My eyes flicker wide as the sharp pain in my leg wakes me up. My head is pounding, telling me not to dare move my head off the pillow. I’ve been drugged enough times now to know the familiar feeling. Although, this time it’s different. Achier than before.

Matteo.

He’s hovering over my leg; his hands gloved as he inspects it. He stops when he sees I’m awake. He takes the gloves off and tosses them to the floor as he sits on the edge of the bed.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I was in a car accident and raped.”

He winces when I say the word rape. I don’t understand why he would care. That’s why he left me with Armas in the first place, so he would rape me and do the dirty work Matteo was incapable of doing.

“So you remember what happened?”

I close my eyes as the images start flooding back. Me slamming my car into a tree, Armas taking me to his place and raping me, Matteo rescuing me, and then striking me in the head as I asked.

I rub my head on the back and find the bump that has formed.

He narrows my eyes. “Still happy I knocked you out?”

“Yes,” I say, despite the agony I’m in now.

He turns from my eyes to give my leg his attention again.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I ask.

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he moves down the length of the bed until he’s resting next to my leg.

“Can you move your toes?”

My eyes widen at his request. I don’t want even to try to move a single part of my leg.

“That’s what I thought.” He peers back into my eyes trying to tell me something he won’t tell me with his words.

I swallow hard as a lump creeps up my throat. My mouth runs dry as Matteo stares at me like I’m the most important thing in his world.

“It’s broken.”

I bite my lip to keep from smiling. He thinks he’s delivered me bad news, but it isn’t something I didn’t already know. And telling me I have a broken bone is nothing when I was just violated by a man. Had his mouth on my skin. His cock inside me.

“I guessed that.”

He nods.

“Can it be fixed?” I ask, hoping he will offer to take me to the hospital or at least bring a doctor to me. For one, it gives me a tiny chance at escaping from Matteo. Although, at the moment, I don’t feel like running. Him rescuing me from my nightmare gave me a little bit of hope and respect for him. And two, I would love to have a working leg again, and the only way that can happen is with a doctor’s help.

“Yes, but it’s going to be painful.” He gives me a warning look.

My heart thumps wildly in my chest as I bask in his eyes. I could get lost in them forever.

I shake my head. What’s happening to me? I must be feeling guilty for him saving me, that’s it.

“A doctor?”

He shakes his head. “No, your leg doesn’t need surgery. It was a clean break. It needs realigning, the wound cleaned up and sewed shut, and plenty of rest. Your body will do the rest.”

I stare at him wide-eyed. It’s the second time he’s shocked me with his knowledge of medical information. But I don’t know whether I believe him.

“Do you trust me?”

I smirk.

He grins. “That’s a no.”

I nod.

He turns his attention to my leg.

“But I don’t have much of a choice, do I? Either trust you or die.”

His face scrunches like he smelled something rotten “Yes, you don’t have an option but to trust me.”

“Okay then.” My eyes flutter down at my leg that looks rotten. I’ve seen worse at crime scenes, but it still isn’t pleasant to look at.

He puts on some gloves and sits on the chair he was sitting on to exam my leg before I woke up. I notice the small table filled with gauze, needles, tweezers, and viles of medications.

“I need to realign the bone as best as I can to help your tibia and fibula heal. Then I will clean the wound and stitch it up before attaching a stent to your leg to keep it from moving.”

I nod. His words make sense, but it isn’t any more reassuring.

“It’s going to hurt. Worse than before.

I swallow hard.

“I can give you some numbing shots to your leg, but it will only work on the surface. Or I can knock you out again with the drugs, so you don’t feel anything until I’m done.”

“Also so I don’t remember anything either.”

He nods. His eyes glare into mine waiting for my decision. Before I would have said give me the drugs. Make the pain go away. Make me forget.

But now, I need to be awake. I need to watch what he does to my leg because if he fucks it up, I want to remember what he did when I finally make it to a doctor.

“Give me the local injection.”

He doesn’t wait for me to tell him I’m sure I don’t want to be unconscious. He takes the needle and carefully jabs it into my shin.

It burns slightly and then warms as the liquid fills my skin. He moves the needle to several different places, always slowing down his movements as the needle pierces my skin. I don’t know why he cares if it hurts me. He could be using this against me, to torture me to find out where Nina is, but for some reason, he isn’t.

He sets the needle back down on the table next to him and then gives me a look that tells me to brace myself.

I fist the sheets I’m lying on. My heart races but not in anticipation of the pain. It races when his hands touch my skin.

“Tell me something about yourself. What do you do for a living? Where is your favorite place to travel? What are your hobbies?”

My mouth drops open. He can’t seriously care about any of the answers to those questions.

He waits. No longer touching me or preparing any of his supplies.

I sigh. “I’m a prosecutor. I deal mostly with murder and rape cases. I prosecute the bad guys and lock them away forever.”

He smirks.

“I don’t have a favorite place to travel. I’ve turned into a bit of a homebody since everything that happened with Nina. And my hobbies, I used to enjoy paint—”

He rips my leg off. I know it. The pain sears through my leg and then cascades through my body like a hurricane does a city. Shattering everything in its path and leaving nothing left untouched. My entire body is screaming for relief from whatever trauma he caused. I shouldn’t have trusted him.

