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would really like to go to make sure
    she’s all right.” Blackson nodded but didn’t look like he was ready to release him just yet. “What
    is it you’re trying your best not to tell me?”
    “My plan had been to convert her. You’ll see by her medical records that she was to have
    her leg taken off…both of them, actually. She has some ribs that will never heal, and she’ll be in
    a great deal of pain for the rest of her life. By all accounts, Stormy should have died that day.
    And if not the day of the accident, then while she hung there in that tree.” Riordan asked him
    what he meant. “She’s not told you. Well, that’s no surprise. I’m not sure she’s even shared with
    her aunts. But when the Humvee blew up, Stormy was tossed from the accident and into a tree.
    She hung there for thirty-six hours, with a branch through her holding her in place. Its…she
    could see from above what our surveillance couldn’t.”
    Riordan tried to equate what he was telling him with the woman he knew. “You mean, she
    stood on a branch.”
    “No. It entered her here.” He turned and showed him his back, just below the ribs. “Then
    came out here.” He then put his hand over his chest, just below his heart.
    “That’s not possible.” Blackson told him he knew that, yet she’d survived it. “My mom said
    that her legs were scarred up. That her muscles are…they’re spent, she thought.”
    “I don’t know if I’d risk changing her, Riordan. She’s weak and her body will more than
    likely not take it well. There is a possibility, and not a slim one, that she will not survive any
    kind of trauma to her body. She’s held together by bubble gum and string. Not really, but she is
    fragile.” Riordan nodded. “I’m not one to usually beat around the bush, and now that I can tell
    you’re not going to kill me, be as gentle as your cat will allow you when you have sex with her,
    too. She’s in constant pain, and it won’t take much to send her into unconsciousness.”
    He left then, and Riordan drove to the hospital with his mom beside him. Dad was following
    in his car to bring Mom home should he want to stay with Storm. When she touched his arm
    after they parked, he looked at her. His thoughts on Blackson were making him crazy. There was
    something about the man that he just didn’t like. He supposed it was because he was so close to
    her, and Riordan wasn’t.
    “I’m such a fool.” His mom said nothing but just watched him. “She’s been telling me no,
    not because she didn’t want me but because she thinks I’m not going to want her. Right? That’s
    why she’s been shoving me away and not letting me get close to her. I’ve...I’m such a fool.”
    “Her aunts think if she were to tell someone what really happened she’d start to heal. Not
    her body, but her mind. She has horrific nightmares sometimes. That’s why she’s living at the
    shop and not in her house. When she wakes, she goes down to bake something.”
    Riordan nodded, knowing that he did the same thing on some level when he couldn’t sleep.
    “I’ll try, Mom. But I need to fix this with her first.” She nodded. “Any suggestions?”
    “Yes. Grovel. Works for me when your dad has to do it. Not often, but he still does.” He
    nodded. How did you grovel to a woman that carried a gun, would just as soon murder you than
    let you touch her, and worked for an agency that had trained her to kill rather than to negotiate?
    He was so fucked.

Chapter 5
    Storm watched the monitors that had been attached to her when she arrived. Not that she
    minded them that much…she just hated having to sit still for them to work. When the door
    opened again, it was on the tip of her tongue to blast Blackson again for doing this to her. Only it
    wasn’t him but Bri Harrison.
    “You were going to say something entirely unladylike, weren’t you?” Storm felt her face
    heat up, and Bri laughed. “I love that I can catch you off guard. I bet it