by Sam Crescent
“The rest of the Four Kings?” Liam asked.
“It might help him, in case there is something more serious.”
He had no desire to bring the Four Kings to Easton’s side, but he also didn’t want to be accused of trying to hurt the competition in any way.
“I’ll make the call,” he said.
“I can make it if you want.”
“No, I can.” He kissed her head, and left the room, putting the call through to Axton.
He didn’t have anything against the Four Kings, but none of them had noticed Easton talking to himself, and because of that, Liam wasn’t happy to be working with them in any way.
Chapter Fourteen
Over eleven years ago
She’d had sex.
Scarlett had been with a guy.
Glancing over at Easton, she saw the blanket they had used to try to warm them from the cold was pushed down to his waist.
He looked so handsome, especially in sleep.
All she wanted to do was to take care of him. She’d noticed the sadness in his gaze from the first moment he arrived, and it had made her want to ward off all the pain and fear he might be feeling.
Reaching out, she pushed some hair off his forehead.
He didn’t wake, but he did move a little, getting comfortable.
This wasn’t supposed to happen between them. She’d come to camp to help out. The final hold of a childhood she would no longer have when she got home. Her family already had a fiancé lined up for her.
A life she didn’t want. A man she hated. She had no control, and she’d been told many times a woman like her didn’t have a chance at her own life. She had to learn to do as she was told and to deal with the consequences of it.
She hated it, every single day.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she said.
Easton wasn’t like any of the men in her life. They didn’t try to make her smile or to figure out what was bothering her. Easton did all of those things. He gave her a voice, a reason, an opinion, and he even cared about it as well.
In the twenty-first century, her parents believed her place was to look pretty. They had told her there would be a makeover, and the woman she was now would no longer be acceptable in their house.
Her long hair would go. Her clothes would be changed. She would have no choice but to look like the proper wife of the man they had picked.
Tears filled her eyes as she thought about what she was going to have to do. Unless she admitted the truth to Easton and took a chance with him.
She didn’t want to spoil their summer. The time they had together was so short, and even though he’d made love to her, taken her cherry that had been meant for someone else, she couldn’t let him go.
Soon, she’d tell him what she felt, but until then, she was going to enjoy him.
****
Present day
Easton hated waiting for anything. Tests pissed him off. Gossiping nurses irritated him. Bossy doctors made him want to throat-punch them.
When he pulled off the pulse ox monitor on his finger, the machine beeped, and he ignored it.
He’d been forced to wear one of the hospital gowns, and again, he wasn’t fucking impressed with that either.
There was a lot of stuff he was angry about.
He shouldn’t have told Liam, and even though the doctor had said he should have, Easton didn’t want to believe them. Climbing off the bed, he was going to find Liam and give that son of a bitch a piece of his mind.
Their weekend had been ruined because of his fucking mouth.
As he was walking out of the room, the nurse rushed toward him, but he ignored her. He wanted to throw her across the room so she would back the fuck off. Instead, she followed him out to the waiting room, where he spotted Liam and Scarlett, but also Axton, Taylor, Karson, and Romeo. There were a couple of other people, who he figured were waiting for their own loved ones.
Liam spotted him first and got to his feet, drawing the others’ attention.
He didn’t know why the fuck his friends were there. He didn’t need them in the hospital.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I called them, just in case.”
“Do you think I’m going to die?” Easton wasn’t impressed.
“Sir, I need you to go back to your room,” the nurse said.
“I’m here because I fucking want to be. Back off, now!” Easton yelled the words, becoming the center of attention.
“I’m thinking we should take this to your room,” Liam said.
He was tempted to scream at all of them, but if it wasn’t for the no cell phone rule, he’d have been filmed screaming at the nurse.
Turning on his heel, he entered his room but refused to sit down.
“You can’t have this many people in his bedroom,” the nurse said.
“You either let them in or I swear I will have your job so fucking fast you wish you kept your mouth shut,” Easton said.
His anger had hit an all-time high. He was livid and looking for anyone to take it out on. The nurse was merely an easy target for him, and one he really fucking needed.
“Easton?” Scarlett said.
“I don’t care right now what the fuck you think of me.” The door had been shut, and they now had privacy. “Why are you here?” He turned toward Axton, Karson, and Romeo.
“We’re your friends.”
“So. I’m fine.”
“Liam said there could be something wrong with you. We were worried,” Axton said.
“You didn’t tell them?”
“It wasn’t my place. I just figured they were your friends.”
This time, Easton laughed. “Oh, yes, we’re friends, aren’t we? The Four fucking Kings. The empire. All of it. We’re supposed to be the best fucking friends, but you know what, I don’t want you here.”
“You don’t mean that,” Taylor said.
His nostrils flared. “You know why I’m here?” he asked.
“You might be sick.”
“Since I got to rehab and even getting out of it, I’ve been having conversations with Carla. You know, the dead girlfriend from years ago. The one I knocked up, before I knocked up her.” He pointed toward Scar. “The girl who I pretended to care about.”
“Easton, you loved her.”
