Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3)

“Miss Hill,” one of the detectives said politely. “My name is Detective Briggs and this is my partner, Detective Ramirez. We’d like to talk to you about the attack on you. Are you up to answering a few questions for us?”


She almost said no and took the coward’s way out. But determination gleamed in the policemen’s eyes and she got the impression that even had she said no they wouldn’t have simply given up and walked away.

So she nodded hesitantly.

“I’m not certain I’ll be of any help,” she said in a low voice. “It all happened so fast. I mean on one hand it seemed to last forever. I thought they were going to kill me. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die,” she said painfully, closing her eyes in shame.

Beside her Wade cursed, and she could swear she heard it echoed from across the room.

“When I try to remember, it’s all one big blur. I don’t know who they are or what they wanted.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to accuse Zack. To tell them they should be questioning him. But she was too afraid of retaliation. She had to leave this city. She wasn’t safe here. He knew where she was. God, he’d said he’d looked for her. Why? Hadn’t he been determined to get rid of her? Or maybe the men who’d raped her were supposed to have killed her. Silence her for good. And for what? For loving him? What had she done so wrong that he would have such a terrible thing done to her?

She closed her eyes and more tears spilled over the swollen, scratchy rims of her eyes. Wade curled his hand around hers and squeezed reassuringly. Then he slid his arm behind her and eased her upward while telling one of the detectives to elevate the back of her bed.

A low whirring noise sounded and soon the bed was elevated enough that she could sit up without too much pain or discomfort.

But then she got a good look at her hospital room. Her gaze homed in on the two people who stood in the background, beyond the foot of the bed close to the door, and she froze, fear paralyzing every muscle in her body.

Completely stricken, she stared helplessly at the monster who’d haunted so many of her dreams. Standing beside a woman who was vaguely familiar to Anna-Grace. She let out a low whimper of terror and desperately clung to Wade’s hand, her only anchor in a sea of madness.

Her nightmare come to life was standing at the foot of her bed staring intently at her.

The man she’d loved with every fiber of her being. The man she’d given her heart and soul to. The man she’d saved herself for, vowing she’d never be with any other man, only to have that precious gift ripped from her in a violent, horrific, soul-shattering act.

Zack.





SIXTEEN


ZACK felt as though he’d been punched right in the gut. All his breath left him and pain rolled over and through his chest—his heart—and tightened every one of his nerve endings. As soon as Gracie’s gaze found him, her expression turned to one of stark fear . . . and then utter revulsion.

God, he couldn’t bear the fact that she thought . . . He couldn’t even repeat it to himself. The very idea of orchestrating her rape—the rape of any woman—was so repulsive that nausea rose from the depths of his stomach and swelled in his throat. What kind of sick bastard would do such a thing?

And then it hit him even harder that people he knew, people he’d trusted, people he’d called friends had horrifically assaulted her. In a way he was responsible because he’d introduced these “friends” to Gracie. He’d exposed her to them. What possible threat to them could she have been that they’d taken such extreme measures? Were they just sick, twisted fucks whom he’d sorely misjudged?

He couldn’t bear the way she looked at him. The horror on her face and then how she gripped Sterling’s hand even harder and looked to him as if for . . . protection?

“Get him out!” Gracie said in a near shriek, her voice breaking under the strain.

She choked on the words and ended in a coughing fit that obviously pained her.

The detectives whirled around as if expecting to find someone new in the room. Their looks grew puzzled when they saw that only Zack and Eliza stood there. Detective Brigg’s gaze sharpened and then he glanced back at Gracie’s sheet-white face and back at Zack, a frown twisting his lips.

“What’s going on here?” Ramirez demanded.

Gracie was shaking like a leaf now, her panic escalating into a full-blown anxiety attack. The hand that wasn’t holding Sterling’s flew to her mouth but jittered so much her fingers were tapping her lips in a nervous staccato.

“Make him leave!” she said, her hysteria rising.

“Shhh, Anna-Grace,” Sterling said soothingly. Or rather he tried to calm her. But Gracie was a mess. A terrified mass of anguish that ripped Zack’s heart right in two.

She shook her head, her teeth chattering so violently that when she tried to speak, her words died in a garbled mess.

Sterling turned to Zack, regret lining his forehead. “Maybe you should go,” he said in a low voice. “For now. Until Anna-Grace answers the detectives’ questions.”