“And what is girly food?” I asked, fascinated by what his answer would be.
“Well, first of all, no salads. No tofu crap. No quinoa or whatever the hell that shit is. Men need meat. Real meat, like maybe a giant turkey or ham. Steaks would be good. You can never have too much steak.”
“What about chicken?”
“Well, you could, but you’d have to make a whole chicken for each of us. We’re growing boys, remember,” Sam said.
“I really doubt that anyone would classify you as a ‘growing boy’. From what I can see, you’re all 100% man.”
My face grew red as I realized how bad that sounded. Obviously, Sam thought the same because he grinned at me. “100% man, huh?”
“Well, based on what I saw this morning, I would say that your body screams that you’re a man.”
“Uh, what happened this morning?” Jules asked. “Is this why you two are getting along so well? Dude, you’re not supposed to fuck someone we’re protecting.”
“Jesus, Jules. Have some fucking manners. She’s sitting right here,” Chris barked.
I started laughing and once I started, I just couldn’t stop. All of the guys stopped eating and stared at me. “I’m sorry, but Chris, you’re like this big, hulking, scary guy and you swear a lot and you’re chastising Jules for talking about Sam fucking me.”
“Where I come from, we respect our women and talking about fucking them is considered poor taste.”
“Well, I appreciate you defending my honor.” He grumbled something that I couldn’t understand and went back to his food. “How about all of you make a list of meals that you’d like and I’ll see what I can do. That is, if Sam doesn’t mind you all coming over for dinner.”
“Don’t forget breakfast,” Jules said. Sam glared at him, but he just shrugged. “What? We need to eat too. Why should you be the only one that gets the good food?”
“Because it’s my fucking house.”
“Boys, boys. I have no problem making food for everyone. And if Sam doesn’t want you all here, I can bring it to you.”
“It’s not the same,” John muttered. “It wouldn’t be all warm and delicious if you had to bring it to us.”
“Fine, they can come here for breakfast and dinner, but that’s where I draw the line.” Sam pointed to all of them as if in warning that if they stepped in his house more often than twice a day, they would regret it.
“Hey, Cap.” I looked up to see John on his phone. His face was morphed into a serious expression. “Shit. Okay..Yeah, call us when you know more.”
John hung up the phone and turned to us all with a serious expression. “They don’t know much yet. Cash thinks he’s close to tracking where they took Sinner, but nothing definitive. Cap is taking everyone with him out to California to assist in any way they can.”
And just like that, the banter around the table died and everyone finished their meals in silence.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cazzo
I DIDN’T KNOW how the hell to tell her what was going on. Vanessa had sat in the living room, distracting herself with watching TV ever since breakfast. She was a wreck over what was going on and what I had to tell her wouldn’t make things any easier. But if I let her sit there and stew any longer, it would only make things worse.
“I just got off the phone with Cap.”
Vanessa’s head jerked toward me and she sat up in her seat. “What’s going on?”
“They got Sinner back.” When I didn’t say anything else, her face fell.
“So, they were too late.”
I shook my head slightly. “I don’t know. They made it to the hospital, but he was fading pretty fast. Cap will call back when he has more information.”
She hung her head in her hands and her shoulders started to shake. I wheeled as close as I could and tried to find some way to comfort her. I wanted her in my arms. I wanted her to know that she wasn’t in this alone, but I settled for taking her hand in mine.
“It’ll be okay, Vanessa. Sinner’s strong. I’ve known him a long time and he won’t give up that easily.”
“That’s what you guys all say,” she said with a sniffle. “You’re not indestructible.”
“No, we aren’t.”
She knew all too well how things could go and telling her differently wouldn’t erase what she already knew.
“I just wish that I could do something. This is my fault, or my father’s, and I feel so useless.” She looked up at me and I knew she was about to suggest something stupid. It was the same look Maggie gave Cap right before she laid a bad idea on him. “What if we contacted my father and tried to negotiate something with him?”
I shook my head immediately. “What exactly would we negotiate with?”
“Me.”
“No fucking way,” I said angrily. “Do you really think that handing you over will solve anything?”
“It’ll stop whatever’s going on. It’ll save more innocent people from being hurt. Am I really supposed to just sit here while all of you go out of your way to protect me? That’s ridiculous.”
“How do you think Sinner would feel knowing that he risked his life twice for you and then you just handed yourself over when things got hard?”
“He would be alive.”
“Vanessa, we don’t even know who your father is dealing with. Handing you over wouldn’t be the end of this.”
“Yes it would. Without me here, they have no reason to come after any of you.”
“And I’m supposed to let you just leave? To be married off to someone that only wants you for what your father can give him? You’d really be okay with that?”
“I’d be okay with that if it meant that no one else got hurt.”
“I would be hurt!” I shouted. I felt like I couldn’t get control of my anger. She was willing to hand herself over to protect us, but what she didn’t understand was that I couldn’t deal with that. She gave me a sad smile and shook her head slightly.
