Page 42 of Wickedly Played (Checkmate #1)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

MAX

Serena is bundled in my arms in the back of the SUV, wrapped in a blanket. Her body is shaking from the silent sobs wracking through her body, but there is nothing I can do to stop them. I can’t stop the pain from coming over her. I can’t take away the hurt my brother caused her.

I can’t go back and stop my brother from killing my ex.

I wish I could kill him again. This time, I would have made it hurt worse.

Holding her tighter to me, Franky asks where I want to go. “Where do you want to go, baby?”

She moans in response.

“Please take us to the nearest hotel,” I answer.

Serena and I are on the same page about going back to her house. To be back there, where my brother kidnapped her. Where my brother stalked her. Where my brother drugged her. Before he raped her.

I squeeze her tighter. “I’m so sorry, baby. Please forgive me,” I whisper in her hair. I gently kiss the top of her head. “I promise, I will make it all go away.”

She lifts my shirt off my chest, burrows her face against my bare chest, and breathes me in. Her eyelashes are clumpy from her mascara getting wet, and they flick my cheek each time she blinks. “Max,” she whispers.

“Yes, baby?”

“I’m cold,” she cries.

“We will be at the hotel soon. Do you want to take a shower?” I’m hoping to have her wrapped in my arms for the rest of the night to make sure she’s still safe, but I don’t know if she will do it. I don’t know if she’s capable of being held long-term now that everything has caught up to her.

“I need the morning-after pill,” she murmurs.

Rage and anger boil deep inside of me as I hear her utter those words.

Serena’s speech is so scattered, it doesn’t even sound like the normal, confident woman I have fallen for.

This broken woman is because of my fucking brother.

I wish I could bring him back to life, kill him again, but this time, kill him a hell of a lot slower.

“Not right now, Max,” Franky warns.

My fists squeeze together in pure anger. “I want to kill Lorcan,” I seethe.

“We will. Let’s get your girl to safety and figure out our next move. We have to be smart.”

With my hand cupping Serena’s head against my chest, I take a deep breath. “He was going to turn my woman into a breeder. Who does that to their daughter?”

Franky claps my shoulder. “I know, Max. We are going to figure out our attack and then move forward.”

Joey rubs Serena’s legs, and I shove him off her. I can’t have him touching her. The thought of someone else touching her right now is too fucking much. She makes a hissing sound into my chest as I hold her closer to me.

“It’s okay, baby,” I whisper to her.

“On it,” Joey replies.

We wait in the car until Franky checks us into the hotel. I carry her up the elevator, while pretending she’s drunk. I’m hoping others will buy it. Her arms are wrapped around my neck; her legs are draped over my arms.

Franky and Joey are behind us, checking the area out to make sure there isn’t a threat. Lorcan can still strike. I wouldn’t put it past the old fucking bastard.

“I have a doctor coming to check on Serena,” Joey quips.

Serena stiffens in my grasp.

“Not Glenna, right?” I demand.

“No. He’s a guy.”

My girl is lying on the couch with the blanket still wrapped around her, waiting for the doctor to check her out. I hope everything goes well.

Thirty minutes later, the doctor walks out of the suite’s bedroom with a grim look on his face. “Max Fitzpatrick?”

Standing, I crossed the room to greet him. “Yeah. How is Serena?”

He shifts his weight from his left foot to his right. “I’m Dr. Cook. I’ve treated Serena McGuire before. It has been a long time since I last saw her. I’m surprised to see her alive, to be honest. A lot of women don’t leave that family alive.”

“Oh fuck,” I murmur. My head drops.

Dr. Cook clears his throat. “Don’t worry. She likes me better than that dumb bitch, Glenna.” Cook is a little older than I, as he shuffles on his feet. “Serena’s injuries aren’t as severe as they were when I treated her.”

I rub the back of my neck.

Franky stands behind me with his hand on my shoulder. “Continue, Doc.”

He shifts again. “I will say, I’m surprised I was called by the McDougals this time to treat a McGuire,” he murmurs haughtily.

“I am not a McGuire anymore,” Serena calls out from the bed.

I look over at my girl, who is draped in the bathrobe, and even though she’s bruised, she is still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. “Baby, you’re supposed to be in bed.”

She walks toward me and looks down at the couch. My eyes flash to hers, following her silent directions, and then she flicks her gaze from me to the sofa again. I flop on the couch, gather her in my arms, and hold her on my lap. “All you had to do was ask,” I chide.

