View from Above (Hunting Grounds Book 4) by Nichole Severn

Author:Nichole Severn [Severn, Nichole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nichole Severn Books, LLC
Published: 2022-06-20T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

He’d almost lost her.

Payton stroked his thumb down the bruised tendons along the back of Mallory’s hand. Wells had walked the crime scene unit through every inch of that building. Fingerprints, shoe impressions, fibers, hair, DNA—they hadn’t found a damn thing. How was that possible? How the hell had the woman who’d drugged and abducted his partner gotten away so clean?

“I can feel you staring at me.” The bruises and cuts following the line of her jaw shifted as she spoke. The soft tick of the monitor on the other side of the bed told him she was stable, but there were some scars that couldn’t be seen. Some that would stay with her for the rest of her life, and no matter how much he wanted to take away the pain, she’d have to face them on her own. Just as he’d had to. “When was the last time you got any sleep?”

After everything she’d been through, she wanted to know if he was taking care of himself. How did she do it? With all the evil, violent, greedy, and selfish things he’d witnessed people do to each other, how did she stand in the middle of the storm and not worry about her own survival? “I grabbed a couple hours on the pullout a little while ago.”

“Pullout? Don’t you have a bed for that kind of thing?” Mallory shifted against the mountain of pillows he’d stacked behind her head, and Payton automatically stood to help. “I’ve got it.” She flinched against the pain morphine wouldn’t be able to touch for a while. Tension bled into the corners of her eyes as she scanned the room. “Either this is the weirdest dream or I’m in a hospital bed.” Her gaze locked onto his. “Payton?”

“What?” he asked.

“What is happening right now?” Mallory moved to straighten. A groan escaped past her lips as she clamped onto her midsection, and Payton bolted to his feet to help. “What’s going on? Why am I here?”

“You don’t remember?” The sedative. Damn it. He’d forgotten the amnesic side effects she’d sustained the first three times she’d been dosed. The protective instinct he’d tried to deny reared its ugly head. He took his seat, forcing his nerves to settle. Two days. That was all it’d taken to throw out everything he’d believed about her, her father’s death, his choices leading him to this point in his life. In their place, a new level of respect.

And something more.

Something he’d never seen coming: hope.

Not just for this case, but for them. As partners. How many civilians could’ve faced down a killer—sedated, of all things—and survive being thrown over the side of a ten-story building? The women he’d brought into his life hadn’t meant anything beyond a single night here and there, but Mallory… She’d never be one of them. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re at Harborview Medical with a couple of broken ribs.”

Payton gripped the wooden arm rests of the chair to fight the burn clawing up his aching throat.

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