Page 8

Grit

It didn’t take an idiot to work out he’d pushed her into running.

Grit paced the aisle of Evander’s private jet as it flew toward Phoenix. He’d been in the air for almost ninety minutes, and he’d spent the entire time rewinding the night before over and over in his head, trying to pinpoint the exact time she’d chosen to make her escape.

In between those thoughts, he was in contact with Jasper, Atticus, and Anarchy as they kept him updated with whatever they could find.

His hands were tied until he was back on the ground, and it was incredibly emasculating to leave Tabitha’s fate in the care of other people until he got home.

Served him right for asking her for so much, Grit thought bitterly. The note she’d left had been brief, but he felt the emotion in it. She honestly believed she wasn’t capable of love, but perhaps if he hadn’t been so hasty in trying to show her she had nothing to be afraid of with him, he could’ve proved her wrong.

She had a big heart, one he didn’t doubt could love as fiercely as she fought, but she’d locked it down tight, determined not to let a single dent threaten her solitary existence.

He checked his watch, impatient to start tracking her down.

Even as he was flying to Phoenix, Atticus was dispatching another security team to cover Elias—at Grit’s request. Just because the hit was on Tabitha’s head now didn’t mean Elias wasn’t at risk, and Grit wasn’t taking any chances.

He needed to be at headquarters, helping to track Tabitha, and ready to go after her at a moment’s notice. He knew damn well she was setting her sights on Ireland, but he had no idea if she was planning on taking the scenic route, popping off a few bad guys on her way, or going straight for the jugular.

The need to find her, to protect her, went deeper than a simple dominant instinct to keep the female safe. No, he was at a point where it felt like his entire future hinged on her safety, her survival.

Tabitha was no longer just a mission, a woman to keep locked down until the threat passed. She wasn’t a crazy assassin, an annoyance, a royal pain in his ass—fuck, who was he kidding? Yes, she was all three of those and more, but the crux of the matter was she belonged to him.

To him, with him.

He’d be damned if he’d let some Irish fuck with a shitload of money take her away from him.

Time ticked past far too slowly. As the minutes passed, the opulent cabin seemed to grow smaller; too fucking small to contain the enormity of his emotions as they fed off his frustration.

There were ants running under his skin by the time the captain announced they were starting the landing sequences and requested Grit take his seat and buckle up. He ground his teeth together as the plane descended and taxied into its spot, and he was about ready to rip the door off as he waited to get off the damn tin can and throw himself into work.

He was a little thrown to find Jasper waiting for him, leaning against one of Atticus’s new SUVs. The sadist looked good, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, about as inconspicuous as a man could be.

Grit crossed the tarmac, backpack slung over his shoulder. “You found her?”

Straightening, Jasper jerked his head. “Get in. I’ll talk you through it on the way.”

“On the way where?” It was a reflex question, one he didn’t expect an answer to as he tossed his backpack on the back seat, and climbed in beside Jasper as his friend slid into the driver’s seat. “You know something.”

The engine started with a powerful growl. Wheels spinning for traction when Jasper floored the gas pedal, the tank of a vehicle lurched forward like a rocket. “Archie picked up several 911 calls on the scanner an hour ago. Reports of a fight in an apartment block—nothing too unusual in that particular area of the city.”

“But unusual enough for several people to call it in?”

“She tracked the calls to one number. Seems they came from an occupant inside the building, one who apparently monitors the comings and goings of residents, tries to be a good neighbor.” Attention firmly on the road, Jasper waved his hand. “When the cops arrived, there was a blood trail from the sidewalk to a room on the first floor.”

Dread pooled in Grit’s gut. “What kind of blood trail?”

“My contact in the department says droplets and some partial footprints. Five adult males were discovered inside the room. All deceased. One’s already been identified by a beat cop as a transient who recently began camping out in the building elevator. He had a record as long as my arm; assault, rape, robbery, you name it.”

“Tabitha?”

“They haven’t found any other bodies in the apartment. Hell, she’s not even a suspect. All they know is that there was a fight resulting in five deaths and the suspect ran, likely injured.” Weaving through cars competently, Jasper glanced at him. “Archie’s already pulled CCTV from the local area, getting ahead of the cops. The apartment was leased under the name Imelda Stadt, which happens to be one of my sister’s aliases.”

“How did they die?”

“Preliminary reports are a broken neck and four throat lacerations.”

Hissing through his teeth, Grit shook his head. “Not quite her trademark.”

“She cuts throats just as well as she castrates a man,” Jasper responded. “We’ve got her going into the building, and coming back out just before the cops arrived on scene.”

Fuck. This day was going from one level of shit to another far too quickly for his comfort. He should’ve tied his fucking girl to the goddamn bed, then she’d be safe in his arms instead of fighting for her goddamn life. “She’s identifiable?”

A long, heavy sigh. “She would be, if the footage ever fell into the cops’ hands. Luckily for my idiot sister, Anarchy is a fucking wizard with tech. Not only will she erase whatever she finds, she and Sonic are tracking down Tabitha’s ride.”

“If Ireland is her next port of call, she’ll head for an airport. I don’t think she’d use a private airstrip,” Grit mused, indicating the one they’d just left with a flick of his thumb. “She needs to keep her head down, merge in with a crowd. Flying commercial is the best way to do that.”

“Depends how badly she’s injured. Knowing her, she’ll take a goddamn nap, plaster some concealer on a bruise or two, and be on her way.” Jaw tight, Jasper growled in exasperation.

