Page 14 of Redemption

“That’s enough, Donaghey,” the guard calls.

I ease away and trail my hands along her back before emerging again. Before she can move out of reach, I grab the hand that was dangling at her side. A thick white cast rests against her palm, and I jerk her jacket sleeve up. “What the hell?” How high does her injury go?

“Donaghey!” The guard moves from his post.

I drop her arm and step back. He’s not removing me before I get answers. “What the hell happened?”

Carys’s hand shakes when she tucks a loose strand of hair into her braid. Her hair should have been my first clue something isn’t right. She hasn’t had it up in months. “There was an accident.”

“Sit at the table.” The guard looms over the spot we’ve claimed.

I slide into the chair across from her and watch as she maneuvers herself into a seated position. My gut clenches, and violent emotions threaten to spiral out of control.Calm down. This might be nothing. Did she fall? Slip on Lucas’s toy?

“What kind of accident?” My thoughts want to jump to worst-case scenarios, but I’m working hard to ignore those demons. She’s safe now. I’m in here, and she’s safe. Jay promised me she’d be safe.

Zahir’s threat echoes in my memory. My conversation with the kid in the shower about the people we love on the outside of this building rises to the surface.

Panic twists my insides. God, I hate being in here. I don’t sit around worrying; that’s not my style. Action. Chaos. Throw me into the middle of a fight, but don’t make me idle on the sidelines.

She swallows and takes my hand on the top of the table. I shift her grip, so our index fingers are latched. I’m already on the guard’s radar, and I’m not leaving here without answers. The quizzical look on her face makes me realize she thinks I’m rejecting her gesture.

“Guard said one finger handholds only.” I give her a hard stare. “Take off your coat and show me what I’m not supposed to see.” As if she tried to hide her injury from me. Like I wouldn’t notice. Maybe if we were still behind that partition, but now? There’s no hiding from me.

Her jaw clenches, and she shakes her head. “You don’t need to see it. I broke my wrist in an accident.”

“Like you tripped and fell on a toy? Or stumbled down the stairs—oh, wait—there are no stairs in your bungalow. You’re trying to hide something from me, so you already know I’m not going to like it. If it was simple, you’d have led with that.” Anger bubbles to the surface. Fuck keeping my emotions under control. Jay let her get hurt. Five months in here, and she’s sporting a cast. “You need to fire Jay.”

“He’s not in charge of my security anymore. We hired island staff.”

“Fire them all.”

“I haven’t told you what transpired yet.” She gives an exasperated huff.

“Could this”—I grab her injured hand—“have been avoided?” I assess the way she’s sitting at the table. She’s moving like an old woman, but I know better than to say that. Whatever happened, it jolted more than her wrist.

She yanks her hands away from mine to lean back in the chair and cross her arms. Other than the initial tug out of my grip, her movements are languid rather than sharp. Her body must be sore. “There was a gas explosion at the new build.”

“What?” My voice is louder than I expected. “You can smell gas, Carys,” I hiss. “You cansmellit. Did you hire a security company with no ability to smell? ’Cause I gotta tell you, that’s a pretty significant weakness.”

She purses her lips, and when she rolls her shoulders, she grimaces in pain. “My security guy was at the car.”

“And you were…?”

“At the entrance of the building.”

“And the distance between those two points?” I use my hands on the table to demonstrate small versus big space.

“Further than you’d be comfortable with.”

I run my fingertips along the edge of the table in quick movements, trying to quell the desire to explode. The table heats under my palms.

“Everything okay over here?” the guard asks.

“Peachy,” I grit out, never taking my eyes off Carys.

“We’ve already hired more security, put additional measures in place. You don’t have to worry,” she says in a rush.

“I don’t have to worry?” I shoot across the table. “I turned myself in to keep you safe, and now I hear you and Jay aren’t taking that seriously. My one stipulation when I agreed to the exchange was that he needed to protect you like he would his own wife.” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat. Frustration is eating me up.

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