“This is grade A heroin, a great deal more than a man of your size can handle. You’ll go out quietly which is a hell of a lot more than a man like you deserves.” Injecting the liquid into his vein, I leaned in closer and whispered, “There was no way you were ever going to break her. She's fucking unbreakable, and while your corpse is rotting six feet under, I’ll be the one holding her and loving her.”
The drug worked fast and Ben became immediately limp as Braiden let go of his body, and we worked quickly to stage the room just right. A half empty bottle of scotch on the bedside table worked wonders at covering the dampness we brought in on our clothing. The pictures of Lola battered and abused after the rape lay scattered around him, pictures that had made me physically ill the first time I’d laid eyes on them. While I had seen the aftermath of her assault first hand, seeing those pictures one year later was a sucker-punch. Inside the envelope, was a simple note that read, “I’m sorry.” Scouring through Ben’s trash for samples of his handwriting had given us what we needed for one of Braiden’s trusted friends to forge the apology. Finding his stash of cocaine, we laid out a line before putting the rest where we found it, then we retreated from the room, closing the door behind us. With four minutes to spare, we locked the back door and pulled it shut before disappearing into the raging storm.
Scaling the high fence, we jumped, our feet landing in the soggy ground below before we ran the six miles to our rented SUV. Trying to change from our wet clothes into dry ones in the back of a car was a mission in itself, but we were both soon sitting in the front seats, Braiden behind the steering wheel as I flicked on the police scanner. Leaning back in my seat, I exhaled loudly as my eyes closed. I was fucking tired, and I missed Lola, but the hunt wasn’t over until we had our proof.
The sun had risen hours ago when the news came through on the scanner that we had been waiting for: a drug overdose at Ben Crane’s address, the victim dead. Braiden didn’t say a word, simply started the SUV and drove away from our position on a street several miles from Ben’s property.
When I closed my eyes this time, I slept. It was over, Lola was finally safe.
CHAPTER 36
GABBIE
Gah, being shot wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be. I was the only team member who hadn’t felt the burn of a bullet, and right now, I kind of wished it had stayed that way. The bullet had almost nicked an artery and had done some major damage to the muscle tissue, so eight days in hospital following my surgery had finally drawn the bitch I hid so well to the surface of my skin.
“Usted me está volviendo loco, hombre estúpido!” I growled at the man who currently caught my entire bitchy attitude.
“Did you just call me stupid?” he asked, one brow arching.
Damn, he’d been studying Spanish, and even though he was miles away from my fluent speech, he was catching words here and there.
“Bomber, just go already. Grandma Catalina said she’d give me a ride home.”
“No can do, sweets. Larz took her home yesterday.”
“What?” I practically shouted.
“Now, don’t shoot the messenger. Larz said she was worried about leaving the house the way she did; she didn’t even get to lock up, left it to the police. Larz assured her that I could get you home, and she practically skipped out of her hotel room.”
“Grandma Catalina doesn’t skip!” I growled under my breath.
“True, she’s getting older which brings me to my next point. If you’re going to stay with her while you’re recovering, you’re going to need some help. Kimberly said the wound will need redressing daily, and you might need help getting in out of clothing, particularly bras, because you can’t lift your arm. Oh, and you can’t drive,” he added as he watched me from across the room, his usually playful smile gone and a serious look in place. “So, I told Grandma Catalina that I would stay and help, and she was most grateful.”
“What?” I asked, trying hard to keep my temper under control. “You are not helping me dress, and who the hell is Kimberly?”
“Your nurse.”
“The one whose number you tucked into your back pocket yesterday?”
At least he had the good sense to look contrite.
“I already threw it away, sweets.” He seemed so genuine, I almost believed him, but Bomber liked the ladies and I wouldn’t put it past him that Nurse Kimberly would be in his bed by the end of the week.
“Right . . . whatever,” I said dismissively. There was no way he was staying with me while I took some downtime for my injury. I wasn’t even going to argue with him about it, because it wouldn’t happen. All I had to do was tell Grandma Catalina to get rid of him, and she would toss him out on his perfectly, tight ass.
“Ms. Mendoza, we have the paperwork ready for your release.”
Nurse Kimberly stood in the doorway to my room, a wheelchair under her perfectly manicured hands.
“What’s that for? I was shot in the arm, not the leg.”
“Hospital procedure, Ms. Mendoza.”
“Hospital procedure my ass—” I began, ready to rip fake blonde nurse Barbie a new hole.
“Come on now, sweets. Get that beautiful ass of yours in here and let me wheel you out of this hellhole.” Bomber’s voice broke through my anger, and the dip in nurse Kimberly’s brow at the mention of ‘beautiful ass’ made me feel a little better. “The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can start playing Nurse Bomber. Think of me as your personal slave. I’ll do anything you ask of me.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully as he approached the bed and held out his hand. My good one automatically reached for him. “I’ll even wear an apron . . . and nothing else.”
“Estúpido,” I murmured, trying to hide my smile as I sat in the wheelchair. It was mortifying being wheeled around like an invalid, but when Bomber turned me around and asked Nurse Kimberly to get out of the fucking way, I grinned.
Putting my signature on a bunch of documents finally granted me my freedom, and as Bomber grabbed the prescriptions and discharge information, I sighed and glanced to the large doors that would get me the hell out of here.
Sitting to one side of the doors in a large waiting area was a man with a little girl, who couldn't have been much older than three, in his lap. She was talking rapidly and pointing at things, and her father answered her questions with infinite patience. His voice triggered something in me, though, a memory, perhaps a moment from my past. As the little girl’s father reached down to a backpack by his feet, the side view of his face caused my heart to slam uncomfortably in my chest. On shaky feet, I pushed from the wheelchair and took a few steps forward.
“Mommy will be back soon. She just needs to make sure Grams is settled in her room then we can go grab some breakfast. What do you think about pancakes and chocolate syrup?”
At the mention of pancakes and chocolate syrup, a small sound of denial broke past my lips. That was our breakfast, every Sunday, pancakes and chocolate syrup.
“Sweets, what’s going on?” Bomber asked from beside me. My hand grabbed his forearm, hoping he could wrench me from the horrific nightmare before me.
When the little girl’s father rose from whatever he was doing with the backpack, his gaze settled on mine and the blood from his face disappeared.
“Jace?” I whispered. The name was dragged from my heart, up my throat, and into my mouth, and it felt as though razor blades cut me to shreds that entire way before it finally left my lips only to hang in the air between us. The little girl stirred on her father’s lap which seemed to snap him out of stunned silence.
“S-sorry, I don’t know that name,” he stammered.
“Jace?” I asked again, my voice a little stronger this time.
“Gabbie, what’s going on?” Bomber asked from beside me once more. But I couldn