Her hand reared back and she slapped me across my cheek as hard as she could, which wasn’t hard in the least. Years of drinking had wasted her muscles away to nothing. I was more than three times her size and not afraid of her—or anything—anymore. She’d hardened me to the world, to life. It was the only thing I had to thank her for.
I reached into my jacket and pulled out my gun, pressing the barrel to her forehead. She squealed in fear but had the good sense not to move. I pressed it harder, enjoying how the skin puckered around the barrel.
“I said, get the fuck away from me,” I growled.
Her eyes were wide, filled with fear, sadness and guilt. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered, and that was the last thing I wanted to hear. Her apology meant nothing to me. It didn’t excuse the starvation or the beatings or the nights when she brought men home and they’d had their fill of her but weren’t sated so she allowed them into my room.
It didn’t excuse any of it.
Nothing ever would.
“I love you, son,” she slurred sadly, and if I’d had a heart it would have shattered. As it were, my heart was a dead, hollow thing in my chest already. “You’re still my little boy.”
Even after all the years since, whenever I thought back to that moment in time, I still couldn’t remember the exact point in which I decided to pull the trigger. I don’t remember anything but riding away from her and not looking back. I remembered the feel of the trigger under my finger and the sound of her body hitting the ground, but nothing more.
But as the humming of the song filled the room, I finally remembered her body on the ground and I saw the life drain from my mother’s eyes. I watched the light go out and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Chapter Six
~ BEAST ~
“How’s he doing?” Shooter said, waking me from my dark dreams, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to someone else in the room.
I was still groggy. Still waking up from whatever dark memories my mind had brought forth and decided was a good time to show me—now, of all times. Stupid mind was as useless as my stupid body.
“Better,” her voice replied, cutting through my woozy thoughts. “I think he’s through the worst of it.”
I sighed internally.
Belle.
Things must have been real bad if Shooter had brought her here.
And they must have been really bad for her to agree to come here at all.
“Need you to stick around for a couple more days, make sure he’s definitely on the other side of this, Belle.”
It was her turn to sigh now. “I have a life, Shooter. I can’t just put it all on hold and stay here. I don’t even have a change of clothes, and I’m pretty sure the toothbrush you gave me wasn’t new like you promised.”
“I’ll get you some clothes,” he replied calmly. “And another toothbrush. And of course you’ll be paid well and compensated.”
“It’s not about the clothes and the money, and you know that. I have to get back to my life. I’ve been here for four days now. I need to go home,” she whined, and the sleepiness fell from me as my irritation clawed its way up my throat.
Four days I’d been out, and all she cared about was going back home to her man?
“He could have died, Belle,” Shooter growled in annoyance, all softness falling away from him.
“I know, and I got him through it, didn’t I? But I have a family and a life I have to get back to,” she retorted.
“That’s my brother, my enforcer, and a valued member of my family. You’re staying and you’re keeping him alive until I say so. You feel me?”
She fell silent, hearing the warning in Shooter’s tone.
“I’m not dead yet,” I grumbled, my words coming out throaty and cracked as I broke the silence. Probably not a moment too soon, knowing Belle, because if there was one thing I’d learned from being around her so much, it was that there was only so much shit she’d take from a man before she came out fighting. And Shooter was backing her into a corner that she didn’t want to be in.
I opened my eyes, seeing Shooter and Belle looking down on me, their tired expressions mirroring each other.
“Jesus Christ, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I complained, embarrassed by their staring. But if I looked even half as bad as how I was feeling, then they had a good reason to be staring at me like that.
My head throbbed, my body ached, my muscles were contracting and protesting, desperate to move and stretch. My stomach felt empty to the point of hollowness and it roared in hunger, breaking the uneasy silence. What had she said? I’d been out for four days? God, I’d kill for some chocolate pudding.
“Where’s Doctor Collins?” I asked, eyeing Belle, who shifted her gaze from me.
Shooter chuckled. “That fuck wouldn’t come near the place, not even when we threatened his family.”
“He don’t have any family. Just a string of women who he fucks for money,” I replied.
“Yeah, figured that out real quick.”
“You threaten his credibility?” I asked seriously, because that was the route I would have gone down with someone if they didn’t have family.
Shooter chuckled again. “Yeah. He took off after that and no one has seen him since.”
My throat was hurting, and Belle must have sensed it because she reached for a glass of water on the small side table next to my bed. It had a small straw in it and she brought it to my lips. I sucked greedily, my gaze on her the entire time, but no matter how much I stared, she wouldn’t look at me. Her gaze was on the water, the straw, her hands, even the wall. But never on me. She finally pulled the straw away even though I wasn’t done.
“You’ll be sick if you have too much,” she explained as I protested.
I turned my attention back to Shooter. “So, no idea where he’s gone then?”
He shrugged. “Last we heard, he boarded a flight to Bali or some shit.”
“So he cut and run rather than fix me up?” I sighed. “I’m offended.”
We both laughed at that, and I watched Belle look confused as hell before turning away to busy herself with something in the corner.
Shooter, ever the thoughtful man, dragged a hand down his beard, turning the mood somber. “Thought you were gone for sure, brother,” he said. “Thought we’d lost you.”
“Take more than whatever that was to kill me off,” I replied.
The world had been blurry in my damaged eye since I’d woken up, but things got even worse, to the point I could barely see. I blinked repeatedly to try to clear it, but it wasn’t going anywhere and it had shifted to both eyes now.
“Why’s he doin’ that?” Shooter asked with worry, looking over at Belle.
My blurry gaze moved to her. Her expression was soft, as usual, but there was something else there too: a sadness I was growing to know so well.
“What’s she even doin’ here?” I asked, hating the way I’d spat those words out. Hadn’t meant them to sound so hateful, but they were out now and she looked away, embarrassed.
“She saved your life,” Shooter replied. “Now have some fucking respect.”