Page 304 of Mario
“You are safe,” I say, my voice rougher than I want it.
She closes her eyes.
I pull her back against me, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other locked around her body as if I can keep the shock from taking her if I hold her tightly enough.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
The words are so quiet I almost miss them.
My anger shifts direction with brutal force.
Not at her.
Never at her.
“Do not apologize.”
“I should have—”
“Shh.”
She goes silent.
I soften my hold.
It’s not because I am calm, but because she needs me to be calm.
Right now, I need to get her home.
Home, security, doctor, then answers.
Then blood.
The doctor is with Victoria behind a closed door, and I am trying to hold on to my patience.
I am not an impatient man.
Impatience gets people killed. Impatience makes men careless. It makes them speak when they should listen, move when they should wait, strike before they are sure of the real threat.
I built too much of my life on restraint to throw it away today.
No matter how much I want to break down the door because the doctor is taking too damn long.
Still, my patience is worn thin enough to slice.
I stand in the sitting room outside a guest suite with one hand in my pocket and the other curled at my side, listening to the low murmur of voices I cannot make out.
The doctor is trusted. Private and discreet. A man who understands that some calls do not go through offices, hospitals, receptionists, or records.
Victoria is in good hands.
It should be enough.
But I keep seeing her on that path. Pale and terrified, gun pressed to her side.
Thinking she was alone. Not knowing she wasn’t and hasn’t been since my first night with her.
Every time I think of what might have happened if I had not put people on her, the violence threatens to rear up and choke me.
