Page 7 of Apple of His Eye

A darkness…

A protectiveness…

A caring I haven’t felt in the years.

It makes me want to hunt down the person responsible for instilling this fear inside of her and punish them. To torment them the way they tormented her. To bruise their skin, their heart, and their soul the way they have damaged hers.

Is that why she doesn’t want to return home? Is Fran her tormentor?

I drag in a deep breath and steady the beat of my heart. I can’t let her leave this room until I have an answer. “What didshedo, Wildcat?”

“Nothing.” The girl’s eyes widened, and she shakes her head, but like her previous lie, I taste it hanging between us.

It’s the only confirmation I need.

Fuck.

Everything connects. Starting the day, I moved in. The shouting. The cries. The moans and screams and wails of pain. I always thought they were the sounds of my crackhead neighbor servicing her clients. Never once did I think their source could be someone so small—this fragment of a female with sunken in cheeks and dark circles around her eyes.

“Don’t lie to me, Wildcat,” I growl, wanting her to understand the hell I’m about to unleash is not meant to frighten her. But it isn’t just my Wildcat that needs to understand. It’s me, too. The rage I’m feeling, the redemption I crave to give her… it’s deeper than a man defending a woman. It’s primal. It’s possessive. “Did she put her hands on you tonight?”

“No.” Wildcat shakes her head and something in her face transforms. It’s like she can sense the wrath boiling under my skin, itching to be released. “But other times, yes.”

“That fucking sorry excuse for a cunt is going to pay for putting her hands on you.” My Wildcat looks at me, her brown eyes filled with something I can’t make out in the dark, but I feel it.

She feels it too.

I will avenge this girl and I will protect her. No matter the cost.

Mine!

That last thought. That single word. It nearly knocks me on my ass, and I try as I might to push it away. I can’t.

This girl.

This Wildcat.

She is mine.

Only, not in the romantic sense. How could she be? She’s still a child. The vow that makes her mine—my responsibility, mine to care for, mine to protect—is one of guardianship.

“Let’s go upstairs, Wildcat.” She moves out of the corner, shivering into the oversized hoodie, but hesitates before taking my hand.

“Promise you won’t make me go back?”

“You’re not going back,” I promise. “You’renevergoing back.”

One breath.

Two.

Three.

She lifts her ice-cold hand and slips into mine. I ignore the way the connection sends a zap of electricity through my body, chalking it up to the rage I feel inside.

She’s too young for an old man like me, even if she was legal.

THREE

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