Truth Sets You Free

Chapter 18

"He won't come near you, and if he does, you need to tell me and I will handle it. Nothing is going to happen to you."

Harry was wrong. Derek came after me. Even if it wasn't him directly, he still sent someone after me. Someone with only evil intentions of hurting me. There was no negotiation, no way for me to escape. It was simply assault.

And I know exactly why it happened. It happened for the same purpose of Ace's gun threat against me.

To send a message to Harry.

I should tell Harry. I know that I should. He told me to tell him if anything happened, and something most definitely happened. But I don't want to tell Harry. I don't want to tell him because of the passion and vengeance behind his words when he said, 'I will handle it.'

The last thing that I want is him putting himself in danger because he's 'handling it' for me. But at the same time, there's no possible way that I can hide this. There's not enough makeup in the world that can cover the bruises that tatter my body. He'll show up here tomorrow morning, and know something is up right away.

That would probably end in an argument. Not because Harry would be mad at me, but because he would simply be mad and have no one to take it out on because no matter how much he tried, I wouldn't let him leave. I wouldn't let him act on blind rage because it would only be a matter of time before he found Derek and got himself into heaps of trouble.

I shudder at the thought of what could happen if Harry goes after Derek. Who am I kidding? No matter what I choose to do, every scenario ends the same way. Harry goes after Derek.

The outcome is inevitable.

I have to tell him.

Slowly, my body moves back into my bedroom where my purse is thrown on the bed. I grab my phone from the side pocket and see a text from Harry.

Harry- Glad to hear it, love. Goodnight.

God, he has no idea. He thinks that I've been in bed this whole time.

A shaky breath escapes my lips as I think about having to relive the details when I tell Harry what happened. I don't know if I'm emotionally ready for that. Truthfully, all I want to do it crawl into bed and sleep off the pain, but I know that I can't do that.

Harry will already be pissed that I've waited this long to tell him. I can't wait until morning. But maybe I can wait until after I take a shower.

Before I know it, I'm peeling my clothes off of my body and stepping into the shower. The warm water beats down on my skin, and I suck in a sharp breath. My head tilts down to see the damage done, and I immediately regret looking.

There's hardly one single inch of my skin that isn't covered in the dark discoloring caused by the pounding of his unforgiving boot. I quickly shut my eyes, trying to erase the images from my head before grabbing the soap and running it gently across my body in an attempt to wash away the pain and humiliation.

After a few more long moments of me simply standing beneath the steamy heat of the water, I decide that I've stalled long enough, and I step out of the shower.

With a towel wrapped around my waist, my feet pad across the bathroom floor to my bedroom where I quickly change into loose fitting clothes that don't rub too much against my already irritated skin.

Once I finish putting my hair up into a wet bun on top of my head, I sit down on my bed. A shaky hand reaches for my phone as I take a deep breath and scroll to his name in my contacts.

HARRY

"Three, two, one." Danny calls out as the four of them knock back a shot together. I lost count of how many they took after five.