Page 60 of The Verdict

I was furious with her. Didn’t trust her farther than I couldsee her. But, so help me God, what I’d felt when she collapsed in my arms consumed that anger. The fear when her head lolled to the side and she wouldn’t wake. The panic when I held her, wrapped in my jacket, her skin so pale and clammy from how much blood she’d lost. The guilt when Rorik told me how bad it was…Fuck,I couldn’t take it.

“Rhys…”She looked at me. The centers of her eyes widened into large, dark pools, and I knew mine did the same. It was a chemical reaction to the feel of her. The proximity to her.The way I wanted her.“What happened?”

I lifted her shirt above the bandage and steeled myself for the feel of her skin. “You popped your stitches at the apartment. Rorik said your adrenaline had your blood pressure up and made you lose blood even faster—so fast you passed out.”

My jaw tightened as I plucked at the edge of the tape. I’d been so fucking intent on answers, I hadn’t noticed how bad her injury was. Not only did my jacket hide it well, but the goddamn woman seemed indestructible. She’d been stabbed, managed to incapacitate me, stabilize her wound, and make it to the city and to Morte’s apartment without even breaking a sweat. Even wounded, I wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating her.

“Rorik?”

“Stay still.”Was I talking to her or myself?

I willed my hands to ignore the soft heat of her skin and carefully peeled back the bandage Rorik had placed earlier. She let out a breath when the bruised, torn flesh appeared.

“Rorik was the doctor assigned to our Special Forces unit. He works for a local security firm now.” I grunted and ripped open the package with the antiseptic wipe.Why the hell was I giving her answers?

“How bad is it?”

“The knife didn’t hit anything major, but you need to restfor a few days. He had to sedate you to clean and close the wound again, and then gave you infusions for the blood loss because you started to go into shock.”

Her brow furrowed. “You were there…”It wasn’t a question.

My jaw locked. I already had to deal with the knowing looks from the rest of the guys after I’d snarled at each and every one of them when they’d tried to pull me from her bedside; I didn’t need the same damn look from her, too.

“Then you had a small fever and he was worried about sepsis, but it cleared.”

“You saved me,” she murmured, and I felt the intensity of her eyes on me, making my skin hum with a tune I had to ignore.

Just because I saved her didn’t mean I could trust her, and just because I still wanted her didn’t mean I could have her.

“Which planet was he?Sergio Morte?”I rasped and pressed the damn cloth along the seam.

“Dios mío.”She hissed in pain. “Mercury,” she breathed out. “But he should’ve been Uranus.”

“Really?” I drawled, my eyes darting to hers.A joke? Right now?

“It’s the truth.”We both froze at that word for a second.Truth.What the hell even was that anymore? “He killed Wheaton.”

A ripple of anger went through me.Another lie.She’d said she didn’t recognize the man who’d stabbed Wheaton, but she knew who he was all along.

“And the man I killed at the hotel? Alvaro Lorenz?”

Her hesitation lasted a moment. “Mars.”

“And you were Venus.” It wasn’t even a question as I set the wipe in the pile of trash and pulled out fresh gauze, gentlylaying it over her wound, my fingertips landing on her exposed skin.

“Yes.” Goose bumps lifted to her stomach like her reaction to me was the one thing she couldn’t disguise.

“Who else?”

“Jupiter. Neptune. Saturn.” She winced on the last one, and if I were the same man I was when I’d first brought her to Sherwood, I would’ve believed it. Not anymore.

“Who was the leader?”

“Jupiter.”

“You mean Miguel Ramos,” I muttered, catching her stare for a long second until her chin lowered and didn’t come back up.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

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