Page 26 of Bound By Blood and Lies

I swallow hard.

I miss the weight of him behind me. The way his forehead would rest against the back of my neck like that alone could shield him from the world. I miss the quiet safety of it more than the touch itself. The feeling that for a few stolen minutes I didn’t have to be sharp or calculate exits or measure threats. I could just exist in his hands. But the memory feels dangerous here. It softens me in a room that demands steel. I drag my gaze back to the present and steady my breathing.

Missing him doesn’t make me weak, right?

It just reminds me what I’m fighting to get back to.

A key scrapes into the lock and my spine straightens on instinct. The metallic grind travels through the door and into my bones as Robyn’s eyes snap to mine. We both run into positionwith urgency as Robyn sits on the bed and I drop to my knees before he can even properly open the door.

The air changes before he even steps in the room.It always does. Then the rancid smell of stale onions reaches me and my stomach tightens. Fisher walks inside without haste. He doesn’t scan the room the way he used to, doesn’t assess corners or measure distance. His movements are loose, almost leisurely. There’s no suspicion in his expression, no edge of scrutiny, only that faint curl of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

“Girls,” he greets, in a falsely warm tone. The sound of it coats my skin in something that feels oily and wrong.

He closes the door behind him with unhurried precision and turns the key. The click is clean and decisive and seems to echo longer than it should. My gaze tracks the movement, cataloguing all the details of todays visit.

There are no shadows shifting behind him.

No second pair of boots.

No guards.

It is just him.

Heat floods my limbs and my pulse slams hard as adrenaline surges through my veins. I fight the urge to move too quickly and to let hope flash across my face. Robyn adjusts her weight on the mattress with the smallest shift that would look like discomfort to anyone who wasn’t watching it. We exchange a glance that lasts less than a second; a quiet alignment of intent.

This is it.

He strolls further into the room, loosening the cuffs from his belt and holding them out to me. He pets my hair before using his fingers to tilt my head up to him.

“Lock her facing the wall this time,” he says, nodding toward Robyn. “I’d like some privacy, little girl.”

“Yes, daddy,” I respond and start to move.

The metal glints in the low light as he drops them into my palm and the weight of them is colder than I expect. Doubt claws up my spine. My hands feel almost too steady as I step toward Robyn and her eyes meet mine. There’s fear there. Of course there is. But there’s something else too.

Trust.

She shifts her wrists forward like she’s accepting it as I reach her and I lean in close enough that my hair brushes her cheek.

“Ready?” I breathe so quietly it barely exists.

She nods once and that is all the permission I need.

I pivot.

My hand darts behind her back to where the slat has been hidden and my fingers close around rough timber as I turn in the same motion. It happens faster than thought. Faster than fear. The world narrows to the arc of my arm and the space between us. Fisher’s expression barely has time to shift from indulgent to confused before the edge of the wood connects with the side of his skull. The impact vibrates violently through my grip, as a sickening crunch reverberates up my arm and into my shoulder, jarring bone against bone.

He staggers but he doesn’t fall.

For a heartbeat that stretches too long, he is still upright. His eyes flare wide, shock flooding them as his balance wavers, and white-hot panic slices through me so sharply it almost steals my vision. I miscalculated. He’s still standing. He’s still?—

Robyn doesn’t hesitate.

She surges forward with a speed I haven’t seen since before this place tried to break her, the second slat gripped tight in her hands. She drives it into the back of his knee with every ounce of force she has left. The crack of wood against his joint is brutal and a sharp, wet snap of the impact echoes off concrete. His leg buckles out from under him and his body pitches forward; his arms flail uselessly as gravity finally claims him.

If I was expecting him to make noise, I was wrong. A grunt is the only sound that falls out of his mouth, like he’s almost too dazed to ask for help. Shaking myself out of the fear, I don’t give him time to recover. I step in and bring the slat down again, harder and aimed for his temple. The sound this time is heavier as his body hits the concrete floor with a sickening thud.

The room falls into a stunned silence.