“Motherfucker!” I scream as I bend down to grab my leg, hoping to bring it some comfort. The spots return over my eyes, and my head is so light I’m afraid it’s going to drift away from my body.

“Eden, breathe.”

I can’t.

The voice is crazy if it thinks I can focus on anything as silly as breathing. I can’t exist.

Hands rest on my shoulder and chest as I’m gently pushed back down on the pillows behind me.

“Take a deep breath,” the voice commands, again more sternly.

I can’t. Why can’t the voice get that?

“In…,” his hands press against my chest reminding my lungs to breath. The traitors take a breath.

“Now out…” his hands guide my lungs again as I slowly exhale.

“In…” I take a breath in.

“And out…”

I open my eyes that I didn’t realize I had shut and the pain is still there, but manageable. I don’t feel like I’m about to die anymore, more like slow torture that may never stop.

“Tha—” I stop. I’m not going to thank him.

He slinks back from me to his chair. “I hoped taking your mind off what I was about to do would help. Apparently, I was wrong.”

I bite my lip.

“The worst part is over. I’ll rinse out the wound and then close it with stitches. The novocaine I gave you earlier should make it, so you hardly feel a thing.”

I nod.

He begins to work, cleaning out the wound, flushing it with a clear liquid. When he gets the needle out, I close my eyes and grab the sheets again, preparing for a sharp sting. It never comes.

I open my eyes, shocked as I watch him thread the needle through my skin as easily as he would cloth. He’s done this before. He’s too experienced not to have.

“I can’t feel a thing.”

His lips curl up a little, in what could be a smile if it wasn’t for this menacing glare.

“I used to stitch my brother up on an almost weekly basis. I got skilled at it. Now I’m always working on one of the guy’s wounds. It beats paying a doctor’s bill every other week, and most of the time, the wounds couldn’t wait until we got them to the doctor anyway.”

I continue to watch him sew up my leg. Not sure what to say or how to feel. My emotions are all over the place. Should I be thankful? Angry? Upset?

I feel everything and more.

He finally stops sewing and leans back to take a look at his work.

“If it isn’t significantly better in a week, I’ll take you to the doctor myself.”

I’m shocked at his words. “Thank you,” I say without thinking.

His mouth drops open.

Moments pass while we both sit staring at each other without speaking, hardly breathing. I have no doubt now he will keep his word and take me to the doctor if my leg doesn’t heal. But he’s done such a good job I’m not sure I can even hope for that to happen. Even if I were to go to a doctor, I have little hope for escape.

He clears his throat. “I’m going to attach this stent to your leg to help keep the bone in the correct position and to remind you not to move your leg.”

I nod and watch as he removes his gloves before he attaches the stent to the side of my leg with gauze. His hands are rough and calloused as they graze my skin causing tiny goosebumps to pop up.

When he’s finished, he places a pillow under my leg so that it’s raised. Then he walks behind him to the closet and comes back with a thick blanket to drape over me.

I gulp when he stops just inches from my body.

“You should get some rest. I’ll bring you some food and more pain pills soon.”

I nod, not willing to say thank you twice. Not to him.

He turns and walks away. And the ache deep in my stomach grows stronger. I don’t need any other physical comforts right now. He’s made me entirely comfortable on his bed. The physical pain is all but a distant memory. But I still have needs, questions that haven’t been answered, and I won’t be able to get any rest without him answering.

“Why did you save me?” I blurt out.

He pauses and turns his head, but not his entire body.

“Because you weren’t Armas’ to take.”

“Why didn’t you rape me?”

He hesitates. “Who says I won’t?”

I swallow. Because he would have already raped me if that was his plan. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. No man that would spend that much time fixing my leg would hurt me.

I narrow my eyes and firm my stare. “You won’t.”

He laughs, and it sends chills down my arms, the only part of me not covered by the covers. “Don’t mistake me for someone who cares about you. I don’t. I’m cursed with the ability to heal, that’s all. And you’re mine. I wasn’t about to let another man touch you. Don’t think I won’t rape you, I will. Unlike Armas, I prefer my woman to have the ability to fight back.”

“What happened to Armas? Will he try to come after me again?”

“No.”

His lips are tight, his jaw set as he speaks, but he doesn’t offer me up a further explanation.

“I’m going to need more assurances than that.”

He frowns as he runs his hand through his hair and finally faces me squarely on. His eyes peer into mine, and I stop breathing again. My body reacting to him unwillingly.

“He’s dead,” he says, deadpanned like he was telling me the weather.

“How?”

“I killed him. Beat him to death for touching what is mine. I’ll make sure everyone else in his family is either dead or made to believe Armas deserved to be killed. No one will ever take you again. You’re mine.”

My nipples harden, my lips part, and I feel a stirring deep in my belly begging to feel the erection I swear I see when I glance down at his crotch. If he notices me staring he doesn’t comment. Instead, he turns and strides out of the room, not bothering to tie me up or even lock the door. I couldn’t get far anyway, not with my leg the way it is even if I tried to crawl.

My body continues to ache, and I throb between my legs, needing relief.

The trauma from the car accident and rape must have fucked with my mind. That or the painkillers are making me delusional. There is no way I want to fuck Matteo. No way is that ever happening. I don’t care if he’s turned into the world’s greatest saint. There is nothing he can do to make me forgive him for what he’s done to me.