Then she beat him.
And I mean, she brutally laid into his face with her fists, rearing back with her whole body to put ultimate force behind each exact blow. I watched her, hypnotized, as she turned his face into a bloody, pulpy mess.
I was vaguely aware of chaos at the door to the room, of yelling and people rushing forward to pull Elena, screaming and thrashing, off of the comatose Christopher. People came to crowd me but no one touched me. They were talking to me but I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t take my eyes of my sister.
Elena finally settled in the corner, panting in Cage’s restraining embrace. Her eyes were, surprisingly, on me.
Something passed between us, through that momentary connection forged over threats and violence. The man bleeding on the floor between us had groomed us both. It had never brought us together, mostly because the similarities his influence had formed in us were too damaged for us to connect over. Besides, from the very beginning, he had pitted us against each other and even when he had gone, we had continued to live out the competition he had constructed for us. He had fucked us both, mentally and physically and in every fucked up way a person could fuck up two people. It was Christopher, not Sinclair, who had torn us apart. I’d always known that but it became clear, in that moment, to both of us, I thought, that since the moment Christopher had entered our lives, we were doomed, our sisterhood was dead.
But in that moment, when her eyes, so similar but darker than mine, bore into me, they were filled with a protective fury for me as well as her own righteous wrath.
No one fucks with you, but me. Her eyes seemed to say.
I tilted my chin to her. I’ll take whatever you have to give me.
I meant it to. She was allowed to hate me, it made sense and I was happy to give her a villain.
We would never be friends.
We would never be anything but sisters by blood, not by choice. I knew it and I accepted it. But she had attacked Christopher and it had at least a little something to do with me.
So, no matter what I’d done, no matter how she might act, I knew that Elena loved me. Not a whole not, not in a way that she had chosen. But she loved me.
I’d never known before this moment, that she did.
“Giselle,” a familiar voice pulled me away from our moment of clarity but I let it because I could hear the panic there.
“Giselle,” Sinclair said again.
He was crouched in front of me, between me and the prone body of Christopher. He had one hand on the man’s throat, checking his pulse maybe, and the other was busy righting my clothes. He was on lockdown, his eyes cold and hard like marble, inhuman. His hands were perfunctory against my skin as they checked to make sure I was unharmed but there was a haste to his movements that belied how fucking terrified he was.
“Sin,” I murmured.
He ignored me.
“Sinclair,” I repeated.
He paused, his eyes doing an intense sweep of my face but skirting past my gaze. I grabbed his hand and put it to my cheek.
“I’m okay,” I whispered because there were tons of people in the room now and this was a private moment, an important one.
I watched his Adam’s apple bob once, twice. He struggled and I watched the fury, the pain and terror roll through him. I drew strength from it, from his obvious love.
“Nothing happened, not really. I’m okay,” I repeated, meaning it.
Christopher had violated me again but for the last time, I was sure of it. I had evidence of his stalker tendencies and witnesses to collaborate his sexual abuse. The law would deal with him and if they didn’t, I knew Sinclair would find a way to.
“Sinclair,” I said again, “I’m still yours.”
A vicious shudder wracked his frame before he allowed himself to sag forward, resting his forehead against mine.
“Thought he took you,” he whispered brokenly.
My heart stuttered. “Oh Sin, he didn’t. I’m okay.”
“The baby?”
I had no pain in my womb and he hadn’t hurt me. “Just as fine as his or her Mama.”
“He is your nightmare,” he said, his eyes closed. “Worse than that fucker in Mexico. He is your nightmare.”
“Elena and I beat him.”
His eyes flashed open, blazing so blue, and he pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “I’m taking you away from here.”
“Okay,” I whispered, because I wanted to leave and because he needed us to.
“Now.”
“Yes, okay.”
“Brenna?” he said, and my friend appeared over his shoulder. “Take care of her for a second.”
My grip on his hand tightened in panic. “Please don’t leave me.”
His face gentled and I knew he was remembering how he had left me to Candy so he could beat the man who had assaulted me in Cabo.