“I covered your ass. I’m your bitch and you think you can just skip fucking town?”
“Back away,” she yelled, pushing him back.
What happened next was a blur, mainly because she couldn’t comprehend it.
Murdock spun her around, slammed her head against the edge of the car, and once the ringing sensations subsided and she decided she could stay conscious, she felt the night air on her bare ass. He had ripped her jeans down, and right as she screamed, he cupped her face with is forearm.
She bit him, she clawed, but it didn’t stop him.
She felt him take her—thrust inside—and she fought. She kicked and twisted, she clawed, and the more she did the worse it was.
The nightmare was no more than two minutes from start to finish.
The length of time didn’t matter.
What mattered is that a demon had ripped her life to shreds once more.
When she felt him leave her, she slid down the car. He stared down at her like she was trash then reached in his pocket and threw papers down at her.
In a slur he pointed at her. “Those will tell you how much time your murdering ass will serve. Acing criminal justice, baby.”
He was gone then, the tires of his truck barely missing her legs as he left.
She laid there, staring up at the street light in shock, shaking. Scared. Furious. And...broken.
Justice didn’t know what to do but knew no matter what, nothing right was going to come from this.
Nothing.
Her father had been dead for three years and he was still destroying her life.
Declan, his family, someone—their life would be shattered if she told a soul what Murdock did that night. They’d kill him and not give a damn about the consequence. Their life would be over.
She didn’t know if Murdock was smart enough to know that, to know he had locked her into secrecy again. Or if this was nothing more than a drunken, paranoid, jealous rage.
It took her a while, but she pulled herself together. Sitting in her car she cried, and fought for breath and sanity. When she thought she had it, she drove herself to the hospital, the one across town, away from the campus, away from where she knew Dawson worked.
No one ever could know about this. Ever. She had no idea what story she’d tell, but she needed help. Her steps were careful as she approached the deserted emergency room door. Just outside she decided she was cursed, and hot tears prickled her eyes.
Dawson was outside, reading on her phone, hot boxing a cigarette, a habit she only picked up during exam times.
A receptionist at the hospital was one of her jobs. She had a few and was paying her way just like Justice was.
Seeing her there all but told Justice God had a cruel sense of humor and evidently like to teach her the lesson of humility over and over. Justice thought to leave, but the pain she felt and the blood dripping in her eye told her she wouldn’t make it far.
Instead, she dipped her head and hoped whatever book Dawson was scrolling through was interesting enough not to look up from.
Justice made it to the door before she heard her name in the form of a question. A second later, Dawson was at her side. “Son of a bitch,” she said, taking her face and turning it.
“When did you transfer here?” Justice asked, jerking her head away.
“What the fuck happened?”
Justice looked down. “I need some help, but I can’t report it,” Justice said, feeling her lip tremble.
Dawson’s hazel eyes grew wide with fury.
“He’ll kill him...he’s about to leave,” Justice said in a painful tone.
Dawson shook her head, understanding but not. She knew how hard any deployment was. Adding the weight or fear for those at home to such at thing could be a deadly risk.
But still.
***
Dawson was there during the exam and defended the decision for the police not to be called. But convinced Justice to still allow the rape kit to be done. The doctor was tender and now as she glued the wound on her face shut, the line across her brow, she kept on with her positive praise. “I don’t think this will scar, but if it does, your brow should hide it.”
Her gloved hand tilted Justice’s head to the side to look at her busted lip, and her now swollen cheekbone.
The doctor glanced at Dawson then back at Justice. “Is there a chance, any at all, that before tonight you could be pregnant?”
Justice swallowed stiffly. There was.
Her expression answered the question.
“Do you want to know? Or do you just want to stay with the plan we have.”
The plan they had, medication that would stop infection and pregnancy, tests Justice would have to return for, pay for out of her pocket because her insurance sucked. Justice dropped her head. The world could not be this backward, this cold.
The doctor put the pregnancy test on the table and patted Justice on the shoulder as she left. “We’ll finish up in a few, make the choices we need to.”
“Be right back,” Dawson said as she followed the doctor out.
The doctor had been nice and reassuring but she was not agreeing with this lack of reporting. Even if Justice laid it out for her, how many demons she had, she doubted the doctor would see it her way.
Dawson got it. She didn’t completely agree, but she got it and was doing her best to make sure the doctor didn’t report it anyway.
Justice took the test, and then as it sat on the table and the clock ticked, she paced. She clenched her fist in anger and she cussed God himself. Rage boiled inside of her and she thought of everyway to kill Murdock, of every place she could run and hide.
Then the suffocating trap she was in seemed to squeeze her even tighter.
She’d missed her flight. And now, one way or another, she’d have to tell Declan something and no matter what she said, someone from his family was going to be in her face. The knowing Rawlings’.
They’d figure it out.
Anger and panic came to her when she thought of how this would be the final snap in Declan, what he’d never be able to get over.
What she’d never be able to get over...
Her rage erupted then and she went wild. She knocked over the table, the chair then slid all the counters clean.