But there’d been blood, Grit thought. Not just footprints which were easily explained given the four cut throats she’d doled out, but droplets. Maybe she’d just been covered with her victims’ blood and, in a rush to get out before the cops arrived, didn’t clean up as well as she should have, but there was a distinct possibility she was injured with more than just a few bruises.

The screen set in the dashboard lit up as the speakers bleated with an incoming call. Jasper pressed a button on the wheel. “Kitten.”

“Sir. Sonic found the SUV.” Anarchy’s voice came clearly over the line as she reeled off an address.

“Good girl. Get me a list of all the hotels, motels—”

“I don’t need to. She spent half an hour driving around in a circle before pulling into the Sleep-Eazy Motel. I’m logged into their system. They’ve registered only check-in during the last hour, under the name Katerina Thatcher. Cash payment, and the room is booked for a week with a do not disturb request. She’s in room sixteen.”

Grit immediately leaned forward and used the GPS system to locate the address. “The Sleep-Eazy is twenty minutes away.”

“We’re on route,” Jasper told his wife. “Get someone out there to retrieve her vehicle. Can you access their security footage?”

The rapid click of fingernails on a keyboard filled the brief silence. “Benson and Kaufmann have been dispatched to take care of the SUV. ETA forty minutes. I’ve already wiped three hours of footage, and… yup, there she goes, I’ve taken care of the booking. As far as anyone’s concerned—aside from the clerk—Tabitha was never there.”

“Who knew my kitten would turn out to be such a deviant little lawbreaker?” Jasper crooned, a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. “Tell Atticus you and Sonic need a raise.”

She snorted. “Just deal with the clerk and bring my sister-in-law home. That’s all the raise I need.”

“Working on it, kitten. Keep us updated.”

“Of course, Sir.” She paused. “Nice to have you home, Grit. We missed you.”

“Thanks, Archie. It’s been quiet without you.” The pleasantries sounded hollow to his ears; too much worry was brewing in his gut to concentrate on being sociable.

Tuning out the rest of the conversation, he watched the city pass by in a blur. Jasper was a capable driver, handling the knots of traffic like a pro, taking a shortcut here and there that drove the GPS system crazy. He wished he was in the driving seat—they’d already be at the damn motel.

An eternity passed before he spotted the huge red and gold sign proclaiming the Sleep-Eazy Motel in massive letters. The P was missing, which was apt considering what a sleazy shithole it was from the outside. The inside probably wasn’t going to win any awards.

A handful of cars and trucks were spread out over a parking lot littered with trash. The whites lines bisecting the spaces were a decade past being faded, and there was some kind of mutant plant growing from a crack in the asphalt.

Jasper swung their SUV into the spot beside an almost identical one. “This is hers. Christ, she knows better than to park her ride outside where she’s staying. It’s a dead giveaway.”

Grit was already out of the vehicle, jogging around the rear to approach the driver’s side of Tabitha’s GMC Yukon. His heart sank when he saw the blood leading away from the door, then plummeted as he squinted through the lightly tinted window.

The interior resembled a murder scene. Blood on the wheel, on the window, down the seat.

Room sixteen, Anarchy had said.

“Wait, Grit.”

“We need to find her.” Not in the mood to exert patience, he spun and started running, following the blood trail. It stopped a few feet from the office door, then doubled back again in the other direction. Clever little tiger had staunched the bleeding long enough to get herself a room.

Jasper ranged himself beside Grit outside the door. There was blood on the handle, not enough to draw a civilian’s attention unless they were actively looking for it.

“Kaufmann’s an excellent cleaner,” Jasper murmured. “He’ll make sure there’s no evidence left behind.”

A terse nod was Grit’s response. The urgency pulsing behind his breastbone stole his voice, because something was wrong. He raised his hand and knocked twice. When there was no answer, he knocked again, harder this time.

A soft moan was barely audible, but it gave him justification to kick the door in after he tried the handle and found the door locked. The impact of the hit ricocheted up his leg, but fuck, the satisfaction of hearing wood break and splinter was immense.

The room beyond was dim, closed off from the sunlight by thin, piss-poor blinds. He stepped straight into a small living area, could see into the kitchenette through an open arch. “Tabby? Little tiger?”

“Little tiger?” Jasper questioned.

Ignoring him, Grit ventured further as his friend made a half-hearted effort to shut the ruined door. He didn’t give a shit about a piece of flimsy wood—it was replaceable; Tabitha was not. “Tabitha, if you’re conscious, I need you to let me know. Jasper’s with me. We’re here to help.”

A quiet, pained wheeze came from his left. He used his knuckles to push open a sheet of fucking plywood masquerading as the bathroom door, and stopped dead when the black hole of a gun’s barrel aimed—well, almost—at his chest.

The love of his fucking life slumped on the floor of the miniscule shower, her weapon hand wavering as though the Beretta was too heavy to hold for long.

Fully dressed, Tabitha was drenched in blood. Some was already dry, but there was too much more fresh. Her skin was white, fading to ashen gray, and her expression… hell, he’d seen it before, a study in pain she accepted in silence.

The right side of her face was swollen, impeding her vision, and the flesh looked hot and tight beneath the black and purple bruising. Blood crusted her lips and chin, leaving a trail that ran down the engorged mess of her throat; yet more bruises, and the imprint of what appeared to be links from some kind of chain.

Blood ran down her arms from several gashes he could see through her torn sleeves. Deep wounds needing immediate treatment. The hand not holding the gun was twice the size it should be, her fingers partially curled around the vicious red welt lacing her palm.

“Jesus, fuck,” Jasper stated, fury in his voice.

Tabitha said nothing, her good eye locked on Grit without seeing him.

“Find a first aid kit,” he said quietly. “We can’t get her out of here until we stop the bleeding. I’ll move her into the bedroom.”

