by Ivy Black
I’ve really been enjoying my time with Bellamy. Being with her has literally been the best time of my life. We’re closer than ever—than I ever thought possible, to be honest—and with every day that goes by, we seem to be falling deeper in love. It’s been a wholly unexpected blessing in my life, but it’s something I’m grateful for.
And knowing that this conflict with Zavala is coming to a head has me feeling torn. Yeah, we need to deal with him once and for all. But there’s every chance in the world that I’m not gonna be coming home from the fight. Zavala’s got an army. We’re less than two dozen. Since we deal in them, we’ve got top-of-the-line weapons and munitions but so does Zavala.
The only advantage we have in this fight is a tactical one. We’re all ex-military and know how to prepare and execute a battle plan. While I don’t doubt Zavala’s got some ex-military in his ranks, the majority of his troops are simple assholes with bad attitudes and weapons. Untested and undisciplined, we should be able to outmaneuver them from a tactical standpoint.
But these guys are like a cult and they’ll fight to the death because they know if they don’t, if they break ranks and run, Zavala will have them killed himself—and probably their families too. That kind of mentality, not to mention the threats behind it, makes madmen of them all, and they could potentially blow up any plan we put together because they’ll just keep coming.
Still, I trust in Leadership and believe they can put something together that will give us the best advantage we can get. Maybe it’ll be enough to carry the day. But then, it might not be. They could overwhelm us with sheer numbers. And it’s that uncertainty, that possibility that we could be wiped out, that’s had me feeling so on edge ever since things between Bellamy and I got serious.
It’s not that I’m scared to die. If you die fighting for a good cause, doing the right thing, then it’s a good death and one you should be proud of. And to me, there’s no better cause than protecting this town and all the people in it from a monster like Zavala. What’s giving me pause, though, is Bellamy. The thought of not getting to spend my days with her, of not getting to see her again… it breaks my heart, and it makes me sick all at the same time.
She’s everything I’ve ever wanted. She’s all I really wanted. And to finally get a chance to be with her, to love her, and to have her love me back… it’s been the greatest joy of my life. It’s made me happier than I ever knew I could be. And I’m not ready to give that up yet. I want to hang onto it for as long as I possibly can. For the rest of what I’d like to be an unusually long life.
But I know that I’ll never abandon my brothers when there’s a fight coming. I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with them and keep fighting until we’ve won the day—or there’s none of us left standing. One way or the other, this war with Zavala will come to an end. And I will fight like hell, do whatever I have to do to get back to Bellamy.
“You think we can beat him?” I ask.
Nitro shrugs his broad shoulders, not even needing to ask who the “he” is in this situation. Zavala has become a sort of bogeyman to us all, and we all just seem to know who it is we’re talking about without ever mentioning his name.
“I like to think we can. I like to think our training and tactical advantage gives us an edge. But the odds are stacked way against us, so who can say?” he replies.
“Remind me to not ask you to give us a pep talk before the fight,” I say.
My phone rings, so I pull it out of my pocket and connect the call, figuring it’s Bellamy. But then, I hear a voice I don’t recognize.
“Derek? This is Ruby Miller and I’m sorry to call you like this, but it’s about Bellamy.”
***
I burst through the doors of the emergency room, looking around frantically. The smell of the antiseptic is strong and cloying. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always hated hospitals. The biggest reason is that hospitals are filled with nothing but misery and suffering. Nothing but pain and death.
It’s not very busy at this time of night, so I run over to the nurse’s station. The older, severe-looking woman behind the desk looks startled when I approach, the look on her face telling me she’s contemplating whether or not to call the cops.
“Bellamy Young,” I say, not patient enough for the niceties. “Car accident. She was brought in—”
“Derek?”
I turn to see a tall, willowy platinum blonde standing there. Her blue eyes are rimmed red and her cheeks are flushed. She’s obviously been crying. I can still see the traces of the girl she was back in high school in the smooth, refined, beautiful face of the woman before me.
“Ruby?”
She nods and gives me an awkward smile and looks like she’s trying to decide whether or not she should give me a hug. She ultimately opts against it which is probably good. It’s not like we were friends back in the day. She’s Bellamy’s best friend, and this might be the only conversation we’ve ever had.
“It’s been a while.”
“It has.”
The nurse at the desk turns away, apparently glad she doesn’t have to deal with me after all. I follow Ruby to a waiting room where, judging by the number of empty coffee cups and used tissues, she’s obviously been camped out for a while. I sit down in the chair next to her. She grabs a new tissue from her bag and wipes her eyes then her nose. Even though I want answers and want to press her, I give her a moment to gather herself.
“So what happened?” I finally ask when she’s straight.
Ruby shakes her head. “All I know is she was in a car accident. I’ve been raising hell around here trying to get answers, but all they’ll tell me is she doesn’t appear to have any life-threatening injuries, but she’s in surgery right now.”
“Surgery for what?”
A look of absolute misery crosses her face. “I don’t know. They aren’t being specific. They’re not giving me much information at all.”
