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Preparations

Chapter Thirty-Four: Preparations

"Where is she?"

Vincent's voice boomed through the warehouse, and I glanced up from where I was sitting at his desk. Lucas had wrapped me in a blanket when we first got back. The shaking had subsided a while ago, but the cold hadn't left. But when Vincent barged into the room, his forest eyes locking on mine, warmth finally began to trickle into my chest again.

"Hi," I murmured.

His chest heaved as his gaze roamed. Assessing the damage. I watched as that muscle in his jaw began to tick. His focus zeroed in on the cut above my eye, and the bruises that I knew ringed my throat. His fists clenched, and then unclenched. Over and over.

"Vincent," I said, rolling the chair back from the desk. "Come here."

He was across the room in three long strides. He stopped before me, sinking to his knees so that we were eye to eye. His hands cupped my face, thumbs brushing with a heart-stopping tenderness over my cheekbones.

"Lucas said you didn't tell him anything," he whispered, his brows pulling together.

"I couldn't."

"Are you okay?" I shook my head. "Aside from what I can see, did he hurt you?" I shook my head again, knowing what he was truly getting at. Some of the tension fell from his shoulders, and he laid his forehead against mine. "How did he find you, princess?"

My own eyes slipped closed, and I took in a deep inhale. Letting it out slowly, I braced myself for the conversation to come.

"Jaxon is Jack, my trainer."

There was a beat of silence. Two. And I could feel the pressure in the room change.

When my eyes fluttered open, I was looking into the same harsh gaze I had met in this room on that very first night. Murderous, unchecked rage was waltzing across Vincent's face, making that muscle in his jaw feather with a vengeance. But when he slipped his hands from my face to take my own in his grip, it was with a care only he possessed. How this man always kept that boiling anger wholly separate from me, I'd never know. But I would always appreciate.

"Tell me everything," he breathed.

And so, I did.

From the moment I first met Jack, to every training session, to running into him at the club, all the way down to how everything had devolved so quickly today. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes again, and I fought them back. Jack didn't deserve another ounce of my emotion, let alone my tears.

"He knew I was seeing someone, and he knew it was someone I had initially considered a threat. When he saw you tell me to leave, everything clicked. But only because of what he knew about me. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be sorry," he said. "Not for a moment. We were expecting someone who's eyes would be on me, not you."

"Still, how could I not have seen it?"

"Because you weren't looking for it," he reminded me, tipping my chin up. "You said it yourself. He was laying low. The last thing any of us would have expected would be for him to be running a legitimate business."

He was right, and I needed to accept it. It sucked, and I came out of it with a few cuts and bruises, but I did make it out. I was alive.

"What now?" I asked, injecting a little steel into my voice even as I leaned into Vincent's touch. I wasn't above borrowing from his strength when I needed it.