I slipped the phone into my pocket and focused on the road ahead as we passed the guard post unnoticed. But now what? I glanced over at Scar. She hadn’t moved a muscle, and while her eyes were open, she seemed to be staring ahead, unseeing. My heart clenched. This was my fucking fault, I knew it, but I also knew it was the least productive path of thought at the moment. I forced down the guilt…for now.

She needed a doctor. Aside from the emotional trauma, her body was severely injured, and I didn’t know to what extent. The hospital was the obvious solution, but they provided substandard care at best and would raise a lot of questions. Fortunately, I had a private doctor on call who was good at what he did and didn’t ask questions. Technically he had originally been contracted by Marcos, but since Marcos had never really given a fuck about the medical attention his slaves required, I’d been the one in contact with him for the past several years.

A quick call had him ready at his home-based office, and I pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later. Fifteen silent minutes. She’d said nothing and she still hadn’t moved at all. It was as if killing Donovan had used up every bit of spark she’d had left. I never would have let her do it. If I’d known she was standing there with my gun pointed at the man who’d been a despicable excuse for a father, I would have fired first. Mystery man could have sent a signal text to warn me about that one! But it wasn’t his fault, it was mine. Just another way I’d failed her.

I pulled into the garage as it opened for me like I knew it would. The man treated bullet holes, broken bones, and torn flesh—not really the kind of patient roster one wanted waltzing up to the front door in an upscale neighborhood.

Once inside, I hurried around to her door, but instead of picking her up, I held out my hand. Would she take it? Reject it? Continue to stare unseeing at the grey cement walls?

She took it, and so I eased my other arm around her and helped her out. Then she just stood there, and since I wanted nothing more than to gather her in my arms and wipe away every vile minute since they’d taken her, I lifted her up and held her close. There wasn’t a fucking thing I could do for her memories though.

In the exam room, I sat her down on the examination table and held her hand while Dr. Vicente Fuentes started to probe gently at the wounds on her face.

“Derek, please tell me you’re not responsible for this.”

How could I tell him that? I was responsible for it. “It’s my fault, but no, I didn’t…do this.”

Scar didn’t resist. Vicente turned her head this way and that lifted her arms and inspected her calves and feet. When he started to remove the shirt I’d draped over her, I had to stop myself from tearing his hands right off. She didn’t move though. She barely even flinched when he pressed his gloved fingers against her flayed back. Her breasts were covered in finger-size bruises, and the bruising on her ribs spanned the width of my entire hand, at least.

“I think she may have cracked her ribs…”

“She didn’t fucking do this,” I shot back as if he’d been implying it was her fault.

“I’m not suggesting she did. I’ll take an x-ray before you leave, but it might be best to bind them up anyways.” His eyes shot to her back, and the problem was clear—a tight binding around her ribcage was not going to play nice with the lacerations on her back. He nodded to himself, seemingly determining it was still the better way to go.

Then he was laying her back on the table and she made no move to resist him. As he took hold of one of her feet though and started moving it toward the stirrup, tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes.

“Stop.”

“But…”

“I fucking said stop.”

He placed her foot back on the table.

It wasn’t a rational decision. She’d been injured, and no doubt those fuckers had injured her there, too. But I couldn’t do this to her. I’d figure out some other way. Some way that didn’t involve another strange man exposing her and putting his hands on her.

I just had to hope my own selfish need to stop her from suffering now didn’t lead to more complications later. Internal bleeding and lacerations…STD’s…pregnancy—the possibilities ran through my mind.

Fine. I’d been the one to do it then. Whatever was necessary to make sure she’d recover physically, I’d do it. And I’d hope that somewhere in the back of her mind she would remember what she’d felt for me and the way she saw me, and know I wasn’t doing it to torment her further.

“Tell me what to do.”

“You’re not serious, Derek. You’re not a doctor,” he explained as if I didn’t already know.

“And you’re not touching her. Understood?” I’d threaten him at gunpoint if I had to, but I didn’t want to have to resort to that.

He nodded his acquiescence after a moment of silent standoff and started laying out the instructions for me. It was one of the benefits of always being the scariest son of a bitch in the room—I won every standoff.