We both fall silent for a moment as I process everything that she’s telling me. My heart has been in the pit of my stomach since I got the call, and this isn’t making things any better. The idea of Bellamy lying in there, under the knife, having God knows what done to her is eating me up inside.
“Hell of a way for us to finally meet, huh?” Ruby sniffs.
A wry smile touches my lips. “Yeah. I suppose so.”
“She loves you, you know,” Ruby says. “I’ve known her all her life and I’ve never seen her as taken with anybody as she is with you.”
“That goes both ways.”
She looks at me for a moment and gives me a soft smile. “I believe you. But let me just say, if you hurt her, I’m going to cut your balls off.”
I laugh softly. “She said you’re a good friend like that.”
“Excuse me,” a gruff voice intrudes.
We both look up to see Sheriff Singer standing in the doorway. He looks from Ruby to me then back again.
“I just talked to the head nurse. They say the surgery went well and they’re moving her to a recovery room. There’s nothin’ more you can do here,” Singer says. “She’ll be out the rest of the night. So, you might as well go home, Ruby. Get yourself some shut-eye.”
She looks over at me and I give her a nod. “I’m going to stay. You might as well go get some rest. I’ll call you if anything comes up.”
She nods and gets to her feet, but she turns to me, giving me as warm a smile as she can muster given the circumstances.
“And when this is all over and she’s back on her feet, the three of us are getting together for a drink.”
“Deal.”
Ruby leaves and Singer leans against the wall near the door, looking at me. There’s a frown on his face and I can tell there’s something on his mind. Something he wants to say but seems to be having trouble saying it. My first thought, of course, is that Bellamy’s condition is worse than he’s letting on.
“What is it, Sheriff? Is there something about Bellamy you’re not saying? Is she all right?”
“She’ll be fine,” he replies. “But I saw the scene and it looks to me like she was forced off the road. It looks to me like somebody did this to her intentionally.”
“Intentionally?”
He nods. “Yeah. Looks that way to me. I can’t imagine why. She’s a good person, doesn’t get into trouble—”
“Peter Wells,” I tell him. “Peter Wells did this. You need to find that son of a bitch before I do, because if I get to him first, I will kill him, Sheriff.”
He shifts his feet, frowning. “I’m going to overlook the threat as an emotional outburst. But who in the hell is Peter Wells?”
“The guy outside the Chinese food place. The one I was fighting with,” I say.
“Why do you think it’s him?”
I get to my feet and start to pace the room. And as I do, the pieces start falling into place in my head. That night, he said that my actions could have consequences for those I cared about. At the time, I assumed he meant the club and pretty much just wrote it off and forgot about it.
But as I think on it harder now, it hits me this guy Jacob that Bellamy kept running into has to be the same guy. She said he was always asking questions about me and the club. She said that he was constantly trying to poison her against me. Make her think I was this horrible monster.
I’m kicking myself for not putting it all together before now. For ignoring my gut instinct and just forgetting about it altogether. I can see it now though. He’s been deliberately trying to get close to her so he could keep tabs on me. He was plotting something. He was using her to get to me. To play out some revenge fantasy he had in his head. There can’t be any other explanation for it.
“You heard him that night, Sheriff. You heard him threaten to do exactly what he did. He went after Bellamy to get to me.”
Singer seems to be considering it then gives me a nod. “At the very least, it’s a good enough reason for me to scoop him up and have a conversation.”
“Good. That’s good,” I say. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
He shakes his head. “No, I just wanted to pass on what I knew. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks, Sheriff. Then I’m gonna go sit with her. I want to be there when she wakes up.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed in the recovery room.”
“Let them try to stop me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bellamy
My vision is blurred, and my head is throbbing. The light in the room is intense, making that throb even worse. But as I take stock of myself, I realize there is nothing on or in me that doesn’t hurt. Even blinking is painful. I lean my head back against the pillow, trying to recall what happened and how I got here. Like my vision, my memory is a complete blur.
And slowly, as my eyes clear, my memory starts to return. I was driving when somebody hit me from behind. It was intentional. Whoever it was, they forced me off the road. With my eyes fixed on the ceiling, I rack my brain and try to recall everything that happened before that.
Of course. I remember the confrontation with Jacob—no, Peter—in the parking lot. He grabbed me. Shook me. Slammed me up against my car and scared the hell out of me. I have no idea what else he would have done if Mr. Kettering hadn’t come out and put a stop to things. And then, after that, out on the road, the car with its high beams on came roaring up behind mine, blaring its horn… and then it rammed me. Then, it forced me off the road. Turning over and over. The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass echoing in my ears.
The sound of somebody snoring startles me and when I jump, the pain radiates through every corner of my body. I groan miserably and give myself a moment to let it fade before I turn my head. Derek is slumped over in a chair next to the bed, his arms folded over his chest, head down, sleeping deeply. It makes me think he’s been there in that chair all night.
