Deadly Oath

16. Sabrina

16

SAbrINA

T wenty minutes later, we’re at the jail, Kian having finally relented. Kian’s posture is tense, and I can tell that he’s unhappy with all of this. But I want to see who it is that was frightening me at night. I want to see what I need to be afraid of.

It’s better to know your enemy, I think. I didn’t know, before, that the person who wanted me gone was someone I should fear. I had sat down at the table with him at dinners and danced with him at galas and known that he and my father were not friends, but that their rivalry was one of business. I hadn’t believed it was personal, or that I needed to concern myself with it, until one day I knew that it was—and knew that I did.

I don’t want to be blindsided again.

“Follow me,” Kian says curtly, and I feel a twist in my chest as I wonder if this is going to come between us to the point that this thing that’s sprung up between us will end just as quickly. I don’t want that to happen—even as angry as I am with Kian right now, deep down, I don’t want the first time to be the only time. I can feel the tug of the attraction between us, the desire, and I want more of it.

But I also want control over my own life. And I’m not about to cede it to him just because he believes he knows best .

Kian leads me to the cells behind the station. It’s silent and dark, and he flicks on the lights, revealing cold tile floors and forbidding metal bars. I shiver as we walk in, and I see that all the cells are empty except for one. In that one, close to the back, a man is handcuffed and lying on a long bench.

“There.” Kian gestures. “Feel free to see if you recognize him. But I doubt he’s going to say anything to you.”

I walk closer to the bars, feeling my heart beat harder in my chest. I feel anxious, jittery, wondering if I’m about to see a face from my past. Someone who has managed to track me down even here.

I feel sure, as soon as the man comes into clear view, that he’s no one I’ve ever seen before. He appears to be in his thirties, but his skin is weathered, his chin stippled with rough stubble. His eyes are closed, and a small bit of saliva has gathered at the corner of his mouth. He’s wearing just his shirt and a pair of boxers, and a series of what look like red burns, purpled around the edges, are dotted all the way down his legs.

“Hello?” I ask tentatively, stepping closer. The man groans, shifting on the bench, but he says nothing. He doesn’t open his eyes, and I take a step closer still, wrinkling my nose at how badly he smells. “I?—”

I can’t think of what to say. The man doesn’t seem to be entirely in control of all of his faculties, and he’s clearly injured. I turn to where Kian is standing with his arms crossed, his expression stone-faced, and I stare at him for a long moment, looking at the man and then back again at Kian.

“Did you do this?” I ask, gesturing at the man, and Kian gives me a frustrated look.

“I told you, I questioned him,” he says tightly. “He wasn’t being very forthcoming. I had to urge things along a little.”

“Urge—” I swallow hard, a sick feeling swirling in my stomach. “You hurt him!”

“Don’t be naive, princess,” Kian growls, his patience clearly fraying. “He was going to hurt you . It was more important to get answers from him than to worry about what sort of state he was going to be in after.”

I blink, feeling the same kind of stunned shock that I felt the day that I watched Kian violently kill the rattlesnake in front of me. There’s another side to this man, one that doesn’t entirely fit the picture he’s presenting to everyone else—the one he’s tried to mostly present to me from the very start.

Glancing back at the man in the cell, I feel sure that he isn’t going to talk to me. I’m fairly sure that he isn’t going to talk to anyone right now, that he’s too traumatized from whatever it is that Kian did to him to make him talk before. And when I look back at Kian, all I feel is fear.

This is the kind of thing that the men I left behind do. The kind of thing I hadn’t imagined Kian being capable of. I knew he was raw and brutal, a fighter, but there’s a difference between that and a man who tortures. Kian is clearly the latter, and fear spirals through me, making me feel nauseated.

“I want to go home,” I whisper, and Kian raises an eyebrow.

“After all that argument to get me to bring you here?—”

“Stop!” I shout the word, louder than expected in the quiet of the cells. I think I see the man flinch in my periphery, but I can’t be sure. “This isn’t what I expected. And I don’t want to be here with it any longer.”

“I’m the same man who was with you last night,” Kian says quietly, and I shake my head.

“I don’t know if I believe that. Just take me home.”

“Sabrina—” There’s a note in his voice that makes me think he’s going to try to smooth this over, but I want no part of it.

“If I had any other way to get there, I’d take it,” I tell him sharply, refusing to look him directly in the eye. I can’t, not right now. I don’t want to feel the things he makes me feel. I don’t want them to break through my anger, not here. And if I look directly at him, I’m afraid they might. “But other than disturbing Marie late at night or walking, there isn’t. So just take me home. Please.”

Kian draws in a long, slow breath, but he nods finally, fishing his keys out of his pocket as he leads me out of the station and back to his truck. We ride in silence all the way back to my house, and when Kian parks the truck and comes around to open my door, I don’t look at him as I slide out. His arm catches me around the waist all the same, keeping me from slipping past him and backing me against the truck.

“Let me go.” I try to say it as clearly as I can manage, but my voice shakes a little, caught somewhere between fear and the jolt of desire that I feel as he cages me in. “I want to go back to bed.”

Kian looks down at me as if he’s trying to determine just how serious I am. And then, finally, he backs up, giving me the space to walk past him, straight to my front door without looking back.

I close the door behind me, leaning up against it as tears brim at my lashes. I hear the sound of Kian’s truck starting, the sound of him driving away, and I feel more confused than ever torn between being glad he’s left and disappointed that he didn’t come after me. My chest aches, and when I think of the man in the cell, all I feel is confused fear.

He didn’t look like anyone I’ve ever seen before. He definitely didn’t look like the kind of man who worked for the Bratva back in Chicago. Not for my father, and not for my father’s rival, either. So what was he doing outside of my house?

I should have asked Kian what he knew. I should have asked him what he found out, instead of being horrified at the methods he used. But I still don’t know how to reconcile that with the man who, just twenty-four hours ago, was kissing me as if he’d die without my mouth against his.

Sighing, I push myself away from the door, heading back to my room. It will make more sense in the morning, I tell myself, and I hope with everything in me that that’s true.

—

In the morning, however, I only feel more conflicted and confused. I wake up to a text from Marie asking me if I want to go and get coffee, and I tell her yes, if only because I need a distraction. And I need someone to talk to about Kian.

“You look tired,” Marie comments when I slide into the minivan. “I’m sorry,” she adds quickly. “You don’t look bad. Just like you didn’t sleep well last night. I mean?—”

“I know what you mean,” I reassure her with a small smile. “I didn’t. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Kian?” Marie guesses, and I nod. “Did he text you?”

I hesitate just long enough to consider what I actually want to tell her. I don’t want to invite more questions about my past, or tell the whole truth about why I’m here. I can’t tell her about the man sneaking around my house, or why I thought I might have recognized him. And I don’t really want to tell her that Kian might have tortured a man.

So what do I say ?

“He didn’t,” I tell her, which is the truth. “I just—I’m not sure about things. I’m not sure about him. It’s casual, so I don’t feel like I can pry too deeply. And I’m not sure I want him prying into me. But I also feel like I don’t know him very well, and it’s—well, it’s making me nervous.”

“That’s understandable,” Marie says sympathetically, pulling into the coffee shop. “I knew my Greg since high school. I can’t imagine starting to see someone I barely knew. I can imagine that it might be exciting,” she adds. “But not for me. I don’t even know what I’d do.”

“So, what do you know about Kian?” I ask as we walk up to the counter. “Or—what do you think of him? I know you and the others were so positive about the two of us…seeing each other, but—” I bite my lip, unsure of what exactly I’m trying to say. “Do you think he’s a good guy?”

“Well.” Marie considers as we put in our orders for our lattes, walking to the other side of the counter to wait. “Everyone I know who has met him thinks he’s a good man. Everyone in town who’s mentioned him has liked him immediately. ”

“Even though he kind of came out of nowhere?” I frown. “Everything seems pretty close-knit here, to me.” I think of how people have looked at me, clearly seeing that I’m not from here, that I don’t belong.

“I guess he’s just really personable,” Marie says, smiling, and I frown, trying to reconcile that with the Kian that likes to tease me, to needle me, to get under my skin. But then again—I do like him, when he drops the teasing and is just himself. The moments of realness, of rawness, of protectiveness. The moments when he joked about the scent of shampoo, or the way he pulled me into his chest to sleep that first night in bed. Glimmers of the man underneath the unfeeling exterior.

“And you don’t know how he got the job of sheriff?” I press, knowing I’ve asked this question before, but finding it impossible to not push the topic again. “Connections in the town, relatives?—”

Marie shakes her head. “Not that I’ve heard. But if anything, from the talk I’m hearing, it makes folks around here like him more. They’ve all decided some new blood in the position is a good thing. He hasn’t made a lot of friends here, keeps to himself a good bit. But again, people just seem to see it as him being dedicated to his job. He’s good at it, it seems. And he helps out. Checks on the older folks, volunteered with a food drive not long after he got here. He really made himself a part of the community quickly.”

I bite my lip, feeling more confused than ever.

“What is it that’s bothering you?” Marie asks gently. “About Kian. You’re clearly torn about whether to keep doing this or not.”

“He’s—overprotective,” I say lamely, which is the best alternative I can think to he tortured a man for creeping around my house. “We’re not really together, but he’s—very passionate. It’s a little stifling?—”

Every word feels disjointed, because none of it is really accurate. But I don’t know how else to describe what’s going on.

Marie laughs softly. “Sabrina, that’s just the start of a relationship with a man like that, that’s all. He’s head over heels for you, clearly, and he can’t admit it. So he’s getting all growly about things. He probably wants to feel like you need him. Next thing you know, he’ll be fixing things around your house.”

The thought of Kian with a hammer, shirtless and working on repairing something around my house, sends a tingling sensation through my stomach.

“So—” I draw out the word hesitantly, biting my lip. “You feel like I should give him another chance?”

Marie nods. “A protective man isn’t a bad thing, Sabrina,” she says gently. “They overreact sometimes, but it’s just because of how much we mean to them. And seems like maybe this is all new to Kian, too. He just doesn’t know how to express how he’s feeling about you, so he does it like this. He does seem like a very passionate man,” she adds, a small grin curling the corners of her lips. “I heard he goes out to those warehouse fights. One of Greg’s friends went out there, and won a good bit of money betting on him. Have to keep that quiet, of course. As the sheriff, Kian should be putting a stop to all of that, not encouraging it. But still—” her smile spreads. “It’s sexy, isn’t it?”

I can’t help but smile back at that, a small shiver running down my spine at the memory of Kian bursting into my house, still flecked with sweat and blood from the fight, hungry for me. “It is,” I admit.

“Give him some time,” Marie says firmly. “Let him find out you don’t need him for everything. But let him feel needed, too.”

All of this feels like advice for a relationship on much firmer ground than mine and Kian’s is. But I can’t help but cling to the bit of advice that I should give him more time. More chances. I don’t want to let go of this yet, and it doesn’t take very much encouragement for me to reframe last night’s events in my head.

Kian found someone sneaking around my house, and tried to solve the problem for me. He got a bit overzealous in trying to find out why the man was there, but if I’m being honest with myself, that was nothing compared to what I know my father’s enforcers would have done to a man caught sniffing around me without permission. Why Kian is willing to go to even those lengths, I’m not sure, but it’s clear that he has a rougher side. A more brutal one.

One that he’s willing to exercise to protect me. And in the end, even if the reminder of my old life makes me feel unsettled, is that really such a bad thing?

Especially in my current position.

I glance down at my phone, flicking open my calendar to look at the appointment that I scheduled yesterday morning, after I woke up from my night with Kian. I feel my cheeks heat a little, just thinking about it. I’d been tempted to cancel this morning, but now in light of this conversation, I’m not so sure any longer. And, after all, even if Kian and I don’t work out, that doesn’t mean I won’t keep dating. It’s better to be safe.

I clear my throat, looking up at Marie. “I—um, I have an OB/GYN appointment in Louisville. I made it yesterday morning, after—well, I thought it might be a good idea. For protection, and—” My face is flaming, and from Marie’s expression, she finds it amusing. “It’s the day after tomorrow, and I need a ride, if you?—”

She looks instantly apologetic. “I can’t. I’m so sorry. The kids have a school thing that day, and I need to be there. I absolutely would, if you change it?—”

I could change it, of course, but I don’t really want to. I don’t know how long this period of coolness between Kian and I will last, but especially after my conversation with Marie, I don’t want to risk it. And after the last time, I can’t be sure that he won’t lose control and come inside of me again without protection.

“Text Kian,” Marie says with a grin. “He’s the boss—I bet he can take an afternoon off and drive you.”

I didn’t think my blush could get even deeper, but it does. I stare down at my phone screen, weighing the options of whether to delay the appointment, or ask Kian to take me. And in the end, the desire to have more control over the situation—and, if I’m being honest, the desire to be able to seize the opportunity again if it arises—wins out.

I send Kian the text, asking him if he can give me a ride.