SHE DIDN’T CALL ME.
That shouldn’t have been my first thought when Lock told me my girl needed me, but it was. It didn’t come from a place of jealousy, but a realization of how far I needed to climb to get back to her. My tiger had been hurt, left in a parking lot bleeding, and I wasn’t her one phone call.
Lock met me at the door of her suite, placing a hand on my chest to hold me back. “I need you to go in calm.”
My jaw twitched. “Is it bad?”
“Fucking awful, man.” He captured my eyes, ensuring I heard what he said. “But she’s awake and being stubborn, so I think she’ll be okay.”
“Why is she not in the hospital? Where are the cops?”
“Did you not hear the part about her being stubborn? She wouldn’t let me take her. She was in more of a panic to get back here to Zadie. Wouldn’t tell me why, though.”
“Is Zadie okay?”
“She’s fine.”
I pushed against his hand. “Let me in.”
“Are you going to be cool?”
“I’m going to try.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t about you, man. I see you steaming about not being her phone call. You need to let that go. That was her pride on her mind, not her favoring me over you. You feel me?”
“I feel you, but if you don’t move out of my way and let me get to her, I won’t be cool anymore.”
Lock raised his hand and stepped back from the door, and I flew inside, straight to Helen’s room, taking a deep breath before I went in. It would do me no good to barge forward like the feral animal raging under my skin.
I reined it in. Not much, but enough that I could face what I needed to face on the other side of the door.
Helen was sitting up on her bed, bags of peas and a couple ice packs scattered on her bare torso. Zadie was beside her, holding ice to her cheek. Above it, she was bloody and scraped, the skin around her eye already turning black. Her other cheek was bright pink with a cut down the middle. Her throat was shadowed in bruises.
Shit. I wasn’t strong enough for this. How could I be calm when I was caught in a hurricane of fury?
But then Helen’s hand shot out to reach for me, and I came back. She needed me, so I went to her, kneeling on the floor, taking her hand in mine.
“Baby,” I gritted. “What the fuck?”
“Hey. Don’t talk to her like that,” Zadie protested.
“I’m not.” I brought our joined hands to my forehead. “Jesus, Helen. You need to go to the hospital.”
“No. Please, Theo,” she whispered. “I just need to sleep.”
“I had some leftover prescription Tylenol from when I got my wisdom teeth out.” Zadie stroked Helen’s hair. “She took some a little bit ago. It should kick in soon.”
“Thank you.” I kissed Helen’s knuckles. “You should go rest, Z. I’ll take care of her. I’m here now.”
Helen needed soft. It was next to impossible to give it to her with the violence boiling in my blood, but I would. Whether she agreed or not, whether I’d even earned it, Helen was mine. That meant I would take care of her however she needed. Right now, she needed me to leash it all.
Later, when she was feeling better, less vulnerable, I’d unleash the rage in my veins. I had no choice.
After heavy protest, Zadie left me with Helen. Lock poked his head in, said he was leaving but would be back in the morning to check in. Then, it was just the two of us. I stretched out on the bed beside her, afraid to touch her anywhere. I’d already caused her enough pain. I wouldn’t do it again.
Her head lolled to the side. “I guess you’ve been proven right.”
“What?”
She pointed at herself. “Trash. Jumped in a strip club parking lot after I shook my ass for strangers.”
“No. I’m not letting you take that on. I never thought you were trash. I said shit I shouldn’t have based on a past that has nothing to do with you.” I stroked her hair like Zadie had. “Someone hurt you, baby. You don’t get to take the blame. That’s on them. The way I hurt you is on me. It’s not you, Helen. You didn’t deserve any of it.”
She leaned into my hand, her lids at half-mast. “You just think that because your dad and stepmom like me.”
“No. I always knew that. My head got lost for a while, but that was always my problem, never yours.” I leaned over, touching my lips to her forehead. “Quite fucking honestly, my dad liking you is in the minus column.”
“You say that, but I know you wouldn’t stand by me if your dad didn’t approve. I know it, Theo.”
“You’re wrong, baby. It’s up to me to prove that to you.”
She sighed, scooting down slightly. “I think the drugs are kicking in.”
I huffed a quiet laugh. “I think so too.”
“I might sleep.” She grabbed my hand. “Stay, please.”
“Wild horses, baby. They’d have to drag me away, and even then, I’d be back.”
“Mmm…okay, Theo. Don’t make empty promises to the injured, drugged up girl. Not nice.”
“Go to sleep, Helen.”
“’Kay.”
She laid down, and after some pained moans, drifted off. Her brow pinched every few minutes, but her breathing stayed deep and even. I watched her for hours in the dark, counting her breaths, tucking her close when she whimpered. My baby was hurting, and I’d never felt so helpless.
