Night Is Darkest by Jayne Rylon (books recommended by bts .TXT) 📕

sure your nose is broken—” Razor’s curse scathed her ears, “—but since it’s still basically straight, a doctor wouldn’t usually call for x-rays. I just need to make sure nothing jagged is blocking your nasal cavity or pressing on your sinuses. I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

Gina’s throat flexed when she gulped.

“Squeeze my hand if it helps.” Razor’s stormy eyes reflected his helpless distress. “No one will think less of you if you scream.”

“Thanks.” Gina nodded to her. “This isn’t the first time, though. I’m prepared. Go.”

Lacey followed the bruised but intact cheekbones to the woman’s nasal cavity. When the crackle of cartilage and bone realigning confirmed her suspicions, Razor groaned then clutched his stomach. “Is that necessary? Be gentle!”

“She’s doing what she needs to. If you can’t handle it, get the hell out.” Mason leveled a no-nonsense stare at Razor but Lacey ignored all the misplaced aggression to focus on her patient. Tyler set her bag within arm’s reach then took his place, shoulder to shoulder with Mason.

Next, she dunked the towel in warm water and wiped away the excess blood. When she could see, she cleaned the cuts, sterilized the wounds then applied the butterfly bandages to the tear bisecting Gina’s eyebrow and the split in her lip. Lacey placed gauze packing inside one nostril to stop the persistent bleeding. The other remained too swollen for similar treatment. She rounded out the first aid by checking for loose or chipped teeth. Thankfully, she didn’t find any.

Finally, she spread brandy along the woman’s swollen gums, cheek and lip. She’d sat like a trooper through excruciating pain, impressing them all. Rob’s petite girlfriend had turned out to be tougher than any of them had given her credit for. When the initial burn of the alcohol eased into an anesthetic numbness, Gina sighed.

Razor unclenched his jaw for the first time. He ran his thumb in a soothing pattern over the back of her hand. Lacey daubed the woman’s lips with a generous coat of lip gloss both to keep the cut supple and to prevent massive chapping while she breathed from her mouth. Then she unzipped her bag, glad to see Ty had removed Rob’s gun before handing it to her.

She rummaged through the contents until she located the Vicodin her doctor had prescribed for her concussion. “I’m no doctor, Gina, but I think you could desperately use one of these.”

“You’re an angel. Really.” The grateful woman accepted the medicine as well as the can of soda, complete with a straw, to wash it down. All eyes were on her when she handed the half empty drink to Razor.

Searing pain hadn’t caused her to shed a single tear but when Gina faced their expectant stares, her eyes brimmed then overflowed. Razor stroked her hair then whispered something in her ear but she shook her head and said, “I don’t deserve all you’ve done for me. It’s my fault Rob is dead.”

Lacey’s legs gave out. She dropped flat onto her ass from her previous crouch before Tyler knelt beside her. She wanted to ask a million questions but none of them would cross her lips.

“Explain yourself, Gina.” Razor’s encouragement seemed to give her strength.

“The men who did this to me… They said you’d gone to see him in jail. That I’d ruined his chances of getting free.” It made her cringe to listen to Gina’s indistinct pronunciation but Lacey needed to understand. “So you must already know. I was stupid enough to date Jackson once. I believed his compulsive lies. I thought he loved me. He has an unbelievable talent for fabricating compelling emotion.”

Lacey bit her lip, nodding. She wrapped her fingers around the woman’s free hand and squeezed.

Jeremy turned his back but his ragged breaths were clear in the sporadic heaving of his chest.

“Who the hell is Jackson? What aren’t you guys telling me?” Razor shifted his furious stare from one man to the other but none of them broke her trust. Their trust.

Gina raised her watery stare to his. “He’s a monster. He’s in jail for abusing Lacey though, God knows, he deserved to go there for a lot more than that. And it’s all my fault. If I’d just turned him in when he beat me the first time…”

Razor shushed her when her pitch climbed. “Take it one step at a time. This fuckwad was your boyfriend?”

She nodded but refused to meet his stare.

“And he hit you?”

Another nod.

“More than once?”

Her entire posture drooped. “I’m an idiot, I know.”

“Stick to the facts. This bastard preyed on young, naïve women. Why did you stay with him once you realized how sick he was?” Mason earned a glare from Razor with his line of questioning but he didn’t seem to care or even notice.

“That’s just it. I tried to leave. First he beat me harder then tied me to the bed and…” She couldn’t finish.

“He raped you.” Razor turned an unhealthy shade of purple.

“I don’t know. I mean we were dating and then we weren’t and I don’t remember a lot of what happened…”

“He raped you,” Razor repeated.

“I guess. The next day I packed up and left while he was at work.” More tears streamed down her face. “But it didn’t matter.”

“He came after you?” Mason asked.

“Worse. He slid a folder of photos under the door of my motel room.” She choked. Razor tilted the straw to her lips so she could wet her scratchy throat. “Thank you.”

“What kind of photos were they?” Mason pursued the lead.

Gina’s bloodshot eyes begged Lacey to understand. “Pictures of a woman. Tied. Whipped. Bleeding. Crying. Burned with cigarettes. I’ll never forget. Oh God. It was my fault!”

“You can’t control a lunatic.” Razor gripped the cushion hard enough Lacey expected his fingers to poke through the upholstery.

“No. He controlled me. On the bottom of the worst picture he wrote, ‘Come back or I’ll have to play with another.’” Sobs wracked her frail frame as violent memories punched to the surface. “What else could I do?