Page 28 of Savior

I damn near had a meltdown right in front of her earlier, and I’m confident she thinks I’m insane now because she came out and saw me on the couch, trying to keep myself from walking into the bathroom where I knew she was washing.

She left both doors open, and the sane part of me knew it was because she didn’t want to be a prisoner again. She just got to safety from weeks of being chained and beaten, and God only knows what else, and here I am, acting like a man out of control because I can hear her little moans in the shower.

Twice, I’d walked to the shower door, stopping myself with every ounce of strength before turning and storming back to my room. Only to slink back into the living room, lest I missed something like her emerging the way she had: with a flush on her cheeks, silk sliding against her clean skin, and her hair wavy with dampness still clinging to it.

She looked so innocent. So… perfect.

My thoughts since Dante dropped her with me the other night are scaring me.

She’s Ray’s daughter, and though part of me saved her because of that fact, I have to acknowledge the other part that begged Ardesia to save her based on my reaction to the photograph I saw in that news report.

I know that she’s been through so much. Fuck, there’s a roadmap to the last few weeks written all over her skin.

It makes me murderous, where thoughts like that are going to send me to hell any moment now because I can’t be having them.

I find myself, yet again, hovering in the fissure of her door. I’m sure I look like a crazed stalker.

Sloane’s tiny snores lure me closer to the end of the bed, and I run my gaze over her as she twitches in her sleep, her muscles seeming to remember all the shit she’s gone through in recent weeks while she’s trying to rest.

It’s likely why she still has purple rimming her eyes.

She whimpers, and I drop the towel in my hand to the floor, rounding to the side of the bed.

I don’t know what my plan is, but I stand there, willing the nightmares to leave her be, threatening them with my presence.

Again, she writhes beneath the covers, and the blanket rides down.

She’s been tossing, I realize when the blanket’s moving reveals that her silk shirt has ridden upward.

The light spilling in the door makes her stomach visible, and the bruising there makes my teeth grit audibly.

I lean forward, ghosting my finger over the blues and purples pooled on her belly, anger filling my veins with liquid fire.

I’m at a loss. I can’t calm myself as I see what she’s gone through.

Dropping to my knees beside the bed, I do the only thing I know how to do when I’m at a loss.

Pray.

I clasp my hands and close my eyes, leaning toward the very thing I’m praying for as if God will fill me and spill outward, healing her instantly.

Even though I know that’s not how it works, I wish he would.

I pray harder than I ever have before, begging God to have mercy on her and to wrap her in his hands and protect her from here on out.

After finishing my prayer and looking back at Sloane, I realize he might’ve already answered my prayers.

I might be the one he sent to protect her.

But that’s ignorant because I’m here, with the church, meant to be here for the masses, not for one woman.

No matter how much I want to be her savior, the one thing that holds her to the world and keeps her safe and happy, I can’t be.

Watching Sloane as she melts into the bed, the nightmares seeming further away as I linger at the side, I realize I’ve never faced something like her—a trial.

God has never tested me to this magnitude.

I wonder if it’s because of everything I’ve been up to with the Ricci family beneath the cover of the night in recent months.

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