Page 16 of Ballistic

I tipped my head, staring down at her with unflinching sincerity. “I don’t know what kind of hell you’ve lived through all these months, but I’m giving you my word. I will not touch you that way. You can trust me.”

“You’re right. You don’t know. And that’s why I can’t trust you.”

7

Nicoleta

“Eat.” Dax held a spoonful of broth to my mouth, the savory smell both heaven and hell.

“I’m not hungry.” My fight had grown weaker, with pangs of hunger gnawing at my stomach, and his persistence was admittedly wearing me down. I’d never known a man to do something for me without expecting something in return, and I couldn’t begin to imagine what the one beside me could possibly want.

“You are. Your pulse is hammering in your neck right now.” The amusement in his voice made me want to smack the unseen smile from his lips. “Probably so damn excited for this salty ass broth, you can’t even stand it.”

I turned my head away, the frustration of a missed meal tearing through my stomach with punishing fervor. “Give me my pills.” As pain struck the back of my head, I winced, catching jagged flashes of light behind my eyelids. What’s your purpose? “I need them. Right now.”

“No deal, sweetheart, but I’ll tell you what. You eat a couple bites, I’ll take the restraints off and let you walk around a bit.”

My head damned near snapped back in his direction. “Free?”

“In the room, of course. Look, I’m not trying to hold you prisoner here, and I sure don’t like tying a woman up when she doesn’t want to be, but you’re in rough shape. I’m in rough shape. I’m not a fan of getting kicked in the nuts, either. Hurts. Like a motherfucker.” The way his jaw hardened with anger, I had to assume I must’ve kicked him there at some point. “’Sides that, Tesarik is looking for both of us, so letting you go would be tossing you to the wolves.”

Perhaps he was, but the prospect of freedom outweighed any fear that Tesarik would get his hands on me again. Although, the very thought of being trapped beneath that pig of a man again brought acids to the back of my throat.

Something felt unfinished, nagging me, but the lingering fog sticking to my brain failed to produce little more than nameless faces in my thoughts and the maddening irritation of familiarity.

All I knew was, I needed to get away.

“Please, just eat.” Exhaustion weighed heavy on his words, which only served to add to my confusion. Had I not eaten under Tesarik’s imprisonment, the guards would’ve let me starve to death and laughed at my foolishness.

The prospect of freeing my hands held too much enticement, so I sat forward and slurped the broth from the spoon.

Dax’s lips twitched, but to his credit, he didn’t smile as he lifted the spoon to my mouth for a second gulp.

With his gaze cast from mine while he kept to the task, I took a moment to study him. His size alone was intimidating enough, and the tattoos that crawled up his neck, coupled with his dark, brooding expression didn’t exactly set him too far apart from the men who’d held me captive for months. He could’ve easily been one of them, with his roughhewn muscles and scarred-up body.

His eyes held something different, though. A deep, rich brown framed by thick lashes. And a weariness that gave them a sort of genuine warmth.

Over the last few years, I’d become something of an expert on eyes, as they’d often held silent answers to questions I sought. I’d seen my share of liars, thieves, manipulators, and the truly evil variety, like Tesarik. And Vinco.

Dax’s were concentrated. Focused. And brimming with shadows behind them.

Guilt, maybe?

If I had to guess, he was probably pushing thirty, at least ten years older than me. Muscles popped through the white T-shirt he wore. The small bit of hair sticking up from the neckline labeled him as rugged, somehow less self-absorbed than the guys with perfectly waxed chests. The sharp jawline and olive skin tone, paired with his dark eyes and hair, told me he might’ve had some Mediterranean roots.

Easy on the eyes, but hard to read.

He continued to feed me broth, while I examined him, trying to tease out why a guy would go through so much trouble. And the doc exam? Had to be a checkup, to see if I was ‘sell worthy’, as Tesarik always said. He usually had a doc on hand to perform last minute gyno visits, to make sure none of the girls had gotten pregnant or infected with STD’s. Who knew what happened to them if they had? Girls came and went so frequently in that place, I’d stopped wondering.

I just needed to get my hands free. If I could do that, I could get away. I could puzzle over where, along the confusing ride, I’d lost my way.

Fragments of information riddled my brain, an answer to everything, but it was like peering through distorted glass. I focused on his scarred hand, pushing those thoughts aside, and my head latched on to new questions.

Who is this man? Why is he doing this? Little thoughts I could muse to cast away the headache pressing down on the front of my skull.

At the last bite, my pulse damned near soared with excitement, while the warmth filled my stomach.

Dax set the bowl down on the table beside the bed and leaned forward. The way he sat, with his elbows resting atop his thighs, his tongue gliding over his lower lip with a no bullshit expression plastered to his face, appealed to whatever residual amount of Hedonic still pulsed inside of me. My body found him attractive in a rough and hardy way, but my head viewed him as nothing more than a roadblock to freedom.