But it still broke my heart to see her hurt at all. Especially after her having gotten away and started to find some joy.
“Okay. Listen to me,” Salvatore said, reaching for my wrists and pulling me with him until he pressed me down onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Wren, come sit too,” he added, pulling up the other chair beside me. “I need you two to keep your asses in these seats, not touching anything, until I make a call or two,” he said.
This was Salvatore in mafia-guy mode.
It had no right to be as sexy as it was.
Especially with a dead body just a couple feet away from us.
“I’m gonna need confirmation that you guys understand,” Salvatore said.
“We’ve got it,” Wren assured him, being a bit quicker to recover from the shock of it all than I was.
Maybe because she hadn’t just killed a man.
“I’m just going out the front door for five minutes, tops, to make a phone call,” he said, already moving in that direction, but not before giving me one long, worried look.
“Are you okay?” Wren asked, making me move my gaze from the dead body and toward her pretty, battered face.
“That’s my question,” I told her.
“Well, I’m borrowing it for a minute,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“I’m… I’m going to be okay,” I said, not sure if I was talking to her or trying to reassure myself.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Josh…” she started, then winced. “He said that you… that you took my beating…”
My breath sighed out of me.
“He was telling the truth,” I admitted.
“What? When? What did he do to you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He was looking for you. And I don’t know. Ten or twelve days, I think? He broke in and attacked me to try to get me to tell him where you were.”
“I’m so sorry, Whit,” she said, pressing a hand to her heart. “What did he do?”
“It wasn’t that bad. Really,” I said, going to interlock my fingers, but feeling the sticky blood sliding against them, and pulling them apart. “I had some bruises, that’s all. But that was when Salvatore demanded I move in with him for a while.”
“I wish you would have told me,” Wren said.
“You were finally, finally getting some happiness, Wren. I didn’t want to ruin that. But, obviously, I wasn’t doing any of us any favors by not telling you.”
“Liam is never going to want to speak to me again,” Wren said, biting her lower lip.
“That guy fought hard for you, Wren. Believe me, men who aren’t into you don’t do that.”
“Salvatore came to save the both of us,” Wren said.
“Yes, he did,” I agreed, feeling my heart squeeze a little. “I know he’s in the mafia. And I know he’s an ex-con. But he is a really, really good guy.”
“Whit, the look in your eye is all I need to know about him,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sure I am going to love him.”
“Yeah, if we all don’t go to prison, that is.”