I was acting as an enraged boyfriend.
And all of it was for her. Tailing Sanchuk here and pulling a power drill on him, threatening to torture him, beating the shit out of him?
Leaving the Kings to take care of him?
That was all personal.
Because I was in love with Summer Sorensen.
And you did not fuck with a woman I loved.
Chapter Thirty-One
Summer
It was almost two in the morning when Ronan came home.
I’d come straight home with Andre after the nightclub, skipping out on a thousand Halloween afterparties, like Andre, and Brody, basically ordered me to. On Ronan’s behalf, apparently.
And Andre wouldn’t even tell me where Ronan was.
He’ll be in touch with you as soon as he can.
That’s all he’d say. Easygoing, jovial Andre was suddenly a man of few words, just like his boss.
So. Fucking. Annoying.
And yes, I was aware that I was covering my worry with anger.
As soon as we’d gotten home, I’d headed up to my bedroom and took a shower, washed off all my Halloween makeup and hair spray and glitter, and slipped into a nightgown. Then I sat down on my bed, leaving a lamp on.
Andre had advised me to try to get some sleep. But that was just code for let the men take care of it. If I was asleep, less chance I’d be peppering him with questions he wasn’t gonna answer.
There was no way in hell that I was going to sleep while Ronan was out there, who-the-hell-knew-where, though.
While I waited, I checked my phone a thousand times.
When I finally heard a vehicle pull into the driveway and looked out my bedroom window to see Maddox’s work van, and Ronan got out, I was so deeply relieved and so angry, I felt mildly ill.
But then the anger won out. Obviously, he was fine. He just took off, for whatever reason, and wouldn’t tell me why.
I knew Brody had tried to reach him, too. But all Brody told me was, He’s taking care of something. He’ll let us know more when he can.
More let-the-men-take-care-of-it-and-don’t-ask-questions bullshit.
This was unacceptable to me.
I heard Ronan downstairs, speaking with Andre, and then I heard Andre leave. I sat on my bed fuming, and wondering, and waiting.
When Ronan finally came up the stairs, he did it slow, and my stomach started to sink.
Either everything was perfectly fine, so he was in no hurry… or everything was so far from fine he was avoiding facing me.
When he walked into my bedroom, quietly, like he was trying not to wake me, I got up. He went straight into the bathroom before I could even get a look at his face, without looking in my direction.
I followed him in there. He was at the sink, washing his hands.
“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded. “Brody’s up, waiting to hear from you…” I trailed off, all my spitfire dying in a puff of smoke and fear when I saw his face.
His light-brown eyes met mine in the mirror. “I talked to Brody,” he said gruffly. “It’s taken care of. You can go back to bed.” Then he looked down again.
Fucking what?
Fuck that.
I walked right up behind him, maybe to make him look at me… but then I saw the blood in the sink. The pinkish water washing down the drain.
He was washing off blood.
His knuckles were bloody, swollen and scraped.
I watched as he finished washing his hands and shut the water off. I waited while he dried his hands on a towel, but then enough was enough. I took him by his enormous shoulders and turned him around to face me.
Heavy. He looked so heavy. He wasn’t smiling, but that wasn’t new. He just didn’t look like the man who’d left me at the club tonight. That man was relaxed and having a good night, even while he was on duty.
The man in front of me had been to hell and back in a very short time.
“Ronan,” I breathed. “What happened?”
There were a couple of tiny blood splatters on his throat, and I peeled open his shirt collar to look. There was no other blood that I could see, anywhere. I pushed his head back so I could inspect the specks of dried blood among the stubble on his throat. But I didn’t see any cuts.
I met his eyes.
He said nothing. He just looked back at me from under heavy eyelids… like he was waiting for me to make whatever this was worse for him.
I wasn’t going to do that.
I didn’t even know what this was, but I wasn’t going to do that.
I reached for a wad of tissues, dampened them with some water, and wiped the blood off his neck. “Whose blood is this?” I asked him, as calmly as I could.
He didn’t answer me.
I tossed the bloody tissues in the toilet and flushed them. When I turned back to Ronan, he was unbuttoning his shirt. It was black, and I really couldn’t tell if there was more blood on it. His knuckles didn’t appear to be bleeding anymore, but his hands were pretty beaten up.
He walked out of the bathroom and I followed him.
I watched as he peeled off his shirt. Then he started undoing his belt.
I reached to do it for him, pushing his hands gently away. I slipped off his jeans, then his socks, his underwear, and when he was naked in front of me, I inspected every inch of him to make sure he was whole and unscathed. I walked all the way around him, and he sighed a little. I trailed my fingers around his body as I went, and goosebumps broke out across his skin.
“I’m fine, Summer,” he muttered, in a low, guarded voice.
When I reached his front and looked at his face, I could see it. He was not fine.
“Baby…” I said, taking his face in my hands.
His eyes skipped away from mine. “I can’t, sweetheart.” His voice was rough and barely a whisper. But I heard him.
Whatever this was, he
