His chest heaved on each of his breaths, and his dark eyes swirled. He was on the edge, I could see it clearly, but so was I.
“Okay,” he murmured, and my muscles relaxed. Had I won? Had I finally put my foot down and he’d listened? “I can see what has to happen now.” A calmness washed over him, the kind of calm I’d never seen from him before. It should have been a red flag. It should have been the alert I’d needed to get away from him as quick as I possibly could. But he’d fooled me. Fooled me into thinking I had any right to say what I had.
“A lesson is needed.” He stood to his full height, towering over me. “And I’ll be the teacher.”
I didn’t see his fist coming toward me, not until it was too late to move my face from its path. Pain like I’d never felt before exploded in my eye and knocked me off-kilter. My body swayed to the right, and I managed to stay on my feet, but another punch a second later made the edges of my vision blur, and I went down—hard.
My hands scraped against the ground, stones sticking in the palms on my hands, and I turned my head to look up at him—to look at the Knox standing over me. But this wasn’t the Knox I’d made friends with all those years ago. This was a new Knox, one who got what he wanted. One who thought this was the answer. One who won at everything.
But this time I’d be victorious. I could take this. I could stay here while he emptied his rage out and marked my body, but I’d never be his. My heart would never belong to him.
Chapter Nine
ASHER
I sprayed the area of skin of my second client of the day and wiped away the extra ink to reveal the perfectly shaded elephant on her skin. It had taken three sessions to finish, but it had been worth the wait and extra time to get it perfect.
“Take a look and see what you think,” I said, standing up and pulling my gloves off. This was always my favorite part of doing a tattoo—seeing the reaction it got.
She jumped down off the bed I had set up and walked over to the main mirror in the shop, staring at the tattoo covering her thigh. “It’s perfect,” she said wistfully. “Absolutely perfect.”
My lips lifted into a smile. “Let me wrap you up, and then you can go.”
She nodded but didn’t move from in front of the mirror for several minutes. She stared at it from all angles, sighing happily every now and again. Finally, she made her way back over to me, and I wrapped her leg up, knowing I didn’t need to give her care instructions because she knew what she could and couldn’t do while it was healing.
Maverick was on his day off, so I rang her up in the front of the shop, and she left with a huge grin on her face. But no sooner had she walked out than she ran back in, her face pale and eyes wide. “There’s some guy beating on a woman out here!”
I didn’t think as I leaped over the counter and out of the door with Jez and Lara on my tail. They were both in the middle of tattooing their clients, but neither thought twice about joining me. The woman pointed toward Aleste’s dance studio, but I couldn’t see anything at first, and then I heard, “You’ll never get away from me. I’ll always be there!”
I looked left, then right and darted across the road toward the voice. I was hyper-focused on getting to them, but as soon as I spotted Elodie’s car, my stomach dropped. Her driver’s door was open, and as I rounded it, I saw the guy on top of her, holding her around the neck and slamming his fist into her face over and over. My instincts led me as I yanked him off her, and my MMA training wanted me to beat the shit out of him, but I didn’t. I didn’t do what I wanted to do because all I could think about was Elodie. I wasn’t sure it was her. I hadn’t seen her face yet. But my gut told me it was.
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Lara gritted out. “You’re that dance girl.”
“I’m okay,” Elodie whispered, and I turned away from the guy, knowing he’d be gone within seconds. I let him go so I could get to her, and I didn’t regret it, not at that moment. Elodie rolled onto her side, groaning at the move, and I reached for her but stopped at the last second. “I’m good,” she said, but her eye was half closed, and blood dripped from her lip. What the fuck had happened?
She pushed onto her hands and knees, coughing and gasping, and I knew she wasn’t okay. I knew she needed medical attention.
“Elodie?” I asked, my voice low. “It’s me, Asher.” I crouched down in front of her and held my hands out, not sure what exactly to do. I didn’t want to touch her, not if she didn’t want to be touched. “I’m gonna call the cops—”
“No.” She turned her head, her hair covering half of her face, but her gaze met mine. I’d expected to see sorrow, sadness, pain, but instead, all I could see was relief. “It’s okay. Just…” She heaved a breath and groaned. “Just help me up?”
I didn’t hesitate. I hooked my arms around her, picking her up and holding her to my chest. I stared down at her, really stared at her, and wondered if I should ask what the hell had just happened. But it wasn’t my place. I didn’t have the right to enquire about her life, but fuck, all I wanted was to make sure she was okay and then go find the guy and teach him a goddamn lesson. He’d hit her…out in the open. He hadn’t cared who could see. He hadn’t given two shits.
“The guy ran away,” Jez said from beside me with a red face. I ground my teeth together, trying to keep my goddamn cool, but it was fuckin’ hard when a bleeding Elodie was in my arms. She was hurt, and I wasn’t sure how bad. The swelling on her cheek and eye told me he’d gotten in at least a good four or five punches before we’d gotten over to them, and I dreaded to think what else he’d done. And why. Why had he hurt her? Did she know who it was?
“Lock her car up and bring her keys back to the shop,” I gritted out and held her closer to me. Her hand covered mine on her stomach, and I glanced down at it, wondering if it was okay to touch her there. She gripped my little finger and held it tight, and that small move had my shoulders relaxing a little. She was okay with me touching her. She was okay with me holding her.
“You can let me down,” Elodie whispered as I crossed the street to the shop, but she didn’t make a move to try and get out of my hold. She may have been saying it with her words, but her body didn’t want to heed to it. I turned and pushed the door to the shop open with my back. Her face was a mess, and her whimpers didn’t go unnoticed as I moved us through the shop and past the two clients waiting for Lara and Jez to come back.
I walked to the back and to the small room we used as a break room and placed her on one of the seats. My hands shook as I turned away from her and found the first aid kit. I was trying to keep my own anger under control, but it was taking all of my energy. A man had laid his hands on her.
“Asher,” Elodie whispered as I kneeled in front of her. “I’m okay. I can do it myself.”
“No,” I gritted out, and immediately berated myself for using that tone with her. “Sorry.” I opened the antibacterial wipes from the kit and started to wipe at her face. “I got you, Elodie.” She’d never know how much I meant those words. She’d never truly understand how I’d live by them.
She didn’t say another word. Not while I wiped at the two cuts on her cheek, and not while I checked to see how deep her split lip was. She sat there patiently as I cleaned her up and applied some Steri-Strips just in case. “You should really go see a doctor,” I told her.
“Nah.” She shook her head, then groaned at the movement. “I’ll be okay.” Was she saying that because she was used to this type of treatment? Was this something which happened all the time, and she knew how to heal from it? Was this yet another secret she was keeping?