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For the next week, Liss wandered through the house as silent as a ghost. She spent hours on the couch, huddled in one of my shirts, listless, gazing out the window. I wished I could climb into her head and obliterate whatever thoughts were torturing her.
Baby Doll went shopping for Liss and picked up any clothes and toiletries she might need.
Tex cooked for us so we didn’t have to, filling the refrigerator with Tupperware—fluffy biscuits, baked beans, roasted chicken, a casserole, and a sweet potato pie.
Blackbeard stitched up my bullet wound, leaving me with pain killers and strict orders to remain on bed rest for a few weeks.
Kingpin paid a visit with an expensive bottle of high-end whiskey.
“Make sure to tell your girl she has nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “She did what she had to do.”
My gaze strayed to my bedroom door where Liss was sleeping.
“I’ll pass the message along. Thanks, Kingpin.”
After depositing the whiskey in the kitchen, I slipped into the bedroom. Liss was curled up in the dip of the mattress where I usually slept. The sheets were tangled around her ankles, leaving her legs bare and her shirt hitched up around her hips, putting her panties on display.
I stepped closer, gliding my knuckles along her leg. Then I smoothed her shirt down and tucked the sheets securely around her.
“I’m not sorry,” Liss said, her voice raw.
I perched on the edge of the bed behind her, placing my hand on her hip.
“You shouldn’t be.”
“He hit me a thousand times. He starved me. I was a pawn to him.”
I didn’t respond, letting her say what she needed to get off her chest. She hadn’t spoken this many words together for days—not since her brother’s death.
“Does that make me a monster like him?” she whispered.
The breath punched out of me. Is that what she’d been thinking for the past week? She defended herself against her abuser. That made her strong as hell and I was so fucking proud of her. How could she possibly believe—even for a moment—that she was anything like her brother?
“No, baby,” I replied. “It doesn’t. Not even close.”
When Liss remained silent for several seconds, I kicked off my boots and slid into the bed behind her. I pressed a kiss to her neck, chaste and soft. She tugged my arm around her.
I remembered that heart-stopping moment when Liss and I emerged from the burning clubhouse to face her brother. I remembered the way she looked up at me with beseeching brown eyes and a small, clear voice.
Let me go. I’m not worth all this, Big G.
That was the problem. For her entire life, no one had protected Liss the way she deserved. When she took matters into her own hands and defended herself, she questioned whether she did the right thing because it was so foreign to her.
I was willing to spend the rest of my life teaching her what it was like to feel safe and loved in the arms of someone willing to die for her. But for now, I tried a different angle.
“Do you remember when I said I had two or three bullets left?” I asked.
Liss nodded.
“Well, it’s difficult to keep count in a gunfight like that,” I continued. “Everything happens so fast. You can lose track if you’re not paying attention.”
She rolled over to look at me.
“What are you saying?”
I trailed my fingertip along the ridge of her nose and thumbed at her chin. Reaching down, I hooked my hand behind her knee and drew her leg over my hip. I wanted her close for this, needed her body slotted with mine until there was no space left between us.
“I’m saying I checked my gun. There was no ammo left.”