“Sam, it’s not like we have something here. I get that you like me and you don’t want to see me do something stupid, but I can’t hide here like a coward knowing that other people are getting hurt and I can stop it.”
“Stay for me,” I said, grasping at anything to get her to stay. “Do this for me. I can’t control jack shit in my life right now. I can’t fucking walk and I can’t control whether or not I ever will again, but I can keep you here and know that I did everything I could to keep you safe. If I let you walk out of here, that’s it for me. I might as well eat a fucking bullet.”
“Why would you say something like that?”
“Because if I can’t even do this one thing, what’s the fucking point anymore? This is who I am. Don’t you see that? If I let you walk out that door, it’s like saying I can no longer protect you and make this right. I need you to trust that we will all do everything in our power to find out who’s behind this and fix it. Please. This is what we do, so please trust us to do our jobs.”
She sat there and fucking cried, tearing my heart out with every tear that fell. Vanessa was such a caring person and I couldn’t stand to see her like this. I had seen it from the first day we met her back in Pittsburgh. She truly cared what happened to others and it was one of the things that first attracted me to her. I knew that if I ever stood a chance of being the man she deserved, I had to get my own shit in order. But I had to keep her around long enough for it to happen.
“I’ll stay, but Sam, if anything else happens, I’m gone. I won’t sit by and watch other people get hurt.”
I nodded in understanding. “We’ll figure this out.”
✯✯✯✯✯
“He’s alive,” Cap said on the other end of the phone. “It was pretty touch and go there for a while. We got to him just in time, but I have no idea how bad it’s going to be for him, physically or psychologically.”
“What did they do?” I croaked out.
“Hung him by his wrists. Electric shock. Sprayed him with water an
d then froze him. He fought back. He took out two of them, but another few minutes and he would have been gone.”
I clenched my fists in anger, knowing that there was a shit ton of stuff that was going on that could have prevented all this. One being the fight that was ongoing between Cap and Sinner. It had to stop.
“No more, Cap. Whatever’s going on with you and Sinner, you need to end it. He’s our brother and he never should have been out there to begin with.”
“It’s done. He was going back to quit. We had already worked it all out. Just remember that if he hadn’t been there, Vanessa wouldn’t be here right now. Cash would have found her and handed her back over to her father, never knowing what was really happening. Things happen for a reason, Cazzo.”
“Yeah? And what was the fucking reason for me being shot and crippled?”
Silence. He had no fucking clue what to say and probably felt like shit. I had a bad habit of lashing out at people when I was angry.
“Cap, I didn’t mean..”
“I know. Look, as far as we know, they didn’t get anything from Sinner, so Vanessa should be safe. We have one of the guys and we’ll see what we get out of him.”
“You’ve got to come up with something. Vanessa’s not handling this well at all. She was ready to hand herself over because she was so upset about Sinner being taken. We have to make this right for her.”
“Let’s see what Cash gets out of this guy. I could really use your help around here, ya know.”
“Doing what exactly? Paperwork? I’d rather poke my eye out with a stick.”
“You have to come back at some point.”
“The only thing I have to do is get my fucking legs working again. Until then, everything else is pointless.”
“Fine, but mark my words, you’re going to be coming to me, asking me for work real soon.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I know you. You want Vanessa, but you won’t allow yourself to have her because you don’t think you’re good enough. You won’t be able to be around her all the time and resist her. Trust me. That’s the way it was with Maggie and I already know how you feel about Vanessa.”
“How would you-”
“Because I have eyes and the rest of the team have loud mouths. I’ll see you soon.”
Cap hung up, leaving me wondering if I really could hold out with Vanessa in my space.
✯✯✯✯✯
That night, even though Cap said that Vanessa was most likely safe, I couldn’t think about sleeping in my own room. I needed to see her and know that she was still here with me. So, I lied to her and told her that until I got confirmation from Cap that no one knew our location, I would be staying with her. As I expected, she offered to share her bed with me and this time I didn’t say no. Mostly because I wanted to lie next to her, but also because there was no way I could sleep in that chair for even an hour.
I got ready for bed and then slid in next to her. She was already in bed and was sticking to her side. That was fine with me. I knew at some point during the night that she would snuggle up to me. It was the one time that I could really allow myself to imagine what it would be like if I could have her.
“Did you talk to Cap again?”
“Yeah. Sinner’s gonna be alright.”
“That’s good,” she said, blowing out a long breath. I reached over and covered her hand with mine.
“It’ll be alright. You just have to trust me.”
She turned onto her side and gripped my hand hard. “I do. More than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Based on her father and her friend, I could see how I was the person she trusted most, and I wasn’t going to lie, it made me feel like a king.
“What ever happened to your mother? I didn’t read anything in your file about her.”
“My dad said that she died when I was little. I never knew her.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Because my dad never told me how she died. He would just say that she died when I was under a year old and then he wouldn’t talk about it any more. I never found an obituary for her or anything else about her death, so I guess I just always wondered if it was true.”
