“Do you think… he would actually hurt me?” I blinked twice. She had to know she was repeating her question, but why? I’d given her the best answer I had—the most current statistics based on the evidence—My thoughts stopped when a tear slid all the way down her cheek, catching on the swell of her lip. And then that hand—the one with a mind of its own—cupped her cheek and wiped the tear away with the pad of my thumb. She didn’t want statistics; she wanted safety. “I won’t let him.” It wasn’t an answer; it was a promise.
