I was horrified by the situation and horrified by myself, but what was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to die. Certainly not like this. Could I tell Lorenzo about his brothers? Would he do something to make them stop? Would he even care? They were his family, not me, regardless of the bad blood running between them.
The taller brother came closer to the bed and I automatically pulled my knees up to my chest and pulled the cover higher, gripping it between my hands like my life depended upon it.
“What’s under there doesn’t interest me, Belle.” He glanced toward his brother and then back to me. “Mateo, though, now he has a thing for pretty women covered in their own blood, so you’d do well to mind yourself around him.”
My gaze flicked to Mateo in the doorway and I whimpered at the devious look on his face. It made the dark look Beast had seem like child’s play. Mateo’s eyes shone with pure evil delight. Staring into his eyes was like looking at evil incarnate, and I looked away before I burst out crying. Carlos reached out and gripped my chin in his hand, squeezing so hard I whimpered in pain and looked back at him.
“Security, jobs, money, people—I need to know it all,” he demanded, his voice cold and calculating, “and don’t bother going to Lorenzo. He’s not the good little boy you think he is. And if you think those pathetic bikers can help you…think again. They don’t trust you and they’ll cut you down before you can finish telling them.”
Tears spilled from my eyes, but I didn’t dare blink or rub them away.
I was too afraid to move.
Too afraid to speak.
I had been betrayed on all angles and backed into a corner, and now I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I was alone in this, and as if Carlos knew, he smiled, his eyes glinting as he hit the final nail in my coffin.
“And when the time comes, Belle, you’ll kill the Beast.”
He let go of me and walked away, leaving me alone in my bedroom with only Mateo. He smiled, a cruel smile that showed his teeth and reminded me of a wolf that was hunting its prey, and I whimpered. Tears continued to spill down my face as he took a step toward me.
“I almost want you to fail,” he said, his voice light, almost gentle. “That way I get to play with you.”
He winked like he’d just paid me a compliment and then turned and left the room. As soon as I heard the door open and close and the start of an engine outside, I dove out of bed and ran down the hallway to my front door, locking it and leaning my naked back against it. I wasn’t sure how they’d gotten in—the lock wasn’t broken, and I was almost certain that I’d locked it when I came in—but it didn’t matter. The fact was, they had gotten in. They had threatened my life. Threatened my everything. They wanted me to do something incredibly dangerous that they knew would likely get me killed in the end, and they didn’t care.
One way or another, I realized with dread as ice filled my veins, I wasn’t making it out of this situation alive. And neither was Beast.
Chapter Eight
~ BEAST ~
Belle was subdued as she moved about the machines around my bed.
Machines for fluid.
Machines to check my heart.
Machines that just beeped a fuckload at random times and stopped me from sleeping.
I watched her with an impatient eye, curious as to what had gotten up her ass that day. I knew she didn’t want to be there, but she wasn’t the sort of woman to be a bitch about it.
Each day I was feeling better and better—stronger and more like my old self. My vision in my left eye still wasn’t a hundred percent, but Belle had warned me of that, and honestly, I was just so glad that it had come back at all so I wasn’t about to complain. I would be able to ride again, and that was the most important thing.
My body was healing, my eyesight was getting better, my muscles strengthening, but the ugly scars covering my face, hands, and body were still there, constant reminders of what I’d gone through. I’d like to say that I saw them as warrior marks, representing what I’d been through, and that they made me stronger inside, but they didn’t. Every time I looked at them I felt anger inside me, bubbling up and threatening to explode out of my chest. Every time I looked in a mirror and saw my torn-up face, scars littering my skin like dirt on the sidewalk, I felt fire burning within me.
Memories of how each one was made haunted me.
Each cut.
Each burn.
Each blow with a hammer. A nail gun. A hunting knife.
I spent long hours staring at myself in a mirror, lost in those memories, my head getting even more messed up at the prospect of living like this forever.
While my body healed, my mind fractured, turning darker and more violent with each passing hour until it wasn’t just a hateful rage I had within me, but something worse. Something I couldn’t explain.
Belle emptied my meds into a little white cup, counting them silently in her head, her forehead screwed up as she checked and double-checked them. I scowled as I watched her, wanting to know what was eating her up inside. Wanting to demand that she tell me. But there seemed little point; she wouldn’t tell me anything. We weren’t those people from the hospital anymore. I wasn’t the same man and she wasn’t the same woman. We’d both grown a little darker and a little more lost as each day passed, it seemed—to the point I barely recognized her or me anymore.
I was sitting up, my TV on in the corner of my room. Goddamn, I was sick of watching TV. It was all I seemed to do these days. Watch TV, eat, sleep, shit, and take pills served by Nurse Cheerful over here. She didn’t even have any pudding to soothe me with anymore. She just came, did the bare minimum to make me comfortable, made an excuse to leave the room, and if she couldn’t she just sat silently in the corner with a book. A book she’d been reading for two weeks now. A book which she hadn’t turned a damn page on. She couldn’t even bear to look at me anymore, that was how much she hated me and hated being there. My heart grew a little harder at that realization.
Outside in the clubhouse I could hear laughing and talking. Brothers going about their day. Harleys starting with loud, throaty roars outside. Doors opening and closing. Cries of pleasure coming from different rooms. I’d become accustomed to listening in to the club life I wasn’t a part of at the moment and recognizing footsteps and bikes and which door was which. Made a little game for myself that I was getting too damn good at.
One thing was for sure: after all of this, I’d be the most feared enforcer the Highwaymen had ever seen because I’d know every person just by how they walked or closed a door.
“Open up,” Belle mumbled, the little white cup shaking in her trembling hand. I scowled up at her, seeing the dark rings under her eyes.
“What’s up your ass?” I asked, snatching the cup from her. Hated that Shooter had made her stay. Why couldn’t he just get one of the sweetbutts to take care of me for a week or two? Or better yet, blackmail another doctor from the hospital? Having to see Belle every day was eating me up inside and feeding my anger. No one had mentioned anything about her feeding club secrets to Lorenzo since that day in the hospital, so I was guessing that the theory had died out quickly. It didn’t surprise me. Belle didn’t have a bad bone in her body.
“Nothing,” she replied, grabbing my water from the table.