I debated for a second before letting the question tumble out. “Have you just always had a thing about tight spaces, or did something happen…?” Rowan’s reaction in the moment had given me the impression he knew more about the situation than we did—and that there was more to it than a simple phobia.
Mercy swiped her hand across her mouth, her expression darkening, and I immediately regretted the question. “Never mind. You don’t have to—”
“No, it’s fine,” she said, but there was an artificial flatness to her even tone. She squared her shoulders. “I’ve told you before that my dad wasn’t happy he only had a girl for an heir. When he wasn’t training me, which he only did because he couldn’t stand to have a total wimp as a kid, he came up with ways to take his frustrations out on me. One of his favorites was dumping me in a pit he had in the basement floor, about the size of a coffin. He’d shut me in there for hours on end.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I’d thought my parents were fucked up, but they’d never buried me alive, for Christ’s sake. “That sounds horrible.”
“Oh, it was. He mostly used it for torturing people who crossed him, and he never cleaned it up, so there was dried blood and piss and vomit down there. And it was totally dark once he got the concrete slab that closed it in place.” She looked down at her fingertips, and I remembered the faint scars interlaced across them that were only visible in brighter light. “It was mostly when I was a kid. I’d scratch the hell out of my fingers trying to get out, crying and begging him, but he’d just laugh and leave.”
“Fuck,” I said, at a loss for any other words. I could imagine a younger version of Mercy being locked up in that pit, crying out for help, clawing hopelessly until her fingertips bled.
But she’d survived it. She’d survived it and come out fierce and otherwise unshakeable. She was even stronger than I’d realized.
My stomach had twisted into one huge knot. “I’m so sorry, Mercy. I know the words aren’t enough, but I am.”
She gave me a tight smile. “It’s fine, you didn’t know.”
“Doing that stuff to a kid—didn’t anyone ever try to stop him?” Of course, nobody had helped me either.
“He didn’t do the worst stuff in front of other people,” she said. “And I didn’t really have anyone anyway. Well, except Grandma. She took care of me and saved me from Dad’s wrath whenever she could, but she couldn’t completely stop him. And that bastard Colt had her killed as if she was any kind of threat to him.” Anguish tensed her features. She ducked her head.
I had the strongest urge to run my hands over her hair and pull her to me, as if that would comfort her.
Why shouldn’t I try? If she was still too wary of me to be okay with it, she’d shake me off.
Tentatively, as if she were a wild creature I might accidentally spook, I reached for her. My fingers grazed the side of her head. When she didn’t flinch at my touch, I stroked them over the silky strands.
Mercy raised her head, and I let my hand fall, but I thought she scooted a tiny bit closer to me. We sat for a moment in silence, watching as the stars came up. Then Mercy looked at me again and cleared her throat. “I had sex with Wylder.”
I froze at her confession, something ugly rearing in me. For a second, all I saw was red. I wanted to smash my fist through a wall or maybe Wylder’s face.
But I didn’t own her. I’d thrown her away. And Wylder had clearly noticed all her assets from the moment she’d joined us just like I had. Why shouldn’t she hook up with him if he’d gone for it?
He had the name—he was a hell of a lot smarter than I was, and almost as good a fighter. Not that Mercy probably cared about that part. Argh.
I rubbed my forehead, forcing my breaths to stay even and shoving away the images that tried to rise up of Mercy staring at Wylder with the same expression she’d made when she’d come with me inside her, her eyes glazed with pleasure. When I dared to look at her again, she was watching me closely, her eyes flitting over my face as if to detect any sort of emotional upheaval I might be having.
There was a fucking hurricane inside of me, but I managed to hold it in. Then I remembered how he’d been treating her lately. A scowl crossed my face. “Before or after he started laying into you left and right?”
A startled guffaw slipped out of her. “Before,” she said wryly. “He’s got another thing coming if he figures I’m going to go for it again after the way he’s been acting. I don’t know—it was a spur of the moment thing, and ever since he’s been acting like I have the plague. So that’s been fun. It’s not like I made any promises or commitments to him or whatever. I just thought you should know. You can make whatever you want of it. I don’t see why I should have to be tied down to one guy anyway.”
Wait. Was she implying… that she’d want to hook up with me again?
I couldn’t help noticing how luscious her lips looked as she sucked the lower one under her teeth. I wanted to grab her and plant my mouth right on her until she was moaning for my cock.
But with everything she’d revealed tonight and all the messed-up history between us, I balked in a moment of indecision. In that moment, Mercy stood up. She leaned against the railing, gazing out over the lawn.
I got up too, meaning to tug her closer to me, but then her stance abruptly stiffened. “What?” I asked, following her gaze.
She pointed. “There’s something in the grass there, right across from my bedroom window. Do you see it?”
I did. In the hazy light at the edge of the security lamps’ range, a dark shape showed against the green of the lawn. I couldn’t tell what it was from here, but something about it set my nerves on edge. “Yeah. Should we check it out?”
I almost wished she’d say no, but Mercy was already hefting herself over the railing. She eased down the other side of the landing and then took the several-foot drop to the ground below like it was nothing.
With all my bulk, I wasn’t pulling off a move that nimble. “Wait for me,” I told her, hoping she’d listen, and hustled inside to take the stairs.
When I came around from the front door, Mercy was where I’d left her, thank God. We headed over to the strange shape together. An unnerving smell trickled into my nose, sour and almost meaty. My stomach turned.
Then the form in the grass came into clear enough focus for me to recognize it for what it was.
A cat’s body lay on the lawn, flies buzzing around it. It’d been sliced open down the middle with its guts spilling all over the place, its skull smashed open—and its tail completely gone.
There’d been a cat’s tail stuck to Mercy’s window less than a week ago. I’d told myself it must have been Gia, but Gia was gone, and someone had left this here since the last security patrol. My jaw clenched with a surge of protective rage.
Whoever was targeting Mercy so gruesomely, they were still around.