Page 11 of Pain

I jumped up the moment Mandy came stumbling out of the back room, her face drained of blood and a fine sheen of sweat on her brow.

“What happened?” I asked, getting over to her as quickly as I could and taking her by the shoulders. “Is Saraya okay? Did something go wrong?”

I shook her slightly—totally unintentional—and she looked up, one eyebrow lifted in question. “She’s fine,” she said slowly. “And since when are you so concerned about Devil Davis’ old lady?”

I sealed my lips together for a moment. That was a good fucking question. The girl in the next room was nothing to me. Less than nothing. She was just some girl who’d had a misadventure right in front of me, and who I’d chosen to pick up and save. Some girl.

Some girl who was sleeping with my arch enemy—a guy who’d gladly put a gun to my temple and pull the trigger. Probably worse than that if he knew I had Saraya Post in my headquarters, doctoring the wounds I was sure he’d caused.

In short, a girl I couldn’t actually afford to care about. A girl I shouldn’t care about. There was no rational reason I should give a single fuck what happened to her, regardless of how I’d found her, and yet...

And yet I’d watched Mandy walk into that back room supporting her with every ounce of my focus. Watched the back of Saraya’s head, nearly drooling at the thought of running my fingers through that soft black hair, until the moment the door closed behind her. I’d been sitting at the bar ever since, staring at that door, when I should have been meeting with the club and giving them the information I’d procured in the meeting in town. I should have been telling them that the owner of a small business was going to pay us to get him and his business safely out of Devil’s territory and into our own, and that he was going to pay us protection fees from there on out.

Just to protect him from what he was sure was coming from Devil’s crew once he moved.

It was good news, just the sort of business we liked to take on. It would also give us the ideal opportunity to clash with the Steeds, which was, I had to admit, an added incentive. The entire crew would be ecstatic to hear it.

Instead, I was sitting here alone, waiting to hear how Saraya was doing.

I was officially losing it. If I wanted to focus on Saraya, I should have been telling the club what she was doing here and what I meant to do with her. Getting their opinions on how we could safely navigate the situation I’d caused. Because their lives were all in danger thanks to a decision I’d made with less than no consideration.

Mandy watched the thoughts running across my face and nodded when I finally focused on her again. “Well, I won’t tell you how stupid it is that she’s here. I can see you already know. So what’s the real question?”

I smiled at her. Mandy was quick to anger and thought far too much of herself, but she was also the most loyal person I’d ever met. Over the years, she’d become more of a sister than anything else—which was why I’d brought Saraya right to her. Mandy had medical training, yes, but she was also my best adviser.

Which meant I could use the whole truth rather than the watered-down version I might have given anyone else. “The real question, I suppose, is what we’re going to do with her.”

At this, her face turned even more serious. “Well, we can’t send her back, that’s for damn sure.”

I froze. “Why not?”

I knew why not. But I hadn’t realized Mandy would figure it out so quickly. Had Saraya said something to her?

Mandy snorted. “Because most of those bruises didn’t come from the fall. The shoulder sure as hell didn’t. The ankle? Maybe. But I wouldn’t bet on it.”

I grabbed her and tugged her toward one of the booths in the wall, my eyes flitting back and forth across the room to make sure we were alone. I didn’t know why, but something about this felt private. It felt somehow important that we keep it quiet.

“What are you saying?” I hissed.

“I’m saying,” she said, sounding like she thought I might be an idiot, “that the girl is fucking beat up. New bruises, old bruises. Nothing is broken right now, but it has been in the past. Some fingers. Her arm. One leg. None of it healed quite right. I can feel the places where they broke. Someone’s been beating her up, Knight, torturing her, and it’s been happening for a long time. She won’t say a thing about it, though. I already tried asking.”

My stomach dropped right out of my body and to the floor. I’d already suspected, of course. I’d seen Saraya thrown from a moving truck, blindfolded and tied, and it didn’t take a genius to guess what it had meant. But hearing it from a nurse... Hearing about broken bones that she could still feel...

“And I know who she is. I know her reputation. This girl doesn’t cry out. She didn’t even twitch when I set her shoulder, and she’d only had a couple sips of whiskey because she flat-out refused to take any painkillers. Which means I couldn’t poke around as much as I wanted to. Chances are good there’s a lot of damage that I didn’t even find. A lot that isn’t even physical. That girl is beat up, Knight.”

Beat up. Tortured.

The words sent red-hot rage rushing through my body, my blood boiling with it and my fingers flexing into fists.

“That bastard,” I growled. “Doing that to the girl he’s supposed to love. The girl he’s supposed to protect.”

It defied everything we knew. Everything I’d ever believed in. Everything decent about a man loving a woman.

It defied what Devil had once been, when he was my friend. He’d never have considered doing anything like that when he was my right-hand man and as close to me as a brother.

I knew things had changed for him. I just hadn’t realized they’d changed this much.

“He’s gone off the deep end,” I said simply. “Everything we’ve heard about him must be true.” All the rumors about his paranoia, his newly increased violence, his willingness to kill even the people closest to him...