“Touching her isn’t a smart idea,” Jasper argued. “This could trigger her.”

He’d weathered enough of her triggers to know what she was capable of and how to handle her crazy. Right now, her health took priority over his safety, and he was fully prepared to put his life in jeopardy to see to her wounds. “I’ll be fine.”

Jasper grunted unhappily, but turned and hurried away.

“Little tiger, I need you to listen to my voice. Put the gun down, yeah? I don’t know what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into, but it’s over now. Shooting me is gonna make this day the suckiest on record.” He edged closer, warily eyeing the gun. “You don’t need the gun. You’re safe. I’m here now; your brother’s here. We’ll keep you safe.”

Her lip curled with pain. “Don’t… need… a white… knight.”

“No, you need a fucking EMT, but you’re gonna be stuck with me for the time being.” Grit blew out a breath when she let the gun clatter to the floor. “That’s my girl. I’m going to pick you up now. We need to see where you’re hurt.”

A low, bitter laugh echoed in the tiny room, quickly changing to a choking wheeze. “Hate to tell you this, big boy… but I’m so fucked.”

“We’ll deal with it.” Crouching beside her, he shifted the weapon out of her reach, setting it on top of a blood-soaked jacket strewn over the floor. Unable to resist, he bent and brushed his lips over her blood-spattered forehead. “I’ve got you.”

She recoiled the instant his arm banded around her back. “Don’t.”

“We’re not staying on the floor forever, little tiger.” He eased his other arm under her legs and hoisted her into a cradle hold, rising as she cried out sharply. “Easy, Tabby. Just give me a second.”

It took thirty for him to carry her through to the bedroom and lay her down on the boring white sheets. With professional efficiency, he managed to strip her down to her underwear, barely refraining from spewing curses like vocal fire.

From head to knees, she was black, blue, purple, red. Contusions dominated her torso, while bruises and welts conquered her back. Open wounds on her arms were steadily oozing blood. “What the fuck did you do?”

Her good eye rolled. “Got suckerpunched to start.”

Fuck, he hated how labored her breathing sounded. As footsteps approached, Grit cupped her head in his hands, carefully feeling around her skull for any lumps or injuries. “Anything broken, little tiger?”

“My pride?”

“You won five-on-one and think you lost?”

“Got the shit beat out of me.” She grunted, hissing between her teeth.

That bastard Dominic deserved to spend an eternity roasting on a spit over the fires of hell, he thought darkly, keeping his hands gentle as he lightly probed her eye sockets, cheekbones, jaw.

Jasper strode to the other side of the bed, setting down a toolbox-sized med kit. The familial similarities were so damn striking when he was in Tabitha’s vicinity; there was no one who could deny their blood tie. “Kaufmann has orders to clean everywhere between the parking lot, the office, and here. Atticus is prepping the medical area back at headquarters.”

Faster than Grit thought possible—given her condition—Tabitha pushed him away and rolled to her feet. Air dragged audibly into her lungs as she faced the pair of them, broken body angled for a fight. “Not a chance.”

“Shut up, hellion. Let us help.” Jasper flipped open the lid and pulled out a pair of thin gloves, snapping them on. “This comes far too close to the time we found Bodie fucked up seven ways to Sunday, and the last thing I need today is a reminder of that.”

“I…” That tough little form swayed. “Don’t touch.”

Grit sighed and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her and caging her against him before her knees gave out. “I’m going to stay with you the entire time, Tabby. Jasper’s our team medic. He’s your brother. We don’t want to hurt you.”

“No, you just want… to drug me and… lock me away.”

“I won’t let that happen, little tiger.” He walked her backwards to the bed until her knees hit the mattress. Easing her down with the lightest touch he possessed, he touched the back of his fingers to her unmarred cheek tenderly. “Trust me, okay? Jasper’s going to give you the good stuff and you’re going to sleep away a few hours of pain.”

“I don’t need babying,” she snapped.

“Right now, you do. Take the relief, Tabitha. Just for a little while.” Grit caught Jasper’s signal from the corner of his eye. Setting his hands on her wrists, he pinned them to the mattress. “It’ll be over in a second.”

He felt her gather beneath him, trying to summon enough energy to override the pain so she could kick his ass. Just as quickly, she surrendered; through trust or simple exhaustion, he didn’t know.

“It’s only a low dose,” Jasper assured her. “Not enough to get addicted. Need to be careful until we know the extent of your trauma.”

“I’ve got you, little tiger.” Grit’s heart squeezed when she averted her face, turning away from her brother as he efficiently stuck her with the needle in her upper arm. He swore he saw tears shimmering in her eye before she closed him out.

In seconds, the tension holding her together fell apart, finally allowing her to relax. Releasing her wrists, he nudged her chin until he saw how slack the muscles around her eyes and mouth were; she was gone, far away from the pain.

Jasper was already taking action, assessing his sister like she was just another soldier. In a way, she was—she’d sustained her injuries in one hell of a battle. She’d won, but it had cost her. “They tried to strangle her with a fucking chain.”

Grit shifted to the side, giving his friend easier access. “Tried and failed.”

“Hmmm.” Dragging pads and bandages from the box, Jasper began binding the deep slices in her arms. “How long have you been fucking my sister, Grit?”

His mouth dropped open. “Ah… what?”

One white-blond eyebrow arched sharply as those arctic blue eyes bore into Grit’s. “Gonna lie to my face? Tabitha’s known for being crazy as a rat in a trap, and she can’t stand being touched by anyone. But you… she’s at her lowest point, where all her vulnerabilities are laid wide open, and she lets you hold her without so much as clawing your face off.”