Seconds after the first crashing sound, the nurse had charged in, and then too many people for Justice to even notice. She was too busy fighting, everything.
“Out!” Dawson yelled. “I said out!”
Then Dawson, who was more or less the same size as Justice, wrapped herself around Justice and slid down against the wall. Justice fought her but Dawson was an exercise, kick-boxing fanatic, and there was no winning this fight.
Finally, Justice crumbled into tears, gasping, unable to breathe and Dawson rocked her back and forth.
“It’s going to be okay,” Dawson said, moving her hand across her brow.
A second later she reached for the test.
“Negative. He didn’t take anything from you. You’re going to have a house full of hell raising Declan’s one day,” she swore.
Justice shook her head. “He’ll kill him...they’ll take him away.” She was sure that would happen. Declan would not be able to let this go; there wasn’t enough self-control in the world. And somehow, the secrets of how her father died would come out too. Life was over.
“I got a plan.”
And Dawson did have one.
It was Providence. They had been base brats together in the past, a bit more the year before Nolan went missing. Dawson knew Providence would understand where Justice was coming from, and would trust Dawson if she said it was better that he didn’t need to know all the details.
He’d be a dick about it. End up doing it his own way. But still he could be the buffer Justice needed right then.
***
Dawson was outside waiting for Providence when he finally decided to show up.
“What the fuck, Dawson,” he said, charging up on her.
“I’ve gotten my ass chewed twenty ways for not answering my phone. You want to hear these messages? Declan is losing his fucking mind—the whole family is—and you call me out of the fucking blue and say ‘Hey, I bet you’re looking for someone?’”
“She was raped.”
Every inch of Providence’s thick six three stance tensed and he went to charge forward. Dawson threw herself before him and managed to make him hesitate when she put all her weight behind her slug.
Providence was a smart man; he knew Dawson was capable of throwing him down if she really wanted to. If she was pushing against him, it was nothing more than a gentle reminder.
“She doesn’t want him to know.”
“Too fucking late,” Providence growled.
She shoved him back. “This something you’d want to hear? Right before a mission? Or when you still had over a year on your contract—when you already have family issues? Would this push your sanity button? Keep you alive out there when you’re face to face with an enemy?”
His angry jade eyes searched hers.
“She’s trying to keep him alive. She’s beat up. Bad. We need to tell him she was mugged or something. We can’t hide it all.”
“You want me to lie to my boy? Are there no limits with you?” he hissed.
“No. I’m telling you that is what she’s telling him and anyone who asks, and when they push you to find who did it because no one is going to tell his family anything, you might find this truth.” She glared up at him. “You tell Declan, I’m going to teach Justice to take down a man twice her size with little effort, and I’m going to arm her.”
He leaned forward, glinted with the same stubborn anger he always had when he bothered to look at her. “No bullshit cover story you want me to cram down Declan’s mouth is going to stick. Declan Rawlings is intensely aware of Justice Rose. If he takes one look at her, this is over—he’ll know. Brace her for hell because I swear to you, nothing but that is comin’ of this.”
Like a viper she reached to grab his shirt and pulled it tight, quick and hard. “If I buy that girl one hour...one fucking hour to heal—then the lie is worth it.” She answered the question she saw in his eyes. “Yeah, that bad.”
She jerked her hand free then stomped back into the ER. She was taking Justice home before this doc finally reported a crime.
Nineteen
Nine days. That was how long Dawson managed to buy Justice to heal. Declan knew before Justice ever made it all the way out of the ER that she had been mugged and banged up pretty bad. He went mad with rage, and rightly so. He knew there was more, he could feel it, and her not speaking to him, telling him what happened when no more than five days before she told him he was the only one that knew all of her, could understand her without her explaining, all but confirmed as much.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Everyone he talked to told him something different. Atticus thought she was fine, strong—just needed a minute. Boon swore something horrible had to have happened. His dad told him both—it was bad, but she was strong.
And Justice even after days...she told him nothing.
She argued with him, cussed him every way to the sun telling him to stay put, that she was fine, for him to ‘cool it.’
When he demanded she tell him what happened, her words were clipped. “It was dark. Fast. I’m not talking about it.”
When he asked her if it was because it took her back to that shit with her dad—if when this ass that mugged her it gave her flashbacks of something. Her silence gave him the answer he didn’t want.
She kept telling him she’d fly out the next day. Then she wouldn’t.
He found a way to get to her, just to see her.
Tobias and Providence picked him up from the airport in Savannah, and the entire way home, they stalled. First, Providence took a route that was sure to be gridlocked. Then they said they’d promised Bell they’d pick up groceries, and they needed gas.
Declan cussed them both up and down. He could look at them and know everything he feared was just as bad, if not worse.
“You need to get your head right,” Tobias said to him as he got out of the back seat of the truck and slammed the door to go inside the station to get a drink.
Providence was fueling on the other side and Declan was staring across the way at the lots where everyone pulled their boats up to get supplies.
All at once, his gaze honed in on the devil himself, Murdock Souter. He was loading beer into coolers that where sitting on the back of his truck.