Despite the pain that’s racking my entire body, I smile. Seeing Derek here, by my side, gives me some sense of comfort and relief. I’d rather not be here at all, but the fact that he’s here, sitting by my bed, proves his devotion to me. Not that I needed proof of it but it’s still kind of nice to see.
Derek shifts in his seat and raises his head as if me thinking about him somehow woke him up. He looks at me and I see the relief crossing his face. He leans forward and takes my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“You’re back,” he says.
“I am. I think,” I reply.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I was run over by an eighteen-wheeler,” I tell him. “Then had it back over me then run over me again.”
“I guess given the condition of your car, they say you’re lucky to be alive and that you weren’t more seriously injured.”
It’s then I realize there is a big cast on my left arm. I look at it and frown then turn back to Derek. He shrugs.
“A busted wing, plenty of cuts and bruises, but no internal damage,” he says. “I’d call that pretty damn lucky.”
“Yeah. When you put things that way, I guess I am.”
He looks at me for a long moment in silence. I can see the maelstrom of emotions scrolling across his face, and it makes my heart swell.
“I was so worried. When Ruby called… I feared the worst,” he says softly.
I give him a weak smile. “I’m made of some tough stuff.”
“That you are. The toughest stuff.”
I grimace in pain as I struggle to reach the control for the bed. Derek smiles and grabs hold of it and hands it to me. I thank him and then use the control to raise the bed to a sitting position, even the gentle movement of the bed making me wince.
“Want me to call the nurse? See about getting you some pain meds?”
I shake my head, not wanting to float through a chemically induced haze for the rest of the day when a sudden thought hits me and sends a bolt of adrenaline straight through me.
“My mom. I need—”
“Ruby’s already taken care of it,” I tell her. “She called the agency and told them what happened. The nurses have been with her. She’s all right.”
“Good,” I say, letting out a breath of relief. “Remind me to thank Ruby when I get out of here.”
“Will do.”
“Speaking of which, when am I getting out of here?”
“When the doctors say you can get out of here and not a minute before.”
I laugh then wince at the pain it causes me. Gritting my teeth, I give it a moment to subside. Then, I turn my eyes to him, giving him a smile that I hope doesn’t look as weak as it feels. Although I appreciate how much he worries about me, I really don’t want him to.
“Since when did you become a stickler about the rules and following orders, mister?” I say with a small laugh.
“Since the moment I heard you were in the hospital,” he replies, his eyes burning with intensity. “The thought of losing you, Bell...”
His voice trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish the statement. I already know what he means and how he feels. It’s the same exact way I feel when I think about him living this lifestyle of his. It’s how I feel about him going to war with the cartel. The thought of losing him tears a hole in my heart I know could never be filled by anybody else. A hole in my heart I know would never heal.
“So do you know who it was?” he asks. “Do you know who ran you off the road?”
“I’m almost positive it was Jacob… Peter,” she replies.
I tell him about the confrontation in the parking lot. We share information and it confirms my initial thought: Jacob is Peter and vice versa. He was trying to get close to me as part of some notion for revenge he had, though neither of us know what that plan might have been. It could be that I put it together and called him on it before Peter had a chance to enact it. Or perhaps the beating Derek gave him pushed him over the edge and made him snap. I suppose it doesn’t matter at this point.
“I figured it was him,” Derek says. “Sheriff Sing
er’s already out there looking for him. He’s gonna scoop him up when he finds that prick.”
“Make me a promise?” I ask.
He cocks his head. “Sure. What is it?”
“You’ll let Sheriff Singer do his job? You’ll let the sheriff bring Peter in and you won’t go after him yourself?”
Derek’s expression darkens, and he looks away. I don’t need to be a mind reader to see that he’s already contemplating all the different ways he can hurt and/or kill Peter. But I don’t want him to do that. Yes, I want him punished. But I want him punished the right way, to the fullest extent of the law, not subjected to street justice. That’s not what I want done in my name.
“Derek? Promise me?”
He sighs. “Fine. But I think he deserves a lot worse than he’s going to get. He could have killed you, Bell.”
“But he didn’t. I’m fine… relatively speaking,” I say, flashing him a grin. “I’ll recover, though.”
“But he could have,” he says.
I give his hand a squeeze. “But he didn’t. So, let’s just let the situation play out with Sheriff Singer.”
“You’ve got a soft heart,” he says with a chuckle.
“Yeah, I suppose I do.”
His smile melts my heart. “And that’s just one of the many things I love about you,” he replies. “And I would love to kiss you, but I’m sure it would hurt, so I’m going to hold off for now.”
“I’ll take a rain check on that then. And I intend to collect.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Derek’s phone rings, and he frowns as he slips it out of his pocket and looks at the display screen. His lips compress into a tight line as he glances over at me.
“It’s Domino,” he explains and then connects the call. “What’s up?”
I can hear Domino’s deep, grumbling voice, but the words are muffled, and I can’t make them out. But judging by the expression on Derek’s face, whatever it is, it’s not good and I’m guessing it has something to do with Zavala.