Protecting What's Mine(104)

“Out of my way,” Linc growled at the firefighters in his doorway.

“You better be on your way to her house to grovel,” Luke yelled after him.

Linc flashed him a middle finger over his shoulder. “Go fuck yourself, Garrison. Someone watch my dog.”

With that, he was sprinting down the stairs to the chief’s vehicle. He punched the lights and sirens and tore out of the parking lot without a look back.





“Open the door, Mackenzie,” he said, giving the front door of the cottage another pound. “I’m not leaving until you come out. I know you’re in there.”

“I’m not in there. I’m right here, and now you’re free to leave.”

He whirled around and found her on the walkway behind him. She was dressed for a run in tights and a long-sleeve shirt. She had a cap pulled down low, but he could still see. Those red lips. Her face was flushed, hair damp with sweat. Her eyes were red, probably from tears that he—the worst asshole human being in the universe—had caused. But what caught his attention now was the blooming black eye she sported.

There were more bruises ringing her neck.

He advanced on her, unable to check the barely restrained need for violence that bubbled up in him. He reached for her but stopped when she flinched.

Goddammit. He felt like a monster.

He wished Luke were here so he could pound him into the ground. “Who the fuck put their hands on you?” he asked, congratulating himself on keeping his tone even.

“Does it even matter?” she asked wearily, giving him a wide berth as she stepped around him.

She unlocked the front door and went inside. He barreled in behind her.

“Mackenzie!”

He found her in the kitchen, guzzling water.

“Go away, Linc. I’m over having visitors today.”

He planted his feet wide and crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving. Tell me who the hell did that to you.”

She looked at him, really looked at him, and her eyes went wide. “Jesus. What the hell happened to your face?”

“Luke Garrison.”

“You’re kidding me, right? He said he left here on an errand, not a beatdown.”

“Stop trying to change the subject. Who fucking hit you?”

“My sister.”

“You don’t have a sister,” he argued.

“I lied.”

He wasn’t sure where to go from there, so he planted himself on her kitchen chair.

“I lied. I withheld information about my life. And I didn’t come running to you when things went bad at my mother’s.” She stripped the gloves off her hands and shoved up her sleeves, and Linc lost his damn mind when he saw the bruises on her arms.

He reached for her and shoved her sleeves up higher to examine the marks that looked like meaty handprints.

“That one was from my mom’s new boyfriend,” she said bitterly.

She had a series of short scratches just under her scar. They looked like fingernails.

“The neighbors rightfully called the cops, and my dear mother and psychotic sister told the police I started it.”

He released her arms and whipped out his phone. He dialed blindly, his vision going red with rage. “Jillian? I need you to book me a flight to Chicago. Get me there today.”

Mackenzie’s eyes went wide and horrified. “Don’t you dare!”

“You’re not running away from home, are you?” his sister asked.

“I’m going to go tell Mack’s family in person if they ever so much as think about sending a text message to her, I will end them,” he said succinctly.

“Stop it,” Mack said. “You can’t go there.”

“End them. Got it. Can you fit in a middle seat?” Jillian asked.

“You can’t ever meet them,” Mack whispered. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. She didn’t seem aware of the tears that coursed down her cheeks.

“Call you back, Jills,” he said and disconnected. He grabbed her harder than he meant to and gathered her against him. “Okay. It’s okay, baby. Just hang on to me.”

Stubbornly, she stayed stiff in his arms for a beat before slowly wrapping hers around his waist and hanging on for dear life. The feelings. Rage and love and fear and hope pummeled him from the inside out.

“It’s okay, Mackenzie,” he promised, stroking her hair, her back.

He vowed it would be. Whatever it took. He would make this okay.

“Is Sunshine with you?” she asked softly.

“No, baby. But I can get her here.”

She sighed against him, and he buried a hand in her hair, holding her to him.

“I guess you’ll do for now.”

“You need to talk to me. And then I need to talk to you,” he said gruffly. “Or maybe I should go first.”

“Can I shower first?”

He moved them both toward the stairs. “What are you doing?”

“I’m showering with you. I’m not letting you out of my sight, Dreamy.”

Upstairs, in the tiny bathroom, they both undressed. He kept a tight lid on his anger when he saw the bruising on her ribs. The scrapes on her shoulders.

The handprints, man-sized, on her biceps and forearms made him clench his jaw so tight his head hurt.