“Do you want me to look into it?”
“You would do that?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I’m not the jerk I appear to be.”
“I know you aren’t. I was just thinking that you had more important things to worry about than a suspicion of mine.”
I shrugged. The truth was, there were only two things I was concerned with at the moment. One was figuring out a way to get back on my feet and the other was keeping Vanessa safe.
“I’ve got the time.”
She sat up and scooted over to me, placing one hand on my chest as she leaned down and gave me a soft kiss on the lips. I should have pulled away. I shouldn’t have let her kiss me. I knew that one kiss was how it would all unravel for me. Keeping her at a distance was what was helping me keep my sanity. But instead of pulling away, I found myself wrapping an arm around her back and pulling her down to lay on my shoulder.
I knew right then and there I was fucked. I was going to have to work extra hard in PT to get back to where I wanted to be because if I didn’t, I was going to have to let her go when this was all done. I already knew that would be the most difficult thing I would ever have to do.
✯✯✯✯✯
“Harder. That’s great, Sam. You’re really doing a great job. Man, you’re a beast.”
I wanted to punch him in the fucking head. I was so goddamn tired of his motivational phrases. Sure, my upper body was ripped and I was in the best shape of my life, but my lower body was still fucked. I had been in here every day this week giving it my all and pushing myself harder than I ever had before. I needed this to work. It wasn’t just about getting back to work any more. Now, my sole focus was getting back to who I was so that I could keep Vanessa.
Over the past week, I fell harder for her every day. She happily made me meals, even though I could do it myself. She wanted to help and she was an excellent cook. It made her feel like she was helping out and I loved how her face lit up when the guys moaned and praised her for the food. I had even started allowing them to come over at lunch just so I could see her happy one more time during the day.
We had started hanging out more together during the day, which was fucking hard because I always wanted to touch her. One night she fell asleep on the couch next to me and it was all I could do to keep from running my fingers through her hair. But it pushed me to do better every day. Except, no matter how hard I pushed, I wasn’t getting any better.
“We need to move on to my legs. This isn’t working any more. I’m not making any progress.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I hear what you’re saying, man. We just don’t want to push too hard. Remember, slow and steady wins the race.”
I was on edge by the time Burg picked me up from PT. Cap had asked me to come into the office to help out with training, so I decided to take the distraction and hopefully figure out what the hell I was going to do. When I got into Cap’s office, it was the same old ‘how’s PT going’ crap. It wasn’t fucking going anywhere and I wanted to tell him that, but I was also scared as hell to admit out loud that I needed something else. What if there was nothing else? What if this was all there ever was for me?
“It hasn’t been that long. You have to give yourself time.”
Time. That’s all anyone talked about, but they didn’t see that I was running out of time. “I don’t have time!” I lost it. Every day that I wasn’t getting better was one day closer to the day I would lose Vanessa. I couldn’t wait for things to happen anymore. “It’s already been two fucking months and I’m dragging my toes on the ground. My legs are moving a little, but I’m mostly moving myself with my arms.”
“Maybe we need to try a different therapist if this one isn’t working.”
If that was what I was pinning all my hopes on, I was
screwed.
“And you think another one is going to do better? Face it. I’m fucked. This is my life now.” I slammed my fist down on the arm of the wheelchair. I knew I was losing it. It was like all my anger that I had bottled up was spewing over now. I had kept it inside so that I didn’t lose it around Vanessa anymore, but I just couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“I guess you’re right. You are fucked.”
Cap walked back to his computer and started fiddling with it. I just stared at him in shock. Since when did Cap give up on anyone? Had I become that much of an annoyance that he just didn’t care anymore? “What the fuck, man?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you expect me to say something else?”
“I don’t know. A pep talk? Tell me to get my head out of my ass? Something like that.”
“How’s this?” Cap walked around and got in my face. “Cazzo, you’re acting like a whiny bitch. Man the fuck up and go do your PT. If the therapist isn’t working, we change it. If you need a different treatment, we change it. If you need me to come there and yell at you through PT, you fucking say so and I’ll be there with you every goddamn step of the way, but you do not lay down like a little bitch and take it!” he yelled.
My hands shook as Cap stared me down. I dropped my eyes, not wanting him to see how scared I really was. It felt like this was the end for me. I nodded and tried to regain control as he walked away and sat down at his desk.
“I’ll find you a different therapist and we’ll make sure this one kicks your ass into walking. Now, go make sure the teams are doing their fucking jobs.”
“Thanks, Cap.” I choked out. I prayed that whatever he was going to have me work on would distract me enough to calm me down before I got home. The last thing I needed was Vanessa worrying about me.
✯✯✯✯✯
“What are you doing?” Vanessa was standing in front of me with her coat and shoes on.
“I’m going to PT with you. John told me that you’re seeing a new therapist today. I wanted to go with and see what this one does.”
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