by April Lust
“Then maybe you should have planned better,” Miller said. “We didn’t fund your campaign so you could fuck this up for us! We’re talking more money than your life is worth here, Stratton.”
Brewer and Miller shoved Gregory into his office and slammed the door shut. Amelia didn’t waste any time in bolting out of her hiding place and up the stairs. A cramp nearly sent her to her knees halfway up and her mind began working overtime.
Her father might be about to die. Something was clearly wrong with her, baby wise. The security guards were either paid off, distracted, or...worst case scenario, dead. She tried to force her mind to slow down. Of the three options, distracted seemed more likely. She’d spoken to a few of them and they seemed pretty decent. And Miller and Brewer weren’t exactly the type to walk in with guns blazing. They obviously preferred to let other people do their dirty work. What could she do? There wasn’t time to call the police and explain the whole situation.
The answer slid into place neatly. She could call the ambulance. They wouldn’t hurt her father in front of official witnesses, and she could get herself checked out at the same time.
She grabbed her cell phone and dialed quickly with shaking fingers.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I’m about a month and a half pregnant and I think something’s wrong,” Amelia said, her voice hitching as she said it out loud. “I’m cramping pretty badly.”
“Name and address.”
“Amelia Stratton.” She rattled off her address. “Please, please hurry. And make sure they use the sirens; we have a security gate.”
“Someone will be there shortly, Ms. Stratton.”
Amelia hung up and looked around her bedroom. It was half packed up already, but she knew there was no way she could figure out which bag to take to the hospital. And no way she could carry it even if she’d had one. The cramps were coming faster now.
She dragged herself over to the stairs and walked down. Then she leaned against the wall beside her father’s office. She had to time this just right or she risked a lot. Possibly both her and her father’s lives. And the life of her baby. The hospital wasn’t too far from the house, but it seemed like an eternity before she heard the wail of a siren.
“Did you call the--” she heard Miller begin.
Amelia flung open the door, “Daddy, something’s wrong!” she cried dramatically. “I’m bleeding and my stomach’s cramping and you have to ride in the ambulance with me right now!” She wasn’t actually bleeding. At least, she didn’t think that she was, but it certainly grabbed their attention.
Brewer and Miller stared at her with their mouths hanging open. Gregory pushed his sweaty hair back off of his forehead and said, “What?”
The sirens were ringing through the open front door now. Brewer swore and shoved the knife back into his pocket.
“Hello?” a paramedic called. “The gate and the door are open, we’re coming in.”
“Get out there,” Miller hissed, shoving Gregory up.
Gregory staggered to his feet. “In here,” he called. “She’s in here.”
The stretcher was wheeled in and Amelia, who was shaking now that her plan actually seemed to be working, allowed them to help her onto it. She wasn’t sure her legs would carry her down the front steps.
“He’ll follow her in his own car,” Miller said.
“No!” Amelia shrieked, making sure she sounded absolutely hysterical. It wasn’t hard, under the circumstances. “I need him to go with me! Daddy, please!” She grabbed his coat sleeve and held on as tightly as she could, refusing to be dislodged.
“It’s fine,” the first paramedic said. “We need to go. You can come with us, sir.”
Amelia relaxed just in time for the next cramp to hit and tears filled her eyes. Not this. She couldn’t lose this, too.
# # #
“All right, make a fist,” the nurse said. “We’re just going to get an IV started. You’re a little dehydrated. I’m Martha Kendrick and I’ll be your main nurse.”
Amelia winced as the needle punctured her skin. This nurse was friendly, but she was a little heavy handed with the sharp objects.
“When will you know?” she asked tightly. “If I’m losing the baby?”
“We’ll keep you here until we’re sure either way,” Martha answered. “It’s hard to pinpoint it when you're this early in the pregnancy. We’ll get an ultrasound soon and go from there. Is there anything you need?”
Amelia shook her head. She needed reassurance, guarantees, and Ethan. The nurse probably couldn’t do anything about any of that.
“What did they say?” Gregory asked once she was settled in her room.
“They said it’s too early to really know,” Amelia answered. “I could be losing the baby. Or it could just be stress.”
“Stress?” Gregory said with a half laugh. “For you?”
“Yeah,” Amelia said, her tone venomous. “Stress. From the fact that my father is an asshole who’s in completely over his head with some wannabe gangsters in designer suits, probably.”
Gregory closed the door and spun to face her. “How much do you know?”
“Enough,” she answered.
“Tell me right now, Amelia!”
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Let Brewer cut off my fingers? You already nearly got Ethan killed!”