Oh boy, this was about as awkward as it got, Grit thought. Running his tongue around his teeth, praying they’d stay exactly where they were, he nodded. “I haven’t slept with her in the Biblical sense. We’ve been getting to know each other, and working on… desensitizing her aversion to being touched.”

“That’s a fancy way of saying you’ve had your hands all over my sister.”

He thought about how she’d fought him just the night before, the trust she’d given him. He wasn’t going to abuse that trust by blabbing to her brother. “What I have or haven’t done is none of your business, Jasper. Maybe I overstepped the line by not telling you I was getting involved with Tabitha on a personal level, but I’m not going to betray her confidence.”

“Hoes before bros?”

“Did you really just call your sister a ho?”

The sadist grimaced. “Shit. No, I did not. If she ever asks, that’s a hell no, I did not.” Wounds bandaged, a stethoscope was the next item selected from his bag of tricks. “Lungs are clear. I’ll give her something to ease the inflammation in her throat when we get back.” He began palpitating her abdominal area carefully. “Sometimes I wonder how Anarchy puts up with me, knowing what I am, what I’ve done. How she can love me so effortlessly despite everything.”

“Because you show her every day that you’re not the man you were raised to be?” Grit lifted his shoulder, his gaze keen on the press of Jasper’s fingertips into Tabitha’s belly.

“Maybe. Taking on a project of this magnitude with Tabitha… it could pull you in, Grit. Deeper than you might like. She’s not me; she didn’t get away from Dominic and step out of the life. She went off on her own and acquired her own agenda.” A frown marred his brow. “Sometime in the last few hours, she brutally murdered five men and left their bodies in an apartment she kept secret using an assumed name. Those kinds of habits don’t break easily; is that something you can live with?”

“She doesn’t do anything without a reason, J. We don’t know the whole story yet, but she said she was suckerpunched. Five men against one small woman screams ambush to me, which means she acted in self-defense. I can live with that.” He held up his hands, spreading his fingers wide. “Does it bother me she sneaks off and strings some poor bastard up by his balls while she toys with her kill? Not really, not when I know she’s out there, picking and choosing her victims with a specific criteria. If you ask me, pedophiles get what they deserve if they fall on her radar. My hands aren’t all that clean, don’t forget. I have blood on them, as thick as what she wears.”

“Good answers. Two for two so far.” Jasper examined the rest of her competently. “No one would blame you for walking away, if that worries you. I know how whacky she can get.”

“Is that a subtle suggestion?”

“No. Honestly, I think—I hope—you’ll be good for her. She needs someone she can rely on even when the crazy takes over. If that hasn’t scared you away, I don’t know what will.”

Grit chuckled. “Not planning on being scared off. I’m starting to think I’m in it for the long haul.”

“All right then. Do I need to issue the standard big brother threat?”

“I’ve got the gist of it.”

“Perfect. Help me roll her over so I can take a look at her back.”

Between them, they turned her on her side. Jasper ran his fingers over the livid bruising and welts, his expression fluctuating until it became a solid mask of fury. “This is going to ground her for a while. Extensive bruising, front and back. There’s some rigidity to her stomach which could indicate internal bleeding. Time to pack up and head out.”

“Hospital?” He could only imagine the sheer carnage she would wreak if she woke up in the ER. Padded cuffs and psych exams would be the least of her problems.

“I’ve got a state of the art medical facility at my disposal,” Jasper reminded him. “Technically, I’m not a doctor, but I can handle anything up to a brain tumor. Aside from that, Tabitha’s never done well with doctors. Not after Rita.”

“You kept tabs on her?”

“No, I didn’t know anything about her until the showdown with Dominic. When it became clear she was planning on sticking around, I asked my brothers about her, did some digging. Ashford, however, has many tabs.”

Ashford was the dick who’d sent Tabitha running to Grit’s bathtub, hollow and haunted, because of his big mouth. The one whose face Grit wanted to pound into a bloody mess for causing her the kind of pain she didn’t recover from easily.

Tabitha’s clothes were ruined; they’d have to be incinerated. The motel’s clientele might not notice a woman being secreted from a room half-naked, or even care, but knowing his luck, someone would notice, care, and report it to the police.

Grit bundled her limp body into the duvet, wrapping her up so only her face remained uncovered. “She’s not being locked in a cell, Jasper. I don’t care what Atticus’s orders are, I don’t give a shit if you think it’s necessary. No cuffs, no drugging her stupid, no treating her like she’s a homicidal maniac.”

Jasper shot him an amused look as he repacked the med kit. “Five dead men in an apartment with her DNA all over them, brother.”

Shit, he couldn’t deny that. “Self-defense.”

“More than likely,” he agreed amiably. “She wouldn’t purposefully murder five guys somewhere that could be even remotely connected to her, alias or not. Not when she’s got her focus locked on Ireland.” The box snicked shut; Jasper set his hands on the lid and sighed. “We both know she’s dangerous, Grit. Yeah, she might be more controlled around family, but we’re talking about our coworkers, people we consider friends. Is it fair to expose them to her in one of her moods? If she triggers?”

Hefting her into his arms, Grit stared his friend down. “No cuffs, no drugs. Tabitha’s mine, that’s all anyone needs to know, and I’ll make sure she behaves.”

Consideration set Jasper’s face into thoughtful lines. His sharp gaze dropped from Grit’s eyes to Tabitha and back up again. “I’ll talk to Atticus. If you’re serious about keeping her—and I think you are—there’s something you need to read. She’s not going to thank me for it, maybe you won’t either, but it’ll explain how she became what she is.”

