Bali, of all places!
I hated him most of all.
Because he had the money to escape.
I scrubbed until my skin turned red and sore. Until I wasn’t sure what I was washing off my body anymore. Was it the clubhouse, my guilt, or was it my desire for Beast? I was losing my sense of right and wrong the longer I was around him. I no longer knew who I was and everything I had once was now gone.
Jenna.
My career.
My sense of worth.
He’d taken it all with one touch of his calloused hands on my traitorous body.
I squeezed my eyes closed, trying hard not to cry. It was pitiful, and I knew I was blaming the wrong person, really. This wasn’t him, this was me. I had let him do this. I had stepped over to the darkness to be with him without thinking it through. We were two different people from two different worlds, and we could never have worked.
The tears came hot and heavy until I was clutching a hand to my chest and practically hyperventilating. But just as soon as it came, it went. I took one last shuddering breath and decided that enough was enough. I wasn’t going to be bullied anymore, by the Highwaymen or by my own guilt. Or by anyone else, for that matter. I had made my bed and I would lie in it, but I’d do it with pride and confidence. I’d do it without shame, because what was done was done.
Beast had gotten what he wanted and so had I. Now I needed to deal with the consequences of my actions and get on with my life. Despite Jenna’s shock at my revelation that I was quitting the hospital, I knew it was the right thing to do. The more I’d thought about it, spinning the idea around and around in my head, the more certain I was of it. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life yet, but working there wasn’t it.
I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my body with a new determination. I had money saved up from caring for Beast at the hospital—enough to put a deposit down on a decent apartment—and then my mom could take the trailer, because if there was one thing I was certain of, it was that I couldn’t live with her. She was a stranger to me; a stranger that had abandoned me, no less. She would be out in a couple of weeks, and now that her probation officer had checked out the trailer and deemed it okay for her to stay in, that’s what we’d do. I’d leave some things there so it looked like I was still living there, and I’d come by when I knew the probation officer was coming to check up on her, but I wasn’t staying there with her. Absolutely not.
I’d originally intended to give all the money from caring for Beast to Jenna as a gift. It was, after all, her job that I had taken, but since she wasn’t currently speaking to me and I had no idea if she ever would again, I figured it was necessary that I spent it on getting out of there as soon as I could.
I brushed my teeth with my own toothbrush, enjoying the clean, tingly feeling in my mouth. I dried myself and put on some moisturizer before heading out of the tiny bathroom and going to my bedroom, but as I turned left, something drew my attention right.
Holding the towel tighter to my body, I stepped farther along, going into the small kitchen that led to the even smaller living room, if it could be called that, and found two men sitting on my little beat-up sofa. Smartly dressed in expensive suits, hair slicked back, and shoes so shiny I could see my face in them, I recognized them instantly.
These were Lorenzo’s brothers—Carlos and Mateo. There was no denying that because of how similar Lorenzo looked to them both. But where his face was kind and full of warmth, theirs held a look I had come to recognize all too well while caring for Beast. It was a look of something dark and dangerous. Something deadly that said they didn’t just cross boundaries but left those boundaries a smoking ruin in their wake.
“Belle, right?” the one on the left asked, his face a picture of calm restraint. I wasn’t sure which brother was which—not that it should have mattered…yet it did, somehow. I nodded and he stood, buttoning his jacket back up. The other brother followed suit, and it took everything I had to stop my knees from knocking. “I hear we have a similar enemy.”
Enemy…enemy?
I didn’t have any enemies, did I?
“I…I don’t know what you mean,” I stuttered. “What do you want?”
The towel was pulled so tight around me that it was practically cutting off the blood flow, and yet it still didn’t feel tight enough under their watchful gazes.
The brothers exchanged a glance, and the one on the left sighed and turned his attention back to me, and something in that look made my heart skip a beat. I turned on my heel and ran toward my bedroom, intending to slam the door closed and lock it. I could call the police. No, no, I could call Shooter!
I ran, my feet pounding over the filthy floor of the trailer, but somehow I was too slow, or they were too fast, and before I knew it, arms were wrapping around my middle. I screamed and kicked, determined to be free at any cost. I had no idea what they wanted with me, but given the dark looks on their faces, it couldn’t have been anything good.
I felt my towel coming loose and then I was thrown on the bed, face first, my neck jerking violently and making me call out. But still I thrashed out, scurrying up the bed, naked and trembling.
The two brothers stood in the doorway, their hard gazes roaming over parts of me they shouldn’t have been allowed to, and I grabbed the covers to hide my nakedness from them.
“Enough,” one of them said, his voice commanding my attention.
I gripped tightly to the covers, my gaze never leaving them, watching every slight move they made. Would they rape me? Beat me? Steal from me? I had nothing. I was nothing! A nobody. Lorenzo had said his brothers had chosen a different path from him, but I hadn’t thought this. I hadn’t thought it would put me in danger.
“The Highwaymen,” the other brother said, and my rapidly tumbling thoughts stopped mid tumble. “We need information and you will get it for us.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know anything.”
“You’re staying there…at their clubhouse, yes?”
I nodded. “Just for a couple of days.”
“To care for the one they call Beast.”
I nodded again. “I…” I shrugged, not sure where this was going. “He’s been sick.”
Should I have been telling them that? Would that get me in trouble with the Highwaymen? Would it get me killed?
“While you’re there, I want you to gather information for me,” the one on the left said.
“About what?” I asked, my fingers going numb from holding the covers so tightly. “I’m in his room all the time. I don’t go anywhere else.”
“Find a way. I don’t care how,” he replied.
I stared, dumbfounded and terrified. If the Highwaymen found out, they’d shoot me without asking questions. If I didn’t… I shuddered, wondering if my fate would be worse or the same with these men. I was stuck choosing between two very dark worlds with no way out and wondering how I’d even gotten to this place.
“But…” I started, my voice shaking as it left my lips.
“This isn’t a request, Belle. It’s an order, and trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to disobey me.”
My chin quivered. “What do you need to know?”
A smile flickered across both of their faces. “Everything.”