Gregory stared at her. “How did you know...” He stopped himself, but it was too late.
“Because I’m not an idiot,” Amelia snapped. “And just because you tell me to leave a room doesn't mean I have to go!”
“Did you tell Ethan?”
She threw her hands up. “You are missing the point! You nearly got two men killed! Three if you count whoever it was that they hired to actually do the job. And for what? Another term in office? My God, Dad. That’s sick!”
“It’s not sick! I’m helping--”
“You’re not helping anyone do anything!” Amelia said viciously. “Your numbers are in the toilet; your popularity is sliding because of this stupid war on motorcycle clubs--”
“That wasn’t even my idea, but I had to promote it because of--”
“Because you're a puppet!” she shouted. “And that makes anything else you were planning to domeaningless!”
She thought for a second that her father was going to hit her. Then he stuck his finger in her face and said, “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, so don’t act like you do.”
“And where’s my thank you for saving your life?” she demanded.
He wrenched the door open and stormed out. Amelia grabbed her cell phone and dialed a number she’d never thought that she’d use.
“News 6?”
“Hi, this is Amelia Stratton and I need to leave a message for Marta Waters.”
“Okay,” the receptionist said. “Amelia...wait. Did you sayAmelia Stratton?”
“Yes, I--”
“Hold one moment, please.”
She’d barely gotten to hear the hold music before the call was picked up again.
“Hello, this is Marta Waters.”
“Um, hi.” She hadn’t expected to actually get to speak with the woman. “This is Amelia Stratton. I...I was just wondering if you might have time to talk to me today?”
“Well, that depends,” the news anchor said. “Right now I’m at Nevada General interviewing someone else. When would be a good time for you to do an interview?”
“What a coincidence,” Amelia said. “I’m on the fourth floor of Nevada General myself.”
“Are you here to see Ethan?” Marta asked, her voice growing more interested with every passing moment of the conversation.
“No, I’m a patient. But I have information about what happened at The Angel’s Keepers headquarters. I’d also like to talk to the police, so...”
“I’ve got some good contacts down at the station. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Wait!” Amelia said suddenly. If Ethan
had been shot, there was a good chance he might be in the same hospital. “Are you interviewing Ethan?”
“I’m sorry; I can’t divulge that I’m interviewing Ethan.”
Sounding like a yes to her. Amelia chewed her lip. What else did she have to lose? “Tell him I’m sorry about his club. Tell him I didn’t know. That’s not why I left.”
The call disconnected and Amelia let her head fall back against the pillows. She’d done everything she could do. Now she just had to hang onto the baby.
Chapter 28
Ethan
“She’shere?” Ethan asked. “In the hospital? Why?”
Marta shrugged. “She didn’t say why she was here; she just said she was a patient. Then she asked me to pass along the message to you. Can we wrap this up before someone scoops me, please? I’ve already got the best detective in the whole department meeting me in her room.”
“Fine,” Ethan said flatly. “I went to meet William. Michael and Bear were there. Bear shot me and started a fire. We got out. Now tell me what else Amelia said.”
“I’ve already told you everything she said! But that sounds like your way of asking me to interview her first.”
“Yeah, do that,” Ethan agreed. “Then come and let me know what the hell is going on, please.”
“I’ll let you know something soon,” Marta said, jumping out of her chair. “Don’t go anywhere...” She trailed off, looking at him in the hospital bed. “Okay, I doubt you’re actually headed out anytime soon, but the point is, Derrick will want to talk to you, too.”
“Yeah, been waiting for that,” Ethan said. “I’ve got a hell of a lot to say.”
When she was gone, he looked around. He was hooked up to an IV drip. His right hand was bandaged and his left arm was wrapped carefully. Hadn’t they done pretty much everything they could do? He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. What was the point in sitting in this bed when he could figure out what was wrong with Amelia?
He’d heard Marta say Amelia was on the fourth floor, but he hadn’t gotten a room number. Ethan pulled his jeans on carefully. He managed the zipper, but the button defeated him.
Carefully, with his lower lip between his teeth, he disconnected the IV and tugged his shirt on. He didn’t bother with boots. Just as he made it over to the door, a nurse walked in.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Mr. Billings, you are not well enough to be out of bed.”
“I seem like I’m doing fine,” he said, aware that he looked the exact opposite of fine. He was still covered with blood, dirt, and soot in places and his hair was probably standing straight up. His clothes stank of transmission fluid, gasoline, and smoke. “Come on, I just wanna take a walk around.”
“No,” she said flatly.