With Serena’s head tucked into my neck, I feel her lips pressed against my ear. “I can’t be alone right now.”

“Go on, Doc,” Franky says again.

“Serena’s drug screens lit up pretty colorfully, which is why they were able to subdue her.

None of the drugs will have long-term effects on her, so we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

However, she will feel out of it for a while.

Nothing on her body is broken, but when the drugs wear off, she will feel pain from the beating and from the… ”

“From the rape,” she whispers.

I clutch her closer to me. “I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”

“Joey has my number if you need anything more from me.” He gathers the rest of his things to leave, but wavers for a second to look at Serena. “Sweetie, I’m glad you’re back and away from your dad. Lorcan and Connor… Anyway. Please take care of her.”

Franky, Joey, Armando, and Mario are in the room with us as I hold Serena close to me. She whimpers lightly from the conversation and from the exertion of breathing.

“You’re killing me, baby,” I confess, kissing her hair.

“Max, we’re going to go. I’ll keep someone posted at the door until we can get you guys to a safe house,” Franky calls out.

“Sweetness, I’ll be right back,” I promise. I’m sliding her off of me onto the couch to follow my men out.

The second the door closes, separating me from the woman I love, the woman I failed, everything comes crashing down on me. I form a fist and punch a hole into the wall next to the mirror—the mirror clatters against the wall before falling off and breaking on the floor.

“My own brother. My own fucking brother!” I seethe.

“I wish he were still alive so we could kill him again for the amount of bull shit he’s caused this family,” Franky utters.

“I hate him! He has fucked with me so much, and now this? He couldn’t just let me be happy. He had to stalk my woman. He kidnapped her. He raped her. He… He was going to force her to marry him! Franky, I’m so fucking pissed right now, I can’t fucking-”

Suddenly, there is a scream piercing the air from our room. It happens again, with me grabbing my card and then letting myself into the room. Immediately, I see Serena lying on the floor in a ball, her body curled up in the robe. She’s sobbing.

“Baby,” I whisper gently. I don’t want to spook her.

“Max.”

“Come on.” Lifting her off the floor, I carry her into the room, laying her back onto the bed, and then strip out of my clothes to hold her to me. This is the first time we have lain next to each other without me getting hard.

Serena scoffs next to me. “What?” I ask her.

“I was just wondering what it would be like to be held by you again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t sure if you would want to be anywhere near me.”

I hold her tighter. “I always want you.”

“Even after… Adam…”

I kiss her shoulder. “Sweetness, what happened to you doesn’t change my feelings for you.”

It isn’t a lie. I’m still intensely attracted to her, but I have some shit I have to work out in my own head now. My head is a mess as she sleeps next to me. I do everything I can to fall asleep, but nothing seems to work. I can’t sleep.

Shit. Truthfully, I’m afraid to sleep because of my night terrors.

It turns out that for the next week, it wasn’t my night terrors we had to worry about.

It was Serena’s. Every night, she would wake up screaming.

She would wake up instantly if I left the bed for longer than a few minutes.

If I left the hotel room to get some fresh air, she would go into a panic attack.

Dr. Cook has come out and prescribed her sleeping pills to help with the fear she is experiencing, but I hate to drug her even more than she already is. I miss Serena. I miss the old Serena. I know there are still glimmers of hope inside of her, but I still feel like it is all my fault.

We leave the hotel tomorrow after Franky and Joey found us a penthouse in one of Detroit's nicer neighborhoods, Corktown. Serena hasn’t said too much about going and hasn’t said too much about what happened recently. I don’t push her, though.

After I’ve packed all our stuff, she comes around the corner in the robe. “Max?”

“Yes, sweetness?”

“Do you think people will still want me as Mistress Aphrodite even if they find out what happened to me?”

I drop what I have in my hands to hold her cheeks. “I’m sure they will. If they don’t, fuck them. Because I still want Serena Jermaine.”

“Are you sure?”

The blood rushing to my cock, is hard to miss. “Yeah.”

“Why haven’t you done anything about it?”

“What?” Clearly, I heard her wrong.

She throws her hair back behind her shoulders and straightens her back. For the first time since everything has happened, I see her as the old Serena. This is the Domme. “Yes. Fuck them.” With that, she unties her robe, drops it on the ground, and walks into the bathroom naked.

I’m left standing next to the bed with my cock straining against my pants.