“You okay, brother?” Dom asked, coming to stand next to me.
Shooter put a hand on my shoulder and pain emanated from my skin, reminding me that I was very nearly one of these names.
“He would have fucking hated this,” Shooter chuckled, and I knew he was talking about Echo.
“Yeah, he would have,” I agreed, swiping a hand down my face.
Echo.
My brother.
My fallen brother.
It was all suddenly too much. I couldn’t breathe. My throat was too tight, the air was too thick. I dropped to a crouch as I tried to suck the air in to my lungs, vaguely aware that people were talking to me, but it wasn’t until my hands came away from my face wet that I realized that I was crying.
“Jesus,” I mumbled, trying to stop the tears from falling. I’d never cried in my life. Not when my mother left me to starve night after night, not when she brought boyfriends home to taunt and tease me, not when I killed her sorry ass, not when I was being tortured, and not even when I was lying in that hospital in agony and I remembered that Echo was dead. But I cried now, and once I started, I couldn’t stop.
The tears flowed hot down my face, and the more I tried to stop them the faster they flowed. Arms wrapped around my shoulders, the smell of leather and cigarette smoke and whispered agreements enclosing me in their safe embrace.
This was family.
This was my family.
And I wasn’t going to let anything hurt it ever again.
Because anything or anyone that tried to…I was going to kill.
Chapter Twelve
~ Belle ~
I was a wreck.
A total, complete 110% wreck.
I ached between my thighs and it hurt to walk. I’d gotten home and found Lorenzo parked outside again, waiting for me. I’d already known, from his dark expression, that there was no point in arguing that I was too tired to go out. He’d taken me back to his restaurant and it had started off nice. We’d eaten, we’d drunk some wine. It was relaxed and I’d begun to think the monster he’d been in the car last week had been a one-off. But then we’d gone upstairs and everything had changed.
As soon as the door had shut, his hands were on me. He was brutal and unforgiving, my whimpers and pleads turning him on more. I should have said no, but I didn’t. And looking back now, I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t said no.
Maybe it was because I was afraid of what would happen if he had stopped. What other type of punishment he would find to take out on me.
Instead, I’d let him use my body as his plaything and I’d woken up sore and alone, with a note on his nightstand to grab an Uber home because he had a business meeting.
So I had…only to find Mateo and Carlos at my trailer, wanting more information. They’d threatened Beast. They’d threatened me. And then they’d threatened Jenna. I couldn’t let anything happen to her. I squeezed my eyes closed, thinking about it…thinking about the things that I’d had to tell them.
I just needed to get through today.
Through the next thirty minutes.
Pack my stuff and get the hell out of here.
My hands were shaking. My knees were knocking. And my teeth were chattering.
They were going to know it was me, and when they did, they would kill me.
For the first time I’d given actual information to Mateo and Carlos. All the other stuff I’d given them was useless knowledge, or general knowledge around town. But this last time wasn’t. This last time it was real information about a drop they had coming up. I’d regretted it as soon as the words had left my lips, but I’d been terrified!
Mateo had one hand on my throat, another on my hip, and my body pinned to the bed with his. There was only one way that was going to end. So I’d snitched and they’d left and I’d hated myself since.
And now I had to go, because when Shooter and Beast found out, I was dead anyway.
I began to pack my equipment away, putting all the little creams and pills back into the box as neatly as my shaking hands would let me. Shooter had asked for a list of stuff that I needed when he’d brought me there, and somehow he’d procured it all. I wasn’t sure what I should do with it all now. The pills Beast would still need for a few months, the creams even more so, but the IV drips and bandages, and all the other hospital equipment, not so much.
“You done, nurse?” one of the bikers asked me.
He was tall, broad, with a shaved head and a cocky smile that said he could talk any woman into bed. I vaguely remembered his name as something like Cara or Casta. In his arms were paint pots and brushes, and I was guessing that he was the one that had been painting something on Beast’s wall for the past week. Right now it was covered with a blanket that had been pinned up to hide it.
“Yeah,” I managed to squeak out between heaving breaths.
“So we won’t see you around here no more, huh?” He set his paints and brushes down with as much finesse as a bull in a china shop. “Not gonna lie, we’re all gonna miss seeing your fine ass.”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. I was still too terrified to speak, a ball of vomit wedged in my gut that was making my mouth water and my head dizzy.
“Of course, we’re all going to miss all your good doctor shit too. Got a real hand for caring for people, huh?” he continued, oblivious to the panic attack I was having.
If he would just leave.
If he would just give me five minutes to sit down and catch my breath, I’d be okay. Though this situation would never be okay, but at least I’d survive the next hour. After that it was anyone’s bet, but my money was on a bullet to the head. At least I hoped. After all, I’d seen what these kinds of men did to one another when they were angry, and I feared that I would be the one in bed covered in scars and burns and terrified that I might not be able to see again.
Casa—that was his name—came behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder, startling me so much that I screamed and dropped all the bottles in my hand. I spun to him, my eyes wide and fearful, and he lifted his hands in innocence and smirked.
“It’s okay, it’s just me,” he said, sounding amused, but his gaze was watchful—wary, almost.
The door opened and Beast and the man I recalled as Dom charged in. Beast’s eyes went to Casa and then me, with the bottles littered around my feet and the terrified look on my face.
“What the fuck did you just do?” he snarled, charging toward Casa.
“I’m innocent!” Casa laughed, without a shred of fear in his eyes.
“Innocent? Now that’s the funniest shit I’ve heard all year,” Dom replied. He looked over at me. “You good?”
I nodded quickly, not wanting anyone to get into trouble because of me. That was ironic, considering what I’d done would probably end up with some of these men dying.
Dizziness washed over me again, blackness pulling at the edges of my vision. “I just startled,” I mumbled.
“Why didn’t you believe me? I told you I didn’t do nothin’,” Casa continued to protest, sounding more than a little pissed off that they didn’t believe him. “I’ve got my old lady now, I don’t go near other women unless she says I can.”
Dom’s gaze slid from me to Casa with a grin. “You under your bitch’s thumb?”