Ethan felt his jaw clench. “Okay, let me put this another way. The woman I’m having a kid with just checked into this hospital somewhere on the fourth floor and I’m going to find her no matter what you say.”
The nurse stared up at him, wide eyed. “But I can’t let you--”
Ethan walked away.
She jogged after him, each of his strides equaling two of hers. “Mr. Billings, I will call security,” she said firmly. “I cannot let you leave your room. You haven’t been released by the--.”
He pressed the button for the elevator and caught her upper arm, pulling her in with him when the doors slid open.
“You can call them from the fourth floor,” he said just as firmly. “I just need to know she’s okay. After that, you can do whatever you want with me, up to and including throwing me out on my ass.”
When the doors opened at the fourth floor, the nurse sighed. “What’s her name?”
“Amelia Stratton.”
He followed her to the nurses’ station where she checked something. “Follow me, please,” she said briskly and he did.
She knocked on the door of room 423 and they heard Amelia call to them to come in. Ethan pushed the door open and Amelia’s face went white.
“You’re not the detective,” she said blankly and then blushed. “I was...we were expecting...”
“I know,” Ethan said. “Amelia, what’s wrong? Why are you here?”
Her hand drifted down to her stomach. “I...there might be something wrong.”
Ethan pushed past the nurse and walked into the room. “When will we know?”
“It could take a few days, since it’s so early.”
He brushed her hair back. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“Things have been happening so fast,” Amelia answered. “Miller and Brewer tried to torture my dad and--”
“Miller and Brewer?” Ethan asked sharply.
“Yeah, they’re some guys my dad knows. I don’t know how he got involved with them, but they seemed pretty rough.”
“Yeah, I guess they are. They’re the ones who sent Michael and Bear to burn the place down, too,” Ethan said. “I heard them say it. So did William.”
Marta was watching the interaction with realization dawning on her pretty features. “Do you have first names?” she asked. “Not that I think there could be more than one Miller and Brewer.”
“I don’t,” Ethan said. “Bear just used their last names.”
“Warren,” Amelia supplied. “Warren Miller and Richard Brewer.”
“Oh my God,” Marta said and she sounded literally reverent. “This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.Exactly.”
Ethan looked at his bandages and at Amelia in her hospital bed. Then he looked at Marta with a raised eyebrow. “Really?” he asked.
“Well, obviously not all of this,” she said impatiently, gesturing at the two of them. “I could have done without the shooting and the trauma. But do you two haveany idea who Miller and Brewer are?”
“Assholes?” Ethan asked. “Because that’s about all I’ve got.”
“They own half of Vegas, using a variety of shell companies,” Marta said. “And we’ve all known that they were dirty for a while, but no one could pin anything on them! There have been so many rumors of drug trafficking around them that it’s ridiculous. It makes perfect sense now, all of it!”
“So then why don’t you educate us?” Ethan said, exchanging a bewildered look with Amelia.
“Ifthey’re trafficking, they’d want to eliminate the competition,” Marta said, looking at Ethan like all the pieces were fitting perfectly.
“Okay, yeah, but we’re not trafficking anything,” Ethan pointed out.
“No, but you’re not the only motorcycle club on the face of the Earth, are you?” Marta asked impatiently. “There must be one that is and that one must be big competition. If Miller and Brewer found a way to shut them all down, they’d seriously screw over the one they want to get rid of.”
“Then why did they come after me so hard?” Ethan demanded. “Stratton was pretty focused on me.”
“You knocked his daughter up and then basically spit in his face with your charity drive,” Amelia said wryly.
“Exactly,” Marta agreed. “It didn’t start out personal for Stratton, at least not exactly, but you kind of made it that way. Miller and Brewer wouldn't have cared, as long as it was getting them the results they wanted.”
“Shit,” Ethan muttered, dropping into the chair by Amelia’s bed. “I guess I did kind of make myself a target.”
“That has to be one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Amelia said. “There’s so much that could go wrong!”
“On the face of it, yes, it really is,” Marta agreed. “But how else were they going to approach it without getting their hands dirty?”
“It sounds like I need statements from everyone.”
They all glanced up to see a tall man in a dark blue uniform standing in the doorway. His badge gleamed on his broad chest and the gun at his side made Amelia swallow hard. This was real. She was about to make a statement to the police about her father.
“Amelia,” Ethan said in a low voice, seeming
to read her thoughts as he always did. “You know doing this is gonna incriminate your old man, right?”
Amelia nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“There might not be any going back.”
She nodded again. “I know, Ethan. It’s okay. I have to do this.”