Wow, that sounded ominous. Whatever was in Jasper’s possession, Grit wasn’t sure he wanted to read it. He’d rather hear it straight from the assassin’s mouth, so to speak, but experience had taught him that her past was locked up tight behind closed lips and was liable to stay there.

Prying it out of her required a level of trust they hadn’t reached yet.

“Let’s just get her back to HQ and patched up before she wakes and decides skinning us alive is suitable payback.”

“Go. I’ll grab her gun; Kaufmann will dispose of the rest.” Jasper looked around critically. “Doesn’t look like she’s been here long. An hour and he’ll clean it so well, it’ll be like she was never here.”

“Got to appreciate a good cleaner.” Readjusting Tabitha in his arms, Grit headed for the door. “J, she’s going to be mine one way or another. I’d like it if you had my back if she gets stubborn.”

“Just say the word, Grit.”

*

Tabitha

Caught in the weird consciousness between reality and the veil of drugs in her system, Tabitha relived the worst moments of her life in a scrolling reel of memories. She hated she was too weak to lift herself out of the in between, too afraid to let go and sink back down into the dark.

Strapped to a table, an IV inserted into the vein on the inside of her thigh because the ones in her arms had collapsed. Pale gold liquid drip feeding into her body, making her skin feel tight and itchy, her blood like ice.

Staring at the little black rabbit, all fluff and floppy ears, as it danced and jittered on the table in its death throes, thanks to the poison she’d injected under its skin.

Crying on the inside because tears were a weakness she wasn’t allowed, holding back the sobs as one big hand collared her around the throat while another shoved between her thighs, sharp fingernails nicking the dry, unwilling flesh inside her as a lesson that sex was not pleasurable, but a weapon.

Trying to fight off a man twice her size as he raped her in the pitch black she’d lived in for days. Biting, clawing, kicking without a sound because to express pain and fear in any form was corrected with the cane.

The memories kept flowing, rising from the depths where she’d buried many of them, trapping her in a ceaseless stream of torture. There was no way out, no neon exit sigh flashing in her brain to guide her free.

This was why she was insane. This was why normality evaded her at every turn, making it so fucking easy to revert to the killing machine her father wanted her to be, dancing on dead bodies and laughing all the while.

She might have killed him, but Dominic had won the game.

Far away in the distance, almost lost in the cacophony of chaos drowning her mind, she thought she heard voices. Familiar voices, ones she feared because they belonged to people she wished she had the capacity to love.

Even as her heart did a slow, warm roll in her chest at the sound of Grit’s dark, displeased rumble, she tried to send the feeling away. Emotion was weakness. Physical attraction, if it wasn’t being used as a tool, was a liability. Love was a ruse, a myth, something she refused to tolerate because she was stone cold dead where it mattered.

“…three days is enough, Jasper. I told you I wouldn’t accept her being drugged to this extent, and every fucking day someone comes in and pumps her full of morphine whenever she tries to surface.”

“The rest won’t do her any harm, Grit. Undisturbed sleep, free of pain, is a gift to her right now. We’ve reduced the swelling around her face and throat. The knife wounds are healing beautifully. Her ribs will take longer to heal, and the bruising is fucking brutal; the one on her hip is going to ache like a bitch for weeks.”

“Switch her onto alternative meds, ones that don’t keep her sedated like a rabid dog.”

“Mmm-hmm, and how long after she comes around do you think she’ll stay in bed? I guarantee the first thing she does is rip out the IV. She’s an iatrophobe, Grit. Doctors, hospitals, needles, they’re all right up there on her fear scale.” Jasper’s tone was exasperated. “The only reason she didn’t slaughter us both at the motel was because she was too fucking exhausted to do so.”

Slowly, she dragged herself toward their voices, wading through the memories like they were molasses. She couldn’t deny he was telling the truth; anything medical tended to set her off on a tangent, willing to hurt or kill whoever prevented her from escaping.

“Give her more credit than that,” Grit shot back. “Treat her like she’s insane, she’ll never try to be anything else. She just needs to understand things, have them explained to her so she knows they’re justified. Tell her the IV is just fluids to keep her hydrated, so she doesn’t panic and think you’re poisoning her. She isn’t unreasonable, Jasper, and she sure as hell isn’t lacking intelligence. All she wants is reassurance and a solid grasp on the situation.”

The struggle to rise became weaker. Grit was defending her, planting himself firmly on her side of the line, and that was… wonderful. Every word he spoke lifted her toward him, breaking the divide into reality, and she found herself staring at a ceiling painted a pale cream color, her vision wavering.

It didn’t smell like antiseptic and death, so that was a tick in the plus column. As her gaze rolled over to her left, her stomach lurched at the sight of the stainless steel stand and the bag hanging from it. A clear tube led from the bag to the crook of her arm, and despite her hearing Grit say not sixty seconds ago that it was just fluids, she reacted exactly how Jasper predicted.

One hard tug, a sharp stab of pain, and the offending canula ripped out of her vein. Her entire body shrieked with the sudden movement, her muscles stiff and so damn sore.

“Point in case,” her brother said dryly, breaking away from his standoff with Grit to cut off the flow from the bag before it drenched the bed. “Welcome back, hellion.”

A strange croaking noise tickled her throat.

Grit rounded the foot of the bed, immediately reaching for her hand—the one not swathed in bandages. “Don’t try to talk just yet, Tabby. The swelling around your throat is better, but there might be some damage. And don’t—”

She bolted upright when Jasper cupped her elbow, using his thumb to plump her vein again. A hoarse, horribly frail cry wrenched free as her stomach muscles twanged like discordant guitar strings in the hands of a toddler.

