4
Mercy
Dark figures chasedme in my nightmares, getting closer and closer. It didn’t matter how fast I ran, they caught up to me, swirling around me, choking me, cutting off my breath until the shadows materialized into the grinning face of Colt Bryant. He was drenched in blood.
I woke up damp with sweat. At some point in the night, somebody had turned off the air-conditioning, and the room was stifling hot. I wiped the beads of perspiration that rolled down my neck to my cleavage as I struggled to catch up to reality.
It was just a bad dream.
But I hadn’t outrun my nightmare. I had just woken up to another one. I closed my eyes and saw the lifeless faces of my grandma and Aunt Renee lying beside her. They were dead. Every person who’d had much of any impact on my life growing up was dead.
Desolation crept up inside me followed by a surge of rage so powerful I had to bite back a scream. No, I wasn’t going to freak out or break down. I’d tamp down all my emotions, just like Dad’s drills had forced me to.
“One step at a time,” I muttered to myself. I wasn’t going to take down Colt in a day. I would have to work up to it.
My head throbbed with what felt like the beginning of a headache. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and my bare feet hit the pooled fabric of last night’s dress where I’d left it on the floor. The blood had crusted over, the silk utterly ruined. I grimaced at it, a shudder running through me.
At least I wasn’t wearing it anymore. While I’d been sitting here wondering what to make of that conversation with Wylder and his men, a woman who must have been part of the household staff had bustled in with a clean T-shirt and sweats for me to change into—and clean sheets for the bed I’d gotten a fair bit of blood on too. She hadn’t even tutted over the stain that’d seeped into the mattress, but then, in this household blood was probably a common sight.
That’d seemed like a clear enough invitation to spend the night. Now the sun was beaming through the thin curtains. I rolled my shoulders, testing my wounded arm. A shallow ache ran through my bicep, but I’d felt worse. Seemed like the doctor guy had known what he was doing.
My eyes fell to the gold engagement ring with its glittering diamond on my finger. A fresh surge of rage rushed through me, sudden and desperate. I yanked at the ring, but it stuck on my knuckle. Gritting my teeth, I pulled harder. It felt as if my skin was melting under the cursed thing. I finally ripped it off and hurled it at the wall next to the door.
The door that was now opening. My engagement ring clattered to the floor and rolled in front of a pair of steel toe boots.
I raised my eyes, my gaze skimming beefy thighs outlined against tight jeans, hips with a perfect V, and then the heavily muscled chest above. The guy Wylder had called Kaige was watching me with an amused smile. “Woah, easy there.”
My temper flickered, but I wasn’t likely to get Wylder’s help by pissing off his inner circle before I’d even started proving myself. “I wasn’t aiming at you.”
He bent down and picked up the ring. “Considering what that asshole did, I get the sentiment, but you might not want to throw this away just yet. From the looks of it, you could get a few K for it easily. Might as well make the bastard pay for his sins, right?”
He could’ve easily pocketed it himself, but he walked over to me, turned my hand up, and rested the ring in the middle of my palm. Heat spread from his fingers into mine. His gaze slid down my body like a caress, lingering briefly on my chest.
I’d have been more annoyed if I hadn’t just been checkinghimout a minute ago. And if the approval in his eyes hadn’t sent a tingle of sharper heat through me.
“Like what you see?” I found myself saying.
His smile widened. “You know what, I do.”
Okay, that was enough of that. I jerked my hand away from his, my fingers closing around the ring, and stood up, stepping away from him in the same motion.
Kaige held up both of his hands as if in surrender, but I knew better than to trust him. Wylder hadn’t agreed to help me yet. They were probably still debating on my usefulness. Nobody was my friend here.
“I’m just supposed to collect you for breakfast,” he said with a twinkle in his deep brown eyes. “Do you need me to show you to the facilities first?”
My bladder said yes. I crossed my arms and raised my chin. “Lead the way.”
Kaige led me down the hall at a casual stroll. Of the four guys I’d met last night, he seemed the most easygoing, but he was awfully intimidating without even trying. I wasn’t a shrimp at five foot six, but this guy had nearly a foot on me—both in height and probably more than that in width with all that muscle. Pretty easy to guess what his job in the crew was. No attacker was likely to get at Wylder through him.
He swept his arm toward the bathroom with a jaunty little bow, and I held back a glare as I strode past him. Inside—with the doorfirmlyclosed—I looked at myself in the mirror and grimaced. My eyes were bloodshot, and my hair had turned into a bird’s nest. I wasn’t going to generate a lot of respect like this.
I splashed water on my face and under my arms, and combed my fingers through my hair, wishing I had an elastic to pull it back into one of my typical ponytails. The pins that had held it in its updo for the rehearsal dinner had all fallen out. After a couple more tugs at it, I ventured back into the hall where my new shadow was waiting.
“Twice as gorgeous without the bedhead,” Kaige said with a wink.
I glowered at him, but my stomach chose to gurgle at the exact same time. Gee, thanks. “You mentioned something about breakfast?” I said pointedly.
My lack of responsiveness to his charms didn’t appear to bother Kaige one bit. He offered me one of his brawny arms. “I’ll give you the tour along the way.”