She thinks I saved her.

Usually, I would welcome her thinking that. I want her to think of me as her protector. I want her to think I care. I want her to let her guard down.

That’s when I’ll really be able to control her. When she thinks she can trust me.

But I don’t like benefiting from my brother’s mistake.

I look down at the woman in my bed. She’s been sleeping for three days straight.

I wasn’t sure she would even survive the first night. And, as much as my dumb-ass brother thinks he doesn’t care, he does. I don’t know what he was thinking, leaving her alone with me.

If she hadn’t survived the night, he never would have forgiven himself.

Now that she has, I’ll have to beat his ass later.

I walk over to her and sit on the edge of the bed next to her. I take the bandage in my hand and change the one on her forehead, checking the wound that is the worst.

The stitches are healing nicely. I check the others on her stomach and arm, along with all the bruises covering her body. Everything is slowly healing, but there is no way to know how bad the damage is inside her body.

I tuck her hair behind her ear and stroke her cheek. I can’t stand not to touch her. Even in her bruised and beaten state, she’s still as gorgeous as she was the first time I saw her.

She opens her eyes and smiles up at me like I’m her favorite person in the whole world.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“You saved me.”

“That doesn’t matter right now. How do you feel? Do you need more pain medicine? You must be starving. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

“You saved me. Why?” she asks, trying to sit up in bed before she realizes how much of a mistake that is. Her arms aren’t strong enough to push herself up, and just the movement of her head makes her sick and dizzy.

“Whoa. Just lie down, beautiful. You’ve been through a heck of a lot these past few days. You need to relax.”

She doesn’t argue with me, so I take that as a sign that she agrees with me. When she lies back down, I stroke her cheek again.

“Now, answer my questions first, and then I’ll answer whatever questions you want me to. How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve just been hit by a train,” she says, closing her eyes, hating to show any weakness.

I feel the anger rising in my chest at the thought of her feeling weak after surviving this. She is anything but weak.

I get up and walk over to the medicine cabinet and pull out a bottle of pills. I walk back and take her hand where I pour four pills.

“Take these, it will help with the pain.”

She looks at the pills and then at me before she pops them all into her mouth at once. I hand her a glass of water from my nightstand, and she washes the pills down, not at all hesitating to take them. She didn’t question the amount or if I was drugging her. She just took the pills.

“Good girl. Now, are you hungry, or do you need anything else right now?”

She slowly shakes her head.

I nod. “Now, I need you to tell me what happened.”

I don’t really. I already know what happened, but I need to know what she remembers. The pain might have completely wiped away her memory.

She looks away for a second, and when she turns her gaze back, I know that she remembers everything. Every. Fucking. Thing.

The horror.

The pain.

The fight for her life.

All of it.

“Your father raped me. He beat me. He had his men tie me up because he was too chickenshit to do it himself. And then he raped me over and over. Trying to break me.” She looks down at her beaten body. “Seems like he won.”

I place a finger under her chin so that I can see her endearing dark eyes that are full of fight despite everything she has already been through. “He didn’t win. You have plenty of fight left in you. You aren’t broken yet.”

I cock my head to the side and grin because I know she will smile, too. She does. She can’t help herself; my grin is infectious even in her broken state.

“He might have broken your body but not your spirit. I have no doubt that, if you had a gun or a knife tucked in your pajamas, you would still try to kill me right now to get your freedom. Even in your weakened state.”

She smiles. “Others, yes. But I wouldn’t try to kill you.”

I smirk even though I know she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I’m not her friend. I’m just as dangerous as the rest of my family. Just because I kept her alive for a few days doesn’t make me a saint. I’m a monster, like everyone else. I might even be worse because I’m the devil who hides behind his charms.

“Anything else happen?” I probe.

I feel the anger rising to the surface. Her eyes look like she is about to rip someone’s head off, and her body is flush with rage.

“It wasn’t just your father. It was your brother, too. He raped me. I thought he was like you. I thought, deep down, he cared and would never do anything to really hurt me.” I see the tears welling up in her eyes. “But I was wrong. He’s just as vile as your father; he just didn’t have the balls to try to break me himself. He let his father do all the dirty work.”

I take her hand and interlock my fingers with hers, letting her think that I would never be as awful as either my father or brother.

She exhales deeply when I hold her hand. “I hate him. He’s a monster,” she says, thinking back to what Arlo did to her.

But there is something other than hate in her eyes. Lust. As much as she hates Arlo, she still enjoyed herself. She still wants him to fuck her again.

I smile. “And what do you think of me?”

Nina looks at me with the same glimmer of lust still in her eyes. “I have some hope that you are a better man than your father or brother.”

I laugh. “Well, that’s not hard to do. My brother is an idiot, and my father is the devil.”

“Why did you save me?”

I sigh and then move closer to her. Our eyes are locked, and our lips are millimeters from touching. “What kind of monster wouldn’t save a gorgeous girl like you?”

She closes the gap whether intentionally or unintentionally. Her lips press against mine. Her breathing is still heavy and labored, so I know I can’t let the kiss last long. But her lips are so soft and plump that I don’t want the kiss to ever end. The second our lips touch, a spell comes over me, and I become just as obsessed with her as my brother is.

I stop the kiss when I hear the tiniest wheeze in her throat. I sit back up and let her breathe as I cherish the kiss.

“What was that for?” I ask.

She sinks back into the bed, her eyes closing from the exhaustion again. It’s amazing that she was even able to stay awake this long. It’s going to take weeks for her to heal enough to leave this room. I’ll have her in my bed for weeks. I’ll become her friend, her confidant, and maybe even her lover. She’ll be mine if I want before Arlo even has a chance to change his mind.

“Because you saved me and I wanted to,” she says, opening her eyes for one more second. And then her heavy eyelids quickly fall, and she drifts back off to sleep.

I lean forward and kiss her forehead, needing more of her scent. Nina Young, what are you doing to me?

I watch her sleep. I won’t leave her alone for a second. Not now. Not ever.

I won’t let anyone else hurt her. I’m the only one who will get her pain.