“Mine,” Vike said. I picked her up in my arms, watching as she fought for consciousness. I laid her on Vike’s bed. Rider came in seconds later. He pushed a needle straight into her arm and got her hooked up to an IV.

“We might need to pump her stomach,” Rider said. He checked the pulse in her wrist then the one in her arm. “Her pulse is strengthening.” He looked at me. “Was there anything left in her stomach?”

“Nothing.” I pushed her soiled hair out of her face, fighting not to break again. “She needs a bath.” I closed my eyes and swallowed against the fucking lump in my throat. Then I looked down between her legs. Her dress still covered her, but the blood was there. “He fucking raped her.” My voice cracked. I was losing the battle with my fucking tears. “Look at the fucking state of her.” I looked at Vike. “How much can one person fucking take?” My hand hovered over her swollen lips and cut face. She was so fucking beautiful. And she wasn’t fucking dying on me.

“We can’t take her to the hospital like this. Either her or Sapphira. The cops would be on our asses in seconds,” Vike said to Rider. “You gotta fix them up here. You need anything, me and Flame will get it for you.”

“Okay,” Rider said. I held Phebe as Rider checked her stats. A long sigh came from his mouth. “She’s getting back to normal. Her blood pressure is climbing again, and her pulse is getting steady.” He got off the bed. “Keep her here overnight so I can check on her while I watch Sapphira too.”

“Okay.” I looked down at my bitch. Fuck, she had just got her daughter back and she did this . . . and then it dawned on me. “She thought she’d lost her,” I said, watching Phebe’s sleeping face to make sure she was still breathing. “She thought Sapphira had died. Died saving her . . . her mother, when all she ever wanted to do was save her.”

No one said shit to me in response. But I wasn’t really talking to them anyhow. I kissed Phebe’s forehead, feeling the warmth filling her skin under my lips. “Wake the fuck up, Red. I . . . I kinda fucking need you.” I shut my eyes and pulled her closer. Didn’t know when Vike left, but the next time I looked up, the saline was hanging from a metal stand. I laid Phebe down on the bed and lay down beside her. I took her hand in mine and watched her breathe. And I stayed awake all night, making sure she was breathing. If she was breathing, she could come back to me.

So I fucking watched her breathe.

*****

The brothers watched me from the bar as I carried her outside. Flame and Vike were at the truck, waiting. Ash was there too. “You good, kid?” I watched as he manned the fuck up and nodded. He wasn’t. I knew it. I remembered my first kill. Dev had given me a whiskey and told me it’d get easier from that day on.

And it had.

I sat in the back with Phebe as Vike drove us home. The minute I got in my cabin, I took her straight to the shower, turned it on and stripped her of her clothes. Her eyes flickered open, searching for me. “Gonna wash this shit off you, Red.” I placed her down as I shucked off my clothes too. I took her under the spray and washed her down. She moaned in my arms when the water hit a bruise, and I had to clench my jaw when I got between her legs. Vike had paid some lady doctor to check her and Sapphira. She’d said that Meister fucker had scratched her and hurt Phebe’s cunt. Weren’t anything lasting, would just hurt for now. Sapphira had been raped too, over and over again over months—which we knew. She gave them shots and tested them for every fucking disease under the sun.

Every one came back negative.

Thank fuck.

So I washed her. I cleaned her until she was my Phebe again. Red hair bright and skin like fucking snow. And those freckles. Those motherfucking freckles. I dried her and took her to the bedroom. Our bedroom, because this time she was going nowhere.

Not a fucking chance.

I climbed into bed beside her and held my goddamn breath as she turned to me and smiled as much as she could through her cracked lips. “You are here too?” she whispered. “My two great loves with me, happy and at peace.” Her eyes closed and she sighed. “I could not have dreamed I would be so lucky.” My eyebrows pulled down, wondering what the fuck she meant. “I will introduce you to her, AK. You will love her.” She laughed lightly. “And she will love you. Because you are so easily loved . . .”

She slipped back into sleep, and I laid my head down beside her. I closed my eyes, keeping her hand in mine so she couldn’t get away again. And the wait began. The wait for her to return to me.

So we could start again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Flame

I left Vike’s place and walked to my cabin. I opened the door and saw Ash sitting on the couch, staring at the unlit fire.

He didn’t even look up when I shut the door. His face was pale and his hands were clasped together on his lap. I heard Maddie in the kitchen. I walked past Ash, but he still didn’t look up. When I got to the kitchen, Maddie turned. Her face was strange.

She was worried.

She held her hands out. I took them with mine and pulled her into my chest. Maddie’s arms wrapped around my waist. I inhaled her scent and closed my eyes. “How is Phebe?”

“At AK’s,” I said. “But she hasn’t woken up yet.”

“And Sapphira?”

“Alive.”

Maddie stepped back and put her hand on her forehead. “What a mess. Everything is a mess. Grace is okay. She is shaken and scared, but Lilah and Ky are with her.” Maddie’s eyes shimmered. “She was so young to have that happen to her. And Sapphira.” My bitch took a took breath. “I . . . I know what her life was like. Being forced into that kind of servitude.”

“Maddie,” I growled, unable to stop the fucking burning in my veins at the thought. But her eyes went to Ash on the couch.

“He is young too.” She looked back to me. “I do not know what has happened. He would not say.”

“He killed someone today. He saved AK’s life.”

Maddie’s lips parted in shock. Her face paled, and she looked at Ash again. “No wonder he is so lost.” She wiped a tear from her eye then faced me again. She took my hand. “You must speak to him.”

I felt ice fill my chest. “I don’t know what the fuck to say.”