Fuck, that kicking had ruined her.

“—try to sit up,” Grit finished with a soft sigh. “You’ve got a couple cracked ribs, little tiger.” He plumped the stack of pillows behind her, easing her back into a semi-reclining position. Not sitting up, but not laying down flat either. “Let your brother put the IV back in.”

Not if it was the last thing on earth keeping her alive. Didn’t he know how easy it was to slip something into one of those bags, to inject a little addition into the canula? Hell, Rita had once hooked her up to three different kinds of shit—one canula, three separate ports.

That little experiment had almost killed her.

Batting Jasper away with her swaddled hand, Tabitha grimaced. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, and right now, it hurt to fucking blink. She lifted her uninjured hand slowly to her face, feathering her fingers over her tender cheekbone, relieved to discover it wasn’t as round and hard as an egg.

“The fluids are helping. We’ve had cold compresses on your cheek, throat, hip, and ribs. Recovery is going to be slow, Tabitha,” Jasper warned her. “That was one hell of a beating you took. The IV will give you a boost.”

A boost of what? She shifted uncomfortably, her legs moving restlessly. When something smooth brushed her inner thigh, she frowned and ran her palm down to the slight bump beneath the blankets.

“Shit,” Jasper murmured. “Hope you understand what you’ve done by not restraining her, Grit. We could’ve used them right about now.”

Belatedly she realized, yes, she wasn’t tied down. Not so much as a cuff around her ankle or mittens to stop her from clawing their eyes out. That one mercy, however, wasn’t nearly enough to negate the fact there was a tube up her… she swallowed down bile before she retched and yanked her cracked ribs.

Revulsion consumed her, chilling her down to the bones.

Someone, a fucking stranger, had been touching her while she was unconscious, helpless, fucking oblivious to hands violating her.

Warmth spread over her cold cheeks. Grit cupped her face, grounding her before she spiraled out of control and went on a rampage worthy of her reputation. “Tabitha, look at me. My eyes are up here; look at me.”

Pain stabbed down her side when she took a deep breath and met his calm, unshakable gaze. Part of her wanted to blacken those pretty eyes, gouge them from their sockets for allowing someone to do this to her.

“It was me, little tiger.” His thumbs stroked over her cheekbones, lighter than a feather. “No one touched you there but me. Not a nurse, not Jasper. Just me, okay? I put the catheter in and, when it’s time, I’ll be the one who takes it out.”

“N-Now,” she rasped, feeling her throat burn. “T-Take it out n-now.”

He shook his head. “No can do. Gonna need you to trust me here, Tabby. Trust that I’m going to do what’s best for you. You’ve got another day or two of boredom in this bed until you’re strong enough to walk to the bathroom. The catheter stays in, and the IV is going back in your arm.”

Anger began to thrum through her bones until her useless body ached down to the roots of her teeth. Snarling under her breath, she reached for the tube hidden beneath the blanket. “No.”

“Stop.” The command cracked like a whip, deep and powerful. “Leave it.”

God, if she felt even a fraction better, she’d knock his head off those big, strong shoulders. She saw it in her mind’s eye—a quick, stinging uppercut catching the underside of his chin, snapping his head back. “Not… a… dog.”

Grit’s expression didn’t alter by an inch. His face remained hard, stern, like some kind of avenging angel displeased with the pathetic, broken mortal in front of him. “Not a dog, no. A scared, stubborn bitch who vehemently refuses any attempt to help her? Hell yes.”

Being called a bitch didn’t faze her; she’d been called much, much worse. Even stubborn didn’t get a particular rise out of her—after all, she prided herself on her ability to hold her own against a team of donkeys.

But scared?

“Told you she’d be a terrible patient.” Jasper shrugged when she glared at him. “Sorry, Tabitha, but it’s true.”

“I think this time,” Grit said in a mildly insulting tone, “Tabitha is going to be a good little girl and do as she’s told. Because if she doesn’t, I’m going to have to be the bad guy here.”

Tabitha heard the threat, loud and clear. Despite her head beginning to feel fuzzy, she shifted slightly, ready to take the challenge. It was going to hurt, but she’d experienced worse pain than a cracked rib and some full-body bruising.

Her breath whistled between clenched teeth. “Make… me.”

Shaking his head, Grit slid his hands down her arms, obviously intending to seize her wrists. She evaded the move, slower than she liked, and the sharp jerk sent pain screaming along her nerves. Attempting to escape the trap completely, she rolled onto her side, only to freeze at the vicious pinch between her legs.

Fucking catheter.

A hand grasped her throat lightly, the pressure so faint it didn’t inflame the contusions already marking her. Grit used it to ease her back down before snagging her wrist and extending her arm. “Get the canula in, J. Hit her with the morphine again.”

“Motherfucker.” Tabitha swung with her free arm, refusing to lie back and submit a second time. Her fist bounced off Grit’s shoulder harmlessly, so she changed tactics and savaged her brother’s hands with her nails.

“Have you got her?” Jasper demanded.

“Wait for it,” Grit advised.

Wait for what? She scowled and lunged for him, determined to beat him back far enough for her to wriggle free. Hell, she’d crawl across the floor at this point, pride be damned, if her legs weren’t up to running.

A hard, breathless yelp stole her breath as pain slammed into her side like a baseball bat. Rigid with shock, she tried to find a chink in the agony, to get around and behind it before it eroded her capacity to think, but it pelted her from all directions as her body reeled.

The nasty scratch stinging the inside of her elbow was barely noticeable. A swift rush of cold washed through her veins, then her brother was giving her a sad smile and attaching a syringe to one of the canula ports. “Sleep tight, Tabitha.”

