Page 190 of Forged in the Fire
I wanted to.
My mouth felt sticky and dry, but I managed to force out, “Dereck owed these guys money…”
I guess those few words were loaded with enough implication that Silas felt the full force of them.
Because he flinched then pulled me closer, hazel eyes waiting. Searching my face.
“They used me to punish him.”
“Fuck. Brinley.” It was a brutal grunt. Every muscle in Silas’s body curled with aggression.
His arms were locked so tight, and I got the sense he was desperate to make me understand that I wasn’t alone.
Or maybe that he was willing to crush anyone who’d ever hurt me in my past.
Tears blurred my eyes. I hadn’t had someone care for me this way in so many years. And then? It’d been my mother. Which was a whole different experience from this.
I felt overwhelmed by it.
Struck.
Like I could maybe…let go.
“It’s okay, baby, I’m right here,” he murmured, then hedged, “What happened?”
“All three of them attacked me, used me, and I think they had the intention of killing me…”
I couldn’t believe that I let that much out. That I trusted this man who was supposed to be the last person I could trust with my darkest secret.
My chest stretched as he somehow gathered me closer.
Rage blistered through him while this tender care soaked right through the middle of it.
“I actually lost consciousness,” I told him, “which I guess was a blessing.”
I choked over it, so awkwardly. Giving this part of myself to someone felt foreign.
Strange.
Even the fragments that remained jagged in my mind.
“I woke up in the hospital. I don’t even know how I got there.”
“Who were they?” Fury curled around his growl, and his massive hands fisted at my back. No question, it caused him physical pain not to get out of this bed and release it.
My head barely shook. “I don’t even know.”
I’d woken up to Dereck at my side. Holding my hand and promising it would never happen again.
They’d stolen his phone and used it to lure me. He swore he had no idea they would do something so despicable. Swore hewas sorrier than he’d ever been. Swore that he would never get himself into that kind of trouble again.
But he’d also begged me not to give the police details or else he was dead.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Protecting him after what he’d caused.
But I couldn’t be the reason for his death sentence.
And after that, he’d been…better.
