There were five of them, and one of them, the one who started all this shit, I know him from work. He’s the new night shift janitor. He’s a complete ass and always makes me feel uncomfortable, but if there’s a body on the table, he gets queasy and leaves.”

Why the hell didn’t she tell me about this guy?

“Do you know his name?”

She shakes her head, and everything plummets inside of me, but what’s one more hoop to jump through on my way to evening the score?

“He was the one calling the shots?”

She nods. “Yes. But they hurt me too. He tried to grab me so I dropped him, and then everything just blew up in my face. It all happened so quickly. They dragged me into the alley and beat me while I screamed for them to stop. They weren’t going to. They would have kept going until I was dead, but someone yelled at them, and they ran.”

“Shit, doll,” I murmur, my heart aching for her.

She glances away. “They stole my car.”

“Don’t worry about your car. I’ll handle that.”

She arches a brow and glances back up at me. “You’re gonna get it back?”

“If that’s what you want?” I ask. “I’m more than happy to get you a brand-new car, but if you specifically want that one, I’ll find it.”

She nods. “I don’t want a new car. I wantmycar.”

“Then I’ll get it, doll.”

A soft smile pulls at her lips and she reaches for her drink again, but I beat her to it, not wanting her to move too much and pull any of her internal stitches. After having a quick sip, she holds the bottle in her hands, falling into a deep silence, and I can practically hear the thoughts storming through her head.

“What is it?” I ask, meeting her broken stare.

“Earlier you said that the guy who brought me here had spoken to you. Did you, umm . . . Did you happen to see him?”

I shake my head, my brows furrowed. “No, he called me to let me know you were here. He said he was a friend of yours, but he didn’t give a name.”