“No! I fucking didn’t. I didn’t love her. She was nothing more than a bet that I used to amuse myself, and it backfired. I cared about her. I won’t deny that, but I didn’t fucking love her. God!” He let out a scream. Behind all of them, Carla was smiling at him.
He ran a hand down his face.
This wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him.
“I fell in love with you,” he said, turning to Scar. “I thought you were poor. I thought you couldn’t handle my family. I didn’t want to lose you, Scar. I never did. I had no idea we’d made a baby. A really precious baby. A sweet, beautiful son. I wish I had known him back then. There are so many mistakes.”
The door to the room opened, and Easton growled for them to get out.
“I need to prep Mr. Long for surgery, now.”
Nurses, security staff suddenly rushed into the hospital room, and all Easton saw was Scar. Liam was in control. He would take care of him. Easton had no doubt. There was a look of panic on her face, and the world began to slow down a little.
He had a tumor.
They needed to operate.
Carla wasn’t a figment of his operation.
He was in fact, very sick.
****
Liam sat in the waiting room. He’d put a call to the parents Junior was staying with and asked to keep him one more night, and they were more than happy to keep him. Scar held him. They were sitting in the family room.
Axton, Taylor, Karson, and Romeo were also in the room. They hadn’t spoken since they had been led to this room nearly thirty minutes ago.
The doctor he’d called was the bes
t neurosurgeon in the country, but even still, he’d warned him of potential complications, and they were prepping for surgery in such a short time.
Liam had already done the math. Easton had been seeing Carla for over eight months, maybe even longer.
Eight months of a tumor growing inside his head.
Eight months of … being alone.
He’d had no idea Easton was suffering, and he couldn’t stand to know, he’d been the one to fuck up.
“What if he doesn’t make it?” Scarlett said. “I’ve never seen him look so angry and so afraid.” She sniffled. “Oh, my God, I kept his son away from him, and he … he might die. I never got to apologize for not sharing Junior with him. What am I going to do? I’m such a horrible person.”
“He’ll make it,” Liam said. “And when he does, you can apologize to him. You can make it right with him. Easton is ours, and we’ll take care of him. We’ll love him, and we’re going to make sure he gets through this.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. Easton’s a fighter. He won’t let this get in the way.”
“This is about more than being a fighter. This isn’t an illness he can kill with antibiotics,” Romeo said. “They’re operating on his brain.”
“I know that. You think he needs us in here, arguing?”
“I don’t know what the fuck he needs,” Romeo said.
“He needs us all to be strong, and if none of you can provide that and just want to blame each other, you see the door. Walk yourselves right out of it,” Liam said.
All three men got to their feet. The violence was clear, and Liam was more than happy to go toe to toe with all of them.
“Liam,” Scarlett said.
He stepped up to them, refusing to back down, refusing to let them push the blame of this shit on anyone.
“You want to start with me, let’s do this. I got no problem with all three of you. You think you can use your numbers against me, fucking try it with me, boys. You’re nothing more than a bunch of kids playing at being men.”
“You don’t know what we’ve been through.”
“I’ve got a fucking idea, and you know what, still don’t give a fuck,” Liam said. “Your friend has been seeing a dead woman.” Taylor sobbed. “Shut the fuck up. I don’t care which one of these people you’re marrying. Your friend died ten years ago, and none of them were responsible for it. If you were any kind of woman, you’d get over your shit and stop making others guilty for moving on with their lives.”
“Don’t talk to my wife like that,” Axton said.
“It looks to me someone’s got to put a little perspective on life. Your woman is living in the past. You want to move on, you got to let her know you’re not going to keep being sorry for being happy. People die, and we have no choice but to move on. It’s the fact of life, and if you want to stay in the past, you’re going to end up fucking lost.” He glared at Axton and turned his attention to Taylor. “You’re going to kill that man in there. I get you’re sad about what happened, but Easton is a living, breathing person and he has a right to be happy.”
“I don’t need to sit here and take this,” Taylor said. “I’ve offered him support. I don’t want to see him suffer.”
“But you do it every single day you bring up the past. You think I don’t see how broken he is by the time he comes home?” Liam asked.
“Liam?” Scarlett said, grabbing his hand.
“These people are supposed to be his friends, and they’re not helping him. They’re crushing him. He could die on that operating table today. What do you think about that?” he asked. He looked at Axton, then Romeo, before going to Karson.
All of Easton’s friends look scared.
“I’m going home,” Taylor said, stepping toward the door. Liam watched her. He knew about this woman’s revenge plot. From the moment he found out about Easton, he’d made it his business to know every single little detail of the people in front of him right now. “Are you coming, Axton?” she asked.
“You’re going to sit down and wait to hear about my friend,” Axton said.
“Excuse me?”
Axton stood up and turned to face Taylor. The woman looked shocked to see Axton standing up for himself.
“You heard me. One of my best friends could die tonight, and you think I’m going to go home and wait. You’re wrong. If you love me, if your promises meant anything, you’ll sit down, take what has been said, and deal with it.”
“And if I leave?”
“Then you get the fuck out and you leave Carla. It’s as simple as that. I love you, Taylor, I will die for you. I’ve put up with all kinds of bullshit, but I’m not walking out of this room.”