“Assh…” Her tongue felt thick and numb. “Ash…”

“Asshole,” Grit supplied softly, making sure her last remaining moments of consciousness were filled with his face as he laid her back against the pillows.

Damn, but it was a pretty face.

*

Grit

He was still angry she’d left without a word, note or no note.

Waking without her, realizing she was gone, only to find her in that piece of shit motel in bloody, broken pieces… it was enough to strain his usually saint-like patience. It hurt to watch her sleep under the influence of morphine, knowing she was in pain whenever she woke, wondering if her brother was ever going to let her surface for more than a few disorientated minutes at a time.

Tabitha had been under for over an hour now, and Jasper had left twenty minutes ago to go home and have dinner with his family. He often called or came back to check on her once the kids were in bed.

For the moment, Grit was on his own, which didn’t bother him. It was calm and quiet after the office cleaners went home; the night shift consisted of a skeleton crew who stayed well away from the medical quarters.

He performed his hourly check on Tabitha’s IV, then sat down and went through his emails, shooting off a few replies. When his attention kept diverting to the thick brown file Jasper had left on the table beside Grit’s chair—the file he’d been ignoring for the past three days—he decided it was time to bite the bullet.

A long-term relationship with Tabitha hadn’t been on the cards; if anyone told him he’d crave something meaningful with her after only a couple of months of her insanity dogging him around Denver, he’d probably have ruptured some vital internal organs as he laughed.

But he couldn’t deny it was what he wanted.

The Dom part of him held a soft spot for emotionally insecure, wounded little subs. Not because they were weak and vulnerable, prime for the picking, but because there was satisfaction in watching them grow and fulfill their potential when offered a helping, caring hand.

Tabitha brought more to the table. She possessed a wealth of attitude, bratty and sometimes opinionated, using it to keep him on his toes. A reluctant sense of humor, sharp and witty, when she remembered she had one. She was fucking stunning, inside and out, yet couldn’t see anything but a monster when she looked in a mirror.

He wanted to incorporate her into his life, and while he loathed the idea of discovering her secrets without her knowledge, he understood he’d never keep her if he didn’t get a handle on what made her into the woman she was today.

Picking up the file as though it was a bomb, Grit flipped idly through the thick sheaf of printed pages. They were notes, he realized, but not just random thoughts and impressions. No, these were meticulous, full of scientific and psychological data.

They were a catalogue of everything that had been done to Tabitha from the moment she was born until the day she left the Fairfax manor in Virginia. And by everything… he had to give Rita credit where credit was due, she’d been an impressively thorough documenter from start to finish.

Turning back to the first page, he locked down his emotions until he was cold, clinical, and able to distance himself from the woman he knew and the child he was reading about.

According to the notes, Tabitha’s birth was free of complications. She’d been a healthy yet small five pound bundle of absolute gorgeousness—as evidenced by the photos included in the file. Almost completely bald aside from a few whisps of her trademark white-blonde hair, huge blue eyes that were darker than their current shade, and a soft, plump face.

Rita catalogued every aspect of Tabitha’s health and daily routine, although in the records, his woman wasn’t referred to by her name, but as P656. The scientist hadn’t left Tabitha alone even in the early days—cocktails of vitamins and some kind of experimental steroid which was discontinued from Tabby’s notes at the three-month stage.

They left her alone, leaving her to self-soothe when she cried, attending only to her basic needs at scheduled intervals, up until she was eighteen months old. The notes made references to video documentation, presumably surveillance tapes from baby Tabitha’s room.

At eighteen months, Rita began to pay more attention to the child, starting the developmental stage of forming a young brain. The cocktails changed incrementally day by day, adding some elements and removing others.

Proving to be creative and intelligent, even at such a young age, Rita expressed her satisfaction with Tabitha clearly in the file. She stepped up the lessons, the drug protocol, and made damn sure the toddler was kept in isolation until her presence was required in Rita’s lab.

Grit turned page after page, unable to stop reading about the foundation stones of Tabitha’s life. How she’d learned not to cry because even if she soothed herself, Rita punished her for the weakness. How one particular concoction of drugs almost killed her, stopping her heart for sixty-three seconds, while another sent a fucking four-year-old little girl into a rage so intense, Dominic had strapped her down to a table. Not for her safety, of course.

No, the fuckers had studied her until her tiny body burned the drugs from her system. Two hours, thirty-six minutes after the episode began, Rita had documented the physical reactions, injuries, and psychological effects her poison created.

It went on and on, a daily litany of torture, training, examinations and new drug trials. By the time she was five, there was a specific note in the file stating that P656 no longer sought affection or contact from either of her captors. Like a caged animal continuously poked through the bars of her prison with a cattle prod, she reacted hostilely toward anyone who approached before shutting down and entering a dissociative state.

Tabitha believed she’d learned that little trick later on, Grit remembered. She’d told him she taught herself how to do it during the rapes, but this contradicted her; it was a survival skill stemming back to a much earlier age.

Rita commented frequently on how fast Tabitha grew up—mentally, not physically. She’d been a highly intelligent student, absorbing information like a sponge thanks to her eidetic memory.

It hurt to read how his little tiger became less human day by day, week by week. He skimmed over months of impertinent data, paying attention to the details of her ‘trials’, like killing the rabbit. With every event Rita deemed a success in Tabitha’s training, he could feel the woman she’d become beginning to rise from the ashes of that young girl.

A phoenix, yes, but one with feathers of death and blood.