I murmured soothingly as I lifted her feet into the stirrups, but had to stop when I saw her. Raw, split, her delicate flesh mangled. I couldn’t speak. Fuck, I couldn’t breathe. If it weren’t for the silent tears that kept leaking from her eyes, there was no way I would have been able to do it. But she needed this, and she needed me to get it the fuck over with fast. I needed to pull my shit together and get through this. I had to. And then I was free to go insane in a darkened haze of rage and anguish.

Thirty minutes later, it was over. Stitched, bandaged, and sent on our way with enough prescription narcotics to start a small-time drug ring. He’d given her an injection of morphine and I’d watched the pain drain from her features within minutes. By the time I sat her down in the passenger seat, her eyes had grown heavy. She was fast asleep by the time I pulled out of the driveway.

I needed a destination. I couldn’t take her back to my home, though it was the place I longed to bring her. A hotel was the most reasonable choice but after the motel…

No, it was still the best option, and back on familiar ground, I knew where to go. I steered the car in the direction of the Sonora Oaks. The staff was the epitome of discretion, and calling ahead meant I could take Scar in through the service entrance and avoid a spectacle.

She didn’t stir, even when I lifted her and carried her into the hotel and up to the top floor. She moaned softly when I laid her down on the king-size bed, but then she seemed to settle back into her drug-induced sleep. I wanted to climb into the bed next to her, pull her close and never let her go again, but I didn’t. How could I touch her without hurting her? How would she react if she woke up with my arms encompassing her?

I pulled a chair over to the bed and sat down.

And then it hit. The floodgate let loose and the tidal wave that crashed over me left me gasping for breath. The lump in the back of my throat dislodged with a wretched sob that ripped clear out of my chest. It wasn’t a common occurrence. I hadn’t cried since I was a teenage boy. I’d thought I had lost the ability to cry at some point after Marcos had rescued me. It was apparently in fine working order now though. Hot tears stung my eyes. I looked at her through the watery blur as they escaped.

I’d let this happen. I had ripped her away from her safe life and fed her to the wolves. Wolves that had ripped her apart. The horrifying images that filled my head for the past sixteen days were nothing in comparison to seeing her now, in the flesh, with the proof of my colossal failure written on every marred inch of her body.

“Fuck Scar, I’m so fucking sorry,” I choked out. She couldn’t hear me, but it wouldn’t matter if she could. I could say it over and over again for the rest of my life and it wouldn’t do a god damned thing to make this right. There was no making this right. They’d taken everything from her. How the hell could anything fix that?

No. No fucking way was I going to think that way. She was strong. Intermingled with the torment in my head, that one thought kept coming back to me. She’d surprised me at every turn. She would do it again because she was stronger than me; stronger than anyone.

I took hold of her steel-like strength and made it my own as I brushed a fallen lock of hair off her forehead. She would recover. No matter what it took, I wouldn’t give up until every part of her had been restored.

It was completely foreign territory—helping a broken slave recover her former self—but I’d find a way to navigate it. I would. I wouldn’t fail her this time.

I sat back in the chair, feeling the first real flicker of hope since I’d stepped into that wretched basement. The fucking tears hadn’t ebbed. Having found their way out, it seemed there was no stopping them. Grief, guilt, gut-wrenching sorrow—they were all still there. Maybe they always would be. I’d never been able to forget the image of her now. It would haunt me for the rest of my life.

But there was hope too, that maybe one day, sometime in the future, she would be able to forget. Or at least be able to make it through the day without the nightmare she’d lived controlling her every movement, her every thought.

Two hours passed, and then three. She’d need her pain medication before much longer, but I was reluctant to wake her. I could hope that in her morphine-addled sleep, her head was quiet, devoid of memories. Once I woke her up, it would all be there. I couldn’t protect her from it.

Just one more hour. One more hour, and then I’d wake her.

Every minute, I watched her features for any sign her discomfort was increasing, but her brow remained smooth and her lips were relaxed, slightly parted the way they usually were when she slept, like an invitation to sample their softness and warmth. I couldn’t kiss her now though. But one day. I could hope that one day I’d be able to kiss her beautiful lips, and not conjure up memories in her head of the monsters that had tortured her. One day.