Observation, seeing, hearing, sensing more than there was was something Declan was good at long before his training, before the tours he had already completed. He was a fucking mind reader, at least when it came to the enemy he was. Which was half the reason Providence was trying to recruit him now, and had all but done so.
From where Declan sat, he could see a bandage on Murdock’s arm.
Coincidence? Doubt it, Declan thought. A beat later, he was walking double time to Murdock. When he reached him he spun him around and ripped the bandage from his arm. And when he did, when he saw the bite mark—he knew.
Declan could tell you every single second he had spent with Justice, every thought his mind had settled on her, good and bad, and he clearly remembered the time she bit him when he was too carried away, when he wanted something she wasn’t ready to give just then.
The claw marks on Murdock’s arms, ones so deep they were sure to scar all but confirmed it. More than once Declan had felt the slice of her nails on his back, passionate grips—this was not passionate, this was a sign of her fighting for her life.
Declan lost it. He didn’t hear anything, he didn’t see anything but the enemy before him.
He threw Murdock against the truck then he wailed. With the first hit, he was sure he broke his nose, with the second maybe a rib. If he had the chance to swing more he would have killed him and still—the punishment would not be just.
He didn’t get the chance. Not only did Murdock not fight back, not only did the ass almost smile in a distant, haunted gaze, but Tobias had appeared out of nowhere, pulling Declan away.
In the end, it took Providence, Tobias, Jacks, and some other poor fool in the way to get Declan off of Murdock who was lost and confused as ever.
Tobias had to use his entire body, all his force, but he managed to get Declan across the way. “You flew here only to end up in the brig? You wanna at least see her before they lock you away?” Tobias raged as he manhandled his brother, something he had done a million times over, and lately every time it had become harder. Emotion fuels a fight and Declan had an overload.
“Won’t you pick a fight and stick with it!” Tobias raged.
Declan pushed him back. “It’s the same fight! That fucker is marked up—his arm is bitten! Scratches are all over him. Are you telling me you and your buddies here didn’t fucking piece that together? Are you telling me that this is why you didn’t tell me? Why everyone wanted me to stay! Because of your fucking precious case!”
Tobias was only managing to hold Declan in place with his gun, something he would never fire, but at the same time, he was telling Declan he was serious, he needed to fucking cool it.
Tobias glanced over his shoulder to where Providence was. It looked like he was having his own serious conversation with Jacks not Murdock. No, Murdock was drinking a beer like he didn’t have a clue that something had just gone down.
“No fucking way,” Tobias said under his breath, furious he hadn’t laid eyes on Murdock in a few days, that he didn’t know what took Declan five seconds to figure out.
Declan fought Tobias as he shoved him in the truck then drove him down the road. He needed him out of sight before anyone got any crazy ideas, including Declan.
They made it half a mile before Declan opened the door as the truck was rolling near forty. He was good with jumping out at that speed, but Tobias slammed on the brakes, giving Declan the way out he wanted.
Tobias rushed out of his door and yelled after Declan. “We’re going to make it right!”
Declan charged back toward him. “How can you make this right? How? Fucking tell me, Tobias!” He grunted then punched the truck. “That family takes one punch at us then another.” He hung his head. “They took Nolan—now this,” he said, hanging his head. He was trembling with raw emotion.
The Rawlings’ theory had always been if something sinister had happen to Nolan the Souters had covered it up. Getting proof had not helped matters.
“He’s gone, Declan...you need to know that. Accept it.”
Declan swung and hit Tobias and he let him. He fought him, combat style, no weapons on the side of the country road because he knew Declan needed a target. And he wouldn’t think until some of this adrenaline was exhausted.
The truth of the matter was nothing was what it seemed, ever. Brent Rose’s death was a gift to Justice, but it was a curse against the agents who were building a case against those he associated with. Those thought to smuggle shine and cannabis down the river. Crimes hidden in a small town environment, kept secret by every crooked elected official.
The very real theory was that Nolan had seen something he should not have, and the group Rose was hired by dealt with it.
Every time the Sheriff shut down the search for Nolan, every time he lashed out at any Rawlings who asked too many questions or when evidence disappeared, he was pointing the finger at himself. He was digging not only his grave but also the graves of his family, of the assholes in the town who were not as unseen by big brother as they assumed they were.
The very idea that Nolan had been murdered, felt one ounce of pain, and at the hand of a Stouter, or anyone—it was too much for Declan. And what was worse was he couldn’t talk about this with Justice.
He couldn’t tell her how dangerous the town she loved was. All he could do was ask her to come to him, and tell her what he had no choice but to believe—they’d find Nolan one day. This would all be a forgotten nightmare.
Declan blamed himself for what happen to Justice, he should’ve pulled her out of this town the second he knew how corrupt it really was. He knew she needed family, Bell and his own, to help her heal from her past, though. Leaving her sheltered on a base when he was deployed might have stopped the demons they could see coming, but not the ones within. Declan regretted his choice now. He regretted giving her room to run.