Page 17 of Possessive

"I know," he said firmly. "I know."

I leaned my head back against the headboard. "Why?"

He gave a laugh-grunt from the back of his throat. "I don't fully understand that either. I just know this is going to happen. There's a reason we were the ones who found you. I intend to discover that reason, but in the meantime you should get some rest. The doctor should be here soon. I trust him, but Gianni will be there too. If he crosses any lines…"

"You'll rip his balls off and make him eat them?" I asked.

"Precisely," Reuben agreed. "No one fucks with you and gets away with it. No one."

I believed him, but it was still strange. If you told me a day ago I'd be here, and that Reuben Brantley would say those things to me, I never would have believed it. I would have thought I'd finally lost my mind. Could I rule out the possibility he lost his?

"Thank you," I said softly. "I want to be there when you deal with him."

He nodded. "Of course. I wouldn't leave you out of it unless you asked me to." He pressed his hands to the seat on either side of him and pushed himself to his feet. "How much you're involved is up to you."

"Can I ask you a question?" I asked him before he stepped out of the room.

"You can ask," he said. "I can only say I'll try to respond."

"I haven't seen any women in the house since I got here." Just Gianni, Reuben, Damon and a glimpse of Terry.

"There are none," Reuben said. "None but you."

I nodded and lay back down on my side.

He gave me a long, last look before he strode out of the room.

CHAPTER 7

MINA

"Later, Doc." Gianni walked Doctor Ryan out the door before sitting on the side of the bed. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah." I slid under the lightest of the blankets.

The doctor, he'd introduced himself as Oliver, was clearly shocked at what he saw, but he'd been professional. He checked my heart, blood pressure and ankle where the strap dug into the skin. Apart from needing a dose of antibiotics, a tetanus booster, and going easy on food, he said I was in remarkably good health. Physically anyway.

"That's the hard part out of the way," Gianni said. "Now you can focus on the other shit."

"Finding Kurt" I tucked my legs close to my body. "And anyone who worked with him."

"Did you ever see anyone there in the company of that asshole?" Gianni cocked his head at me.

"Saw, no," I said. "I heard them upstairs, but he never brought anyone down." I remembered a haze of faces from before the basement, but not once I was down there.

"Doesn't mean they didn't know about you," he said thoughtfully, but with a hint of anger. "We'll find them and we'll find out. And have some fun in the process." He rubbed heavily inked hands together.

I shrugged one shoulder. "I just want to find Kurt. Him and anyone else who knew and didn't do anything." I was happy for them to hang beside him.

"In my line of work, I see some shitty things," Gianni said. "This pretty much tops all of that. If there were other people in on what he did to you, that's even more fucked up. We're not known for being nice to each other, but when innocent women are involved, that makes me mad."

I pulled the blankets tight around myself. "Has it ever crossed your mind I might not be innocent?"

He chuckled. "Everyone is innocent if you look at them from the right angle."

"Even you?" I shifted uncomfortably. Between the softness of the bed, wearing clothes and the blanket, everything felt suffocating. I was tempted to throw everything off and sleep on the floor, but I had to regain some kind of normal. To me, that meant sleeping in a bed, with covers over me.

"Asking the big questions, I see," he teased. "In some ways I'm innocent. And by that I mean I'm not always guilty. Damon on the other hand…"