Page 55 of Lacey's Fight

All he could do was carefully clean the wounds, ensuring no fibers from the rope were left behind. After that, he applied antibiotic cream before wrapping her wrist in a crisp white bandage.

Lacey watched without saying a word as he set down one hand and picked up the other. Before he began to clean it, he held her fingers, his thumb caressing her palm, trying to convey how sorry he was for leaving her alone, letting her get hurt.

“It’s okay, Ben,” she told him, never lifting her gaze from the small circles his thumb was drawing on her palm.

It wasn’t.

How could it be?

Since he wasn’t going to argue with her, instead he got to work cleaning and bandaging her other wrist. Now it was time to tackle the wounds on her back.

Carefully, he eased her down to lie on her stomach then sucked in a breath as he saw the mess her back really was. Her white T-shirt was pretty much in tatters, there was blood smeared all over it, and he could see that the material was stuck to the gashes.

“This isn’t going to be fun,” he warned, grabbing the cloth and dipping it in the bowl of warm, soapy water.

“Never is.” The tone of her voice told him this wasn’t the first time she had suffered these same exact injuries.

That first touch of the cloth to one of her wounds was the worst. The pained breath she sucked in was so controlled it broke his heart. Lacey knew not to complain when she was in pain, and he hated that it was because it had been tortured into her.

It was slow work as he carefully eased the material out of each of the two dozen lashes across her back. Once he had all of her T-shirt cut away, he carefully added antibiotic cream to each gash, then taped bandages over the deepest ones. Although they’d be painful none of the wounds were deep enough to require stitches.

Whipped.

She’d been whipped.

And not for the first time.

Beneath the blood and cuts were thin, silvery white lines that were evidence of previous abuse.

“How did you find me?” Lacey asked as he carefully helped her roll over and shift so she was sitting.

“When I came back to the room, and you weren’t here I knew something was wrong. When I found this …” He paused to pull the bracelet he’d kept tucked safely inside his pocket out. Taking her hand, he placed it in her palm then gently curled each finger down over it, “… on the ground outside I knew you were in trouble. I went to Amelia’s room and demanded she show me the footage. We saw someone tase you and take you away. We didn’t know where, but I thought the tunnels were as good a place as any to start looking.”

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to grab one of his spare T-shirts and slip it over Lacey’s naked torso. For now, he left the jeans on because he knew she’d been violated and didn’t want to upset her.

“Was it him?” he asked.

She gave a shaky nod.

“Do you know what he wanted with you?” The Master had bought young girls here. Why had he gone after Lacey? Was it just revenge or did he have plans to abduct her again?

“He said he would … take me with him.”

From the way she averted her gaze, he knew there was more to it than that, but he didn’t push. Yet.

“Amelia is going to want answers. We can’t tell her it was him because then I’ll have to explain who I really am,” Lacey said.

Impressed by how she was already focusing on their mission, he was also concerned that she wasn’t dealing with what had happened.

Hypocritical of him, yes, given that he hadn’t dealt with his trauma, but he was worried about her, and he didn’t like this knot of fear in his gut that she invoked.

“We’ll have to just say you didn’t see who took you,” he said. She was right, telling them about The Master could ruin everything they had worked for. Besides, the raid was less than twenty-four hours out now, The Master would get what was coming to him.

Ben would see to that.

Personally.

Because this woman did have him tied up in knots, and while he couldn’t promise her or himself that anything would come of it, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t avenge at least one of his wives, even if she was only a fake one.

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