Much of Tabby’s weapons and combat lessons weren’t fully reported—they weren’t in Rita’s wheelhouse, so she didn’t spend time writing it all down. There were just more reference numbers, again likely surveillance tapes, and he made a mental note to ask Jasper if those tapes had been recovered.

The further he got through the papers, the more his stomach began to twist. There were only another couple of years’ worth of notes to read through before Tabitha reached twelve, which was probably why it came as such a shock when the notes described her first rape in minute detail—not at twelve as Tabitha thought, but at the monstrously young age of ten.

“Motherfucking, bastard, cocksucking son of a whore,” Grit said on a seething exhale. His fists clenched so tightly on the file, the papers were permanently wrinkled from the grip of his fingers. “They both wanted fucking hanging for this.”

He didn’t take a moment to calm himself down; he needed the fury to continue reading. How the hell he stomached the words, he didn’t know, but within a few sentences, he finally understood—deep down, soul-level understood—why his woman was as twisted up inside as she was.

Rita’s writing style changed subtly in this section of the notes. There was an almost gleeful undertone to the report, as though witnessing the degradation, beating, and subsequent rape of a child she’d raised was a source of entertainment she’d been waiting for since the beginning.

There was nothing scientific about what she wrote, nothing pertinent to a project ultimately designed for murder. What was even more horrifying was the reference number attached to the report.

The assholes had recorded the entire thing.

Too sickened to continue, Grit set the file aside, then bent and hung his head between his knees. How the fuck was he supposed to look Tabitha in the eyes now and pretend he wasn’t privy to one of the most devastating events in her life? Jesus, how could he touch her, take her past her fears, knowing exactly why she was terrified?

He rose, checking her IV, reassuring himself she was still asleep, safe and protected. He took a moment to stroke her cheek, brush his hand over her hair, before he left the room, standing beside the door as he yanked out his cell and made a call.

“Is she awake?” Jasper answered abruptly after two short rings.

Bypassing the question, Grit tapped his fist against the wall, barely resisting smashing his knuckles into the plaster. “Reference number P656 SI01.”

A heavy sigh. “You read fast.”

“What can I say, I’m killing time.” The growl in his own tone took him by surprise. “The number, it’s for CCTV footage, right?”

“No. Ashford dug into Dominic’s system and unearthed thousands of hours of footage. P656 SI01 through SI73 were not from CCTV cameras; they were recorded on professional grade equipment set up in the room.”

Something thudded heavily. Pain shot through his hand, up his arm. “They recorded seventy-three… every time he raped her, they recorded it?”

“They recorded everything, Grit. Maybe Rita got some scientific value from it, but I doubt that. She was as sick, if not sicker, than Dominic. Maybe she wished she had a dick so she could get in on the action herself, but her sadism evolved beyond that.”

Another thud, a flash of red on the pristine white wall. “Ashford deleted them, right? All the recordings, he deleted them?”

A long, weighty silence. Jasper huffed out a breath. “I advised him that would be for the best. He didn’t just find Tabitha’s tapes, Grit, there’s stuff from every child who grew up in the mansion. The older content—from my era—is gritty and shocking quality, but the younger generations like Tabitha and the guys’… the technology was far better, and Dominic had the money to buy the best.”

“Did he take your advice?” Grit demanded.

“No. Ashford believes every bit of data is valuable; he hordes it like an old lady stashes everything she’s ever owned. I’m not as up to date on technology as he is, although Archie has a better grasp on that shit, and he assures me it’s all locked down in the cloud or whatever the fuck.”

That wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. If that footage was still in existence, it had the power to destroy Tabitha, and that was, in plain terms, simply unacceptable. “Call him and tell him to delete it. Erase any trace of it.”

Jasper hesitated. “Pretty sure technology doesn’t work that way, Grit. Digital shit leaves a footprint, it’s not like the old VHS tapes that we could just burn and watch the evidence go up in smoke.”

More red smeared over the wall, filling in the dents marking the plaster. His frustration was growing, his desire to protect Tabitha from her past thwarted by something he couldn’t control. “You’ve read Rita’s notes, Jasper. How would you feel if it was Anarchy’s file? If she was abused and raped, and every second of it was captured on camera, what the fuck would you do?”

“I’ll talk to Ashford,” his friend acquiesced. “But Grit, you should remember who Tabitha is and how she was raised. She’s a smart girl, she knows what the Fairfaxes were like; if she doesn’t already know they recorded everything, I doubt it will come as a surprise.”

“That isn’t the point and you know it.” Christ, where was something real when he needed to beat the shit out of it? He craved flesh and blood, the meaty thud of fists impacting muscle and bone. “Deal with it, Jasper. Don’t make me hunt down your brother and persuade him to do the right thing.”

Jasper chuckled. “Wouldn’t take too much persuasion. Just threaten to break all his pretty and very expensive toys.” He sighed. “Leave it with me. I’ll convince Ash some things just aren’t worth keeping around. I think he’s so used to seeing stuff like that, it hasn’t occurred to him it might ruin someone’s life.”

Someone being his brother or sister, Grit thought bitterly, wondering how all the Fairfax siblings could be so fucking blasé about what their father had done, aided by their stepmother. If it was his family in this position, he’d be tearing down walls, using every power in his disposal to remove the filth poisoning them.

Apparently, it was down to him now to make sure Tabitha remained protected from those videos, to guard her back against whatever was coming for her. Her brothers were so focused on keeping the world safe from her, they weren’t concerned about stopping it from taking her down.

After muttering a terse thank you and ending the call, Grit took several long breaths and braced himself for the next round of reading—he wanted to get it over with, consume the data and learn from it, before he returned the file to Jasper, far away from Tabitha.

By learning, he’d know what to do next…

He hoped.