Goddamn, I was angry. I only vaguely knew what had happened, no details, but someone was going to answer for this. I was almost glad Helen hadn’t called the cops. That left me clear to handle this on my own.
I must’ve dozed off at some point in the night, although I didn’t remember it. I woke to Helen slipping out of bed. Or trying to, at least. I snagged the back of her hoodie.
“Come back. Anything you need, I’ll get for you.”
She glanced at me over her shoulder, her hair curtaining most of her face. “Bathroom, Theodore. I probably have to do that myself.”
We both froze at her use of Theodore. I didn’t say a word, though. No way was I spooking her out of calling me that again.
“Want me to carry you?” I offered, sincere as fuck.
She snorted. “I can make it. Thanks, though.” Thankfully, she was walking instead of limping, although her movements seemed to be stilted.
A minute passed before the door to the bathroom slowly creaked open, but Helen didn’t come out. “You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She peaked around the door. “I just need you to know I look a lot worse than I feel. Do you believe me?”
My fingers curled at my knees. “If you say you’re telling me the truth, I believe you.”
“Okay.” She stepped around the door and rushed to the bed, climbing onto my lap and burying her face in my neck. “You’re going to freak out.”
I held her close, keeping my embrace careful. I had no idea how badly her ribs hurt, or the rest of her. “I saw you last night. I already have an idea, baby.”
She hit my shoulder with her chin. “You can’t call me baby.”
“Helen,” I breathed out a low laugh, “you’re in my lap. A place you put yourself. I’m calling you baby because that’s what you are. You’re my baby, my little tiger. I haven’t been taking care of you, but that’s over. Even if you’re not up for forgiving me, I’m still going to be taking care of you.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to forgive. All I know is you made me feel safe last night and right now.”
I stroked up and down her back while my stomach roiled. “That’s a lot. You are safe with me, baby. But I need to know what happened. Who did this?”
She shook her head. “You can’t go after him. He’ll kill you. If I hadn’t had his money last night—” A rough tremble took over her entire body. “I think he would have killed me. And then he would have gone after my mom and sister.”
“Amir?” I guessed.
“No. I mean, Amir was here, holding Zadie hostage while I was at work. But he isn’t in charge of everything. His older brother, Reno, is. He’s an absolute psycho.” She pulled back, cupping my jaw. “Listen to me, Theo. You cannot go after Reno. He’s untouchable to you. I need you to hear me.”
I heard her, but I was distracted by her black eye, the crusty cut on her cheek, the other cheek swollen and abraded. Her neck bore finger-shaped bruises that made my blood boil and struck a fear like I’d never known in my heart. She wasn’t broken, and she was still beautiful, but fuck, my girl had been banged up. I hadn’t even looked at her torso yet.
“I hear you. I need you to hear that I’m not letting this stand. You’re not going to owe that man money anymore. Your connection with him is over.”
She slumped against my chest. “I owe him a lot of fucking money. With interest…it’s going to take me until I graduate and have access to my trust to pay him off. I’ve got years of this over my head.”
“No, Helen.” Taking her head in my hands, I tipped it back carefully. “Listen to me. I am going to handle it. You have nothing more to worry about. That part of your life ceases to exist now that I’m here.”
Her chin trembled, but she clamped down on her bottom lip to make it stop. “I won’t let you do that. I know you’re working now, but you don’t have the kind of mon—”
I covered her mouth with mine, taking what I needed and giving back to her. Her gasp allowed me to delve my tongue between her lips, sipping her taste and letting it spread through my veins like a shot of pure heroin. Helen was calm, smooth, euphoric. Nothing had been right without her.
“Shut up,” I murmured against her lips. “No more.”
“We’re not kissing, Theo. I’m not there with you.”
“I know. I jumped the gun, but I needed you to shut your mouth, baby. This isn’t your worry anymore. I’m taking it.”
I didn’t have the money, but I’d find it. There were myriad paths I could take from here, but none of them involved me standing by while Helen gave more and more of her money, time, or self to the man who’d left her beaten in a parking lot last night.
“I stripped last night. Not only that, I lap danced. My ass was grinding on multiple men. I shook my tits in their faces. My friend Carina is a stripper, and she makes it look good. I admire her. When I do it, I feel like I’m never going to be clean again. But that’s the thing. I’ll do it again and again. Your promises are nice, but this is reality.”
As soon as she laid out what she saw as facts, she climbed off my lap and went to her dresser. She was digging around, but not taking anything out. I got the clear sense she needed space from me, but I’d already given her a hell of a lot. That was done too.
I crossed the room, bracing my hands on either side of her on the edge of the dresser. My chest was pressed to her back, and I bent down to nuzzle the side of her face.
“I didn’t know I wasn’t breathing until I met you.”
Her shoulders stiffened, but she didn’t move otherwise. I brushed her hair to the side, leaving a kiss on the bruise mottling her neck.
“I’ve been in survival mode since I can remember. My body was my weapon. But the war I was fighting wasn’t worthy of the sacrifices I made. The training, the starving, the doping.” My fingers skimmed her shoulder, and her head tilted, giving me enough of her to see she was hanging on my every word. These were things I’d never said out loud. Thoughts I’d never allowed to fully form for fear they’d tear down what I’d built.
“I would’ve done anything to get out of my old life. That meant when I moved here and the coaches my dad hired introduced me to performance-enhancing drugs, I took them without question. When they taught me how to game the system, I followed their rules to a T. The testing was different in college, but I heard of this guy who had access to something new—something the tests didn’t pick up.”
“Amir,” she breathed.
“Right. Amir. I took what he gave me blindly. Injected it straight into my muscles without concern for the consequences. The only consequence I gave a shit about was being shipped back to my old life. I was all wrestling, every hour of my life was focused on the goal of being the best, ensuring my dad had a reason to keep me here. I lost Abby, but I kept going and going until I ended up in the hospital with what I thought was a heart attack. It wasn’t, but it was a wake-up call. Because what was the point of turning myself into a weapon if my own blade was being shoved deeper into my chest with every stride I made?”
“Theo, you don’t have to tell me this.”
Taking her by the shoulders, I spun her to face me. “I need you to understand why I get it. I’m going to make it so you never have to strip again, but I also want you to know I get why you had to.”
Her eyes met mine. They were so damn pretty, yet so damn sad. “When Amir told me about the doping, I was disappointed in you.”
I nodded, taking the weight of the way I’d let her down onto my shoulders. “That’s fair. If I were a better man, I’d send back every trophy I ever won. All my victories are unclean. I’m not going to say I didn’t deserve them, because I trained my body like a machine, sacrificed almost everything, and I was damn good, but I’ll never know if I would have won without the drugs.”
Something hard in her expression fell away. “I’m an asshole for being disappointed. I realize that now. I have no room to judge you for doing what needed to be done to survive. And I guess that includes dumping me—”
“Shut up, Helen. There’s no excuse for how I treated you. Don’t give me an out. I won’t take it, not when I haven’t proven to you I’m willing to stand by you and stand up for you. I asked you for soft, but the second I needed to give you strong, I failed. That won’t happen a second time.”
She shoved at my shoulder. “Hey, Theo, a good way to never get back in my good graces is to continue telling me to shut up.”
I swallowed back a laugh. “Normally, I’d kiss you, but you told me we’re not kissing yet.”
“We’re not. And don’t say yet like I’m a foregone conclusion. I have a lot going on in my head right now. I can’t make any kind of decisions. You’re telling me all these things, and I want to believe them, but I don’t have it in me to trust pretty promises. So, now I’m thinking about going to work looking like I got hit by a bus wondering if I’ll have to get on stage again because Daniel stole the little cushion I had—”
“Whoa, whoa, back up. Daniel? What are you talking about?”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Remember I told you the company you keep says a lot about you? That asshole you call a friend snuck into my room while I was sleeping, felt me up, and stole my stash of cash I needed to pay Reno.”
Something came over me. A maelstrom of sizzling violence that made my skin feel ten times too small. Electricity charged through the air, sparking every time I took a breath.
Daniel. Touched. My. Girl.
“He’s dead.” I tore away from Helen, ripping her door open and storming for the exit. She was on my heels, calling my name, asking me to wait, but I’d waited long enough. She wouldn’t let me go after Reno, fine. Daniel was another story. If she truly thought I’d let this stand, she hadn’t been paying attention.
Lock was in the hall, poised to knock. “Helen?” he ground out.
“Stop him, Lock.” Helen grabbed the back of my shirt like she had a chance of doing more than slowing me down. “Or go with him. He’s going to kill him.”
I jabbed a finger at Lock. “If you attempt to stop me, we are not going to be cool. Helen just told me a guy I live with touched her and stole her money, which led to,” I waved at my battered girl, “this. I can’t let that go. I don’t have it in me.”
Lock’s hand came down on my shoulder. “I’m with you.” He pointed to Helen. “Go back inside. Lock the door. One of us will be back when we can.”
Helen grabbed for me, her eyes wide and shiny. “This isn’t worth risking your future over. If you get arrested, I’ll never forgive you.”
I took her jaw in my hand, throwing every ounce of control I still had in keeping it gentle. “You make it easy to light the match, Tiger. Now watch me make it burn.”
