Page 110 of Ruthless Protector

That’s when Van tore the mask off my attacker.

A woman stared back at him.

“Jennifer?” Van said, the shock in his voice clear.

“You know her?” Zeke said.

“She’s used to work at the club. She’s tight with Raul and Fay.”

“Why was Donny helping you?” he demanded.

“Her son,” I managed to get out.

Donny’s mom, Fay’s best friend, was a cold-blooded killer.

She looked eerily calm.

Van cursed. “Why?”

Some of her calm vanished. “I came to this city an innocent, and Samuel Esposito took advantage of me. He made me a whore, made me disgrace myself, like his son has done to the whores working for him.”

“Raul doesn’t make his girls do a damn thing,” Van said.

“I was going to leave him alone, just target the city clubs, for Fay’s sake,” she said, not hearing him, shaking her head. “But then Raul set his sights on Fay, he put his filthy hands on her, made her think he cared. He fooled her to get what he wanted, like his father fooled me. He’s taking her away from me, when I just got her back. He doesn’t love her. The Esposito men don’t know what love is. I do. I love these girls enough to set them free. I needed to set his girls free too.”

“You’re a cold-blooded killer and you made your son as twisted as you.”

She shook her head violently. “I’m saving them. I made them suffer. I sent them to heaven repentant, washed clean. They don’t deserve to go to hell. I won’t let that happen.” She shook her head again. “Daddy said I’d go to hell when I went home. He punished me, he tried to wash me clean. He said I’d always be dirty, but I did it. I did it on my own.”

She opened her mouth and screamed, charging for me. Van took her down before she’d taken more than a step and Jude strode from the room.

I tried to hold on, to keep my eyes open, but I wasn’t strong enough.

Everything went dark.

27

Jude

I looked down at Willa lying in that hospital bed, looking so damn small and fragile. Walking into that room after hearing her scream my name, seeing her like that, the blood. Christ, I wanted to hold her to me and never let her go.

White bandages covered her upper arms; the rest I couldn’t see, concealed under her covers. But I knew what was there, I knew the scars they’d leave, and not just marking her skin.

Since Jennifer’s arrest, we discovered a lot more about her. Her father had been a minister, but left the church to form his own. It was more like a cult, and she’d run to escape it. She met Raul’s father, Samuel, and after working for him in the club for a while, they started a relationship. Jennifer struggled, her religious background causing her guilt, and she eventually broke it off with Samuel because of it and went home. Whatever happened back there wasn’t good, and between then and now, she’d formed her own little cult, her son Donny being her righthand man. She’d never gotten past her father’s disappointment, his abuse, her fear that her “sins” would send her to hell. Somehow in her twisted mind, she’d decided killing those women would set them, and her, free.

I scrubbed my hands over my face, and went to stand, needing to move. There was so much restless energy, so much anger I didn’t know what to do with, still throbbing through me.

Willa’s fingers curled around my wrist, stopping me.

I didn’t even know she was awake. “You’re back,” I said. Christ, was that my voice?

“I knew you’d come. I knew it,” she said, voice raspy, raw from screaming.

Her words annihilated me where I sat. “I’ll always come for you, sweetheart, always,” I choked out.

“I know.” Her fingers tightened around mine. “Thank you. For saving Tilly, for saving me, for being here now.”

“Don’t thank me for that, beautiful. Christ, I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” I said, brushing her hair back from her face. I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and I wasn’t leaving her side.