Liam took a seat as Scarlett wrapped herself around him. He felt her shaking, and he had to keep it together.
This weekend, he’d been so close to getting what he wanted. He’d seen the attraction in Easton’s eyes, and knew it was only time he needed to finally have the family he always craved.
Taylor, much to Liam’s shock, sat beside Axton. She was tense and looked like she wanted to be anywhere but at the hospital.
He didn’t blame her.
“It’s good Easton has you looking out for him,” Axton said. “He’s been so secretive about everything. How is he getting on with his child? His son.”
“We’ve not gotten a chance to meet him yet,” Karson said.
“He’s part of Easton, and we’d love to meet him,” Romeo said.
Scarlett sniffled. “When all of this is over and if Easton makes it through.”
“He will,” Liam said.
“We don’t know that.”
“I’m not going to sit in this room and think for a second he’s not going to make it through. He’s a strong man, and I know he’s going to make it. He has to survive.”
He didn’t see any other way for this.
Easton had to survive.
Scarlett held him a little tighter. “When Easton pulls through, we’ll have lunch or dinner. Or something. We’ll make it work.”
These men were Easton’s family, and Liam was more than willing to accept them, but they would only be allowed to come around if they had Easton’s best interests at heart.
He took care of his family, and he used any means at his disposal to do it.
****
Why was the time going by so fucking slowly?
Scarlett stared at the clock and couldn’t be sure if it wasn’t broken or something. It was like time was finally mocking her. Making her wait for the scariest outcome of her life. What if Easton didn’t make it? What would she tell her son? How would she be able to handle that kind of pain?
“I need to go and get myself a drink and some fresh air,” she said.
Liam got to his feet. “I’ll come with you.”
“No. I’ll grab you a coffee. You don’t need to come with me.” She patted Liam’s hands, trying to give him comfort. It felt impossible to do.
She knew he always went out of his way to comfort her, and no matter what she tried, she would be failing him.
“Black, no sugar,” he said.
“Okay.”
Without a look toward the others in the room, she made her way out of the tension-filled space and went straight to the vending machine near the elevators. She didn’t want to drink coffee, and without seeing some of the labels on the cans of soda, she opted for bottled water.
Bending down, she twisted off the cap and pressed the button for the elevator. Stepping inside, she closed her eyes, resting her head back against the wall.
“Hold the elevator,” Taylor said.
Opening her eyes, Scarlett watched as Taylor stepped onto the elevator.
“You’re leaving?”
“No. I just needed some air. Axton should be here for his best friend, and I’m here for him.” Taylor stood in the corner of the elevator. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“I don’t care,” she said.
“You’ve kn
own Easton a long time?”
“No,” Scarlett said.
“You have a son.”
“We do.”
Taylor smiled. “Forgive me, but how do you have a son and not know each other?”
Scarlett stared at Taylor and Liam’s words kept playing in her mind. She didn’t owe this woman an explanation.
“I know enough about Easton to know he’s hurt by something that happened in the past,” she said. “Why are you so determined to live in it?”
“Carla was my best friend. She was pregnant when she died, with Easton’s child.”
“Did he kill her?” Scarlett asked. “I saw the papers about the incident. The exposé on his dad. Easton had nothing to blame.”
“He should never have been near her. If he’d just left her alone, she would be alive now.”
Scarlett stared at the woman and shook her head. “You don’t know that.”
“The only reason Nial Long killed her was because of Easton.”
“So you’re going to blame him all of his life?”
Taylor gritted her teeth and looked away. “You don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t understand. I get you’re upset about your friend dying and I’m truly sorry for what happened. I really am, but holding it against Easton is just fucking wrong.” Scarlett couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. “He didn’t kill her. He didn’t put his hands on her, so why should he be the one to suffer all the time for it? You don’t think he’s suffered enough? He’s not been plagued by guilt. He’s in that hospital bed because he was seeing his dead girlfriend and didn’t tell anyone about it.”
“Good! He deserves it.”
Scarlett reacted. She didn’t even know what was happening. One minute she was standing in her corner holding the bottle of water. The next moment, she had her hands wrapped around Taylor’s throat, pressing her up against the corner of the elevator.
“You want to keep on blaming him, go ahead, but I can tell you now, you toxic little bitch, I will make sure you, your husband, and your fucking kid struggle for the rest of your natural born lives. Do you hear me? You can keep thinking this is all Easton’s fault, but your friend, she didn’t have to fuck him, did she? They both made a choice, and you are just as much to blame as everyone else. If you had been a good enough friend, she’d have come to you when she started sleeping with him, telling you all of her secrets. Instead, she chose to keep it a secret from you. What does that tell you, huh? It tells me you weren’t as good a friend as you think you were. And if you had that big of a beef with what happened, you wouldn’t be fucking one of the Four Kings. I bet they knew what had happened and who did it. You’ve got to make a choice in this world, darling, and it’s not chasing after Easton. Otherwise, I, no one else, I, will end you.” She let go of Taylor, grabbed her bottle of water, and left the elevator.