“Thank you, Royce,” he snapped as he ran down the hallway.
I turned to face Chase, giving him the thumbs up before pulling my phone out and dialling her number.
“What’s wrong?” Darcey said in a whisper.
“Come down the hallway, quick. I’ll be waiting outside the door for you,” I muttered before putting the phone down and standing in the hallway. I couldn’t still my heart, it was thumping in my chest so fast. The adrenaline was pumping through me, the thought that Tyrell could be back any minute as I sent him on a wild goose chase. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw her running down the hallway towards me, her eyes panicked.
“It’s fine,” I reassured her, scurrying her through the door, her eyes focussing on Chase as he sat up in his bed.
“Darcey,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
“Chase.” She gasped as she ran over to him, throwing herself over him, hugging him tightly. I stood close, just watching them. She let him go, her hands round his face, cradling him.
“God, I have missed you.” She sobbed as her eyes looked at his face, glassing over at the injuries that he had sustained.
“Not as much as I’ve missed you,” he choked back at her, pulling her to him again.
“When can you come home?” she asked as he squeezed her tightly.
“Soon, I hope, soon.”
My eyes were pulled from their reunion when I saw Tyrell on the grass opposite me, staring right through the window.
Fuck.
“Shit, Darcey, you need to go, now,” I said, pulling her off of Chase. “Run back to the waiting room as fast as you can. I’ll be there in ten,” I said, ushering her out the door as she was blowing kisses at Chase, her eyes red-raw from the tears.
I felt awful, but I didn’t know what Tyrell was capable of and the last thing I wanted was Chase being the one that got punished because of my careless and reckless behaviour. I closed the door on her and sat back next to Chase.
“Thank you so much,” he said. I could hear how grateful he was. “She is going to save me. I am going to get better. For her. For all of you.”
I smiled at him, nodding slightly before lifting my head up to look at him. “It’s the least I could do.” My brows closed together slightly. “Did they manage to do much with the burns?” I asked, my face a grimace, my lips pressed into a thin line.
I vividly remembered the state he was in after being tortured, the burns were the worst. He was slashed from his ear to his nose and had a hefty gash on his face that was going to leave a nasty scar.
“A bit. I had a couple of skin grafts to try and sort them out, but won’t know for a few weeks.” He sighed. “You’ve really cheered me up, Conor,” he said, smiling at me, but his smile soon disappears when Tyrell bursts through the door like a bull in a china shop.
“Where is the girl?” he asked, his eyes bulging with rage, his voice hoarse.
“In the waiting room, where you asked me to leave her.” I looked at him confused, shrugging at Chase. I may have seemed like I was chill about it, but inside, I was petrified.
“I saw her,” he said, certainty lacing his voice.
“You couldn’t have.” I shook my head at him, Chase copying me, flicking his eyes down
to his lap and playing with his fingers.
“I know what I saw,” he bellowed at me.
“I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t Darcey,” I said, shrugging again.
“I’ll just go find her then, shall I? Get it out of her?” A wicked grin spread across his face. I felt my anger bubbling. Nobody threatens the people I love. Especially not Darcey.
Standing up from my chair and walking towards him, a small grin appeared on my face when I saw how much I towered over him. Being six-foot-six had its perks. This inner strength ripped through me, maybe it was protectiveness, but whatever it was I was grateful, because Tyrell backed the fuck down. I didn’t have to answer to him. I didn’t have to answer to anyone. Because I was Conor fucking Royce, and no one would ever threaten the people I loved.
I grabbed him round the throat, slamming him against the door. “Don’t you dare, you won’t lay a finger on her, do you understand me?” I said through gritted teeth. He nodded like the pussy that he was. All front and no back-bone. He was fucking spineless, like a snake.
“And before I let you go, sign Chase’s discharge papers. He leaves with us. Now,” I hissed at him before dropping him to the floor in a heap. He scurried to his feet and ran down the hallway.
I turned to face Chase and nodded at him. It wasn’t until I left this shithole of a place that I realised that Tyrell was no more than a prison guard. He calls himself the lieutenant, he isn’t. He didn’t deserve that title, only men deserve that title. Tyrell wasn’t a man. He was a bully, no more than a gutter rat. And I knew what one of those was, because I was once a bully, a gutter rat. But I made a deal with myself that I would keep climbing until I was top rank.
A king.
And that’s what I was.
A fucking King.
After an hour had passed, we were on our way home, with Chase.
I drove home whilst Darcey and Chase sat in the back. He hadn’t stopped crying since he knew he was going home. I knew it was a rushed decision, but I couldn’t leave him there, not for another second. His soul was slowly dying each day he was in there, he was slipping away.
Darcey had called her mum, telling her that we were on our way home with him. She burst into tears, happy of course, but I think it was hard to believe. Every so often, my eyes flicked to him in the rear-view mirror, his stare cold and vacant.
I had been there, I knew exactly what he was feeling.
Only, he must be feeling so much worse, the torture he had been through was sickening. It made me want to hurl just thinking about it. I think that what I had been told was only scratching the surface.
I was thinking about calling Carter, to see if he could recommend a good therapist I could put him in touch with. I’m sure he had his fingers in many pies. I hadn’t had the chat with Darcey yet about taking him up on his offer of renting one of his houses, I’m sure it would be fine, but that meant her walking away from her dance studio that she had worked so hard to build, and it meant walking away from her family.
I knew she would follow me, but in doing so she was letting go of her dream.
We had a long drive ahead, now wasn’t the time for thinking about that.
It was dark by the time we pulled up. I hopped out of Darcey’s mini, stretching my arms out to straighten my back. I was not made for a mini.
I leant across, pushing the driver’s seat forward as I took her hand, helping her out before we both helped Chase. He stood on shaky legs as we supported him, his face breaking into a smile when he saw the front doors of his parent’s home open.
Robyn ran towards him, throwing herself at him, making me and Darcey tighten our grip so she didn’t bulldoze him over.
“Baby,” she whispered as she looked into his empty, hollow eyes, searching deeply for her man.
“Hey,” he muttered back, a smile still plastered to his face as she let go of him, letting us walk him up the steps and towards his mum. She was crying, running out of the front door and swooping him up in her arms, Tanner running behind her and lifting him effortlessly and walking him into the lounge.