Beep. Beep. Beep.
Where is that damn beeping noise coming from?
Micah and Marcus must be doing something to cause it.
Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes enough in the hopes to reach over the side of the bed to turn the light off but find I’m not in my bed.
Panic starts to set in as I realize I’m in a hospital and I close my eyes again as I try to think of what happened.
Then it’s as if everything hits me at once, Titus finding us, the knife to my stomach, his promise to torture and torment me. Confused by this all and why he didn’t do his normal routine and force the boys and I to go back with him. That’s what he always did the other times I’d run with the boys.
Oh God. Where are my boys?
“I’m sorry, sir, but you shouldn’t be in here,” a woman says drawing me out of my thoughts.
“Bullshit, you’re not keeping me away from my fuckin’ wife,” a sexy gruff man’s voice filters through my head and I open my eyes to see who it is and find it goes with the hot neighbor who lives next to me.
Ryder.
What is he doing here?
Wife?
I’m not his . . .
“Sir, still it’s after visiting hours you can’t be in here,” the woman states again.
“Woman, you think I’m leaving this room you can forget about it. Now do your fuckin’ job and get out. Oh, and while you’re at it make sure to have a different nurse come in next time,” Ryder growls, crossing his arms over his chest.
I’d never heard Ryder’s voice and as I stare at him now, I can’t help but gawk at him. Especially, when his gaze drops to meet mine.
“Mon bijoux,” he murmurs.
“Oh, you’re awake. Are you okay?” the nurse who’d just been trying to get Ryder to leave asks, stepping into my view.
Ignoring her, I hold Ryder’s gaze, “Micah and Marcus?” I ask.
“They’re at the clubhouse with my brothers,” he murmurs, stepping closer to the side of my bed.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside the room so that I may examine her,” the nurse states firmly.
“Like I said, I’m not leaving her. This is my fuckin’ wife and she was just stabbed. You think I’m about to let her out of my fuckin’ sight?” Ryder snarls.
Holy donkey ears, Ryder is more than just sexy on a normal day but right now pissed and defending me, yeah that’s on a whole other level all together.
“I’m sorry, sir, but our policy states. . .”
“He stays,” I mutter, interrupting the woman.
“Ma’am,” she says but I raise a hand to stop her.
“If he says he’s not leaving then he stays. I don’t know you and he’s my husband so back the fuck off and do your job or go get another nurse who will actually do it. Actually, that is a good idea. You can go get someone else,” I snap weakly as Ryder crosses his arms over his chest. His brows furrow even deeper.
With a huff of annoyance, the nurse storms out of my room and I focus solely on Ryder. “Umm, can I ask, why are you here?”
“Brielle, I’m here because there was no way in fuck you were being left alone after being stabbed,” Ryder growls, stepping closer to the bed and sitting on the edge of it gentle enough not to jostle me.
“How did you know?”
“Boys had my number, they called me when they got home and found you.” Something about them having Ryder’s number and not telling me about it hurts. Like they didn’t want me to know and I was failing in protecting them.
“I need to get out of here. Get Marcus and Micah out of here . . .”
“Woman, you’re not going anywhere. Those boys aren’t going anywhere. And if Titus fucking Pelletier tries to come after them or you again, he’ll be met with a bullet that is waiting for him. Same goes for his dickhead of an uncle.”
Oh.
My.
God.
He . . . He . . . knows about Titus.
Wait he knows who Titus is.
This isn’t good.
I need to get out of here asap. Call Ice and see if we can’t find somewhere else to go. Maybe Quebec or Melbourne. Somewhere out of the country with new identities.
“Baby, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now but get it out of your head,” Ryder demands, pulling me out of my head.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I snap, narrowing my gaze to glare at him. “You don’t know me and speaking of the fact that you don’t know me, wife?”
“Yeah, wife just like you called me your husband not two minutes ago, mon bijoux, to shut that bitch up. Far as anyone is concerned in this hospital, you are my wife and Marcus and Micah are my boys.”
Oh my.
The way Ryder said that shouldn’t cause me to want to jump him, especially, not when I’ve been stabbed and I’m lying in a hospital bed of all places.
It’s just my libido talking right now. It’s been years. I mean years since I’ve had sex. Mainly I was too afraid of Titus doing something to someone let alone me or the boys. Not even with Titus have I had sex. Not after I got pregnant with the twins. He’d claimed my body was now ruined for him, yet he had refused to let me leave him. God, I was stupid at the age of seventeen hooking up with a guy five years older than me. I should have known better but it’s not like I had the best role models at home.
Mom was never home, always off with her latest hookup. My big brother, he ran off and joined the military the first chance he got leaving me behind. Sure, we talk, he knows about his nephews and thinks I’m all happy and everything; however, he hasn’t seen me since I was fifteen and he’d left for boot camp. Now that he’s out of the military he lives somewhere in Virginia, I think, I’m honestly not sure where. I knew at one point he was stationed in Texas. It’s been a while since I’d seen him last.
“Why would you do that?” I ask, quietly losing the glare I’d been giving him.
“Brielle, you’ve missed it but the past six months, those boys of yours became my boys as well by putting their claim on me and by doing so I put mine on all three of you. I just hadn’t acted on it until, and I’ll say this, my boys called crying because you were stabbed. That shit ain’t happenin’ again. Got me?”
With wide eyes and fully aware of every word he just said, I swallow and nod my head.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur.
“Good. Now let’s see what we have to do to get you out of here and to the clubhouse so our boys can set their eyes on you,” Ryder mutters as he leans in andu brushes my hair away from my face.
I’ll repeat again.
Oh.
My.
God.
Chapter Four
Ryder
Brielle DeRose is going to be the fuckin’ death of me. Swear on my fuckin’ life she will. While waiting for her to wake up, I’d sat in the chair next to her in the hospital not taking my eyes off her. Then when that fuckin’ nurse kept trying to get me to leave the room my dick jerked to attention when even just waking up and disoriented she knew I was staying and demanded the nurse leave immediately.
What I said to her about the past six months and how her boys are mine and so is she, I wasn’t lying. Seeing her laying there on the floor at her house, I knew then that she was more than just the beauty next door and the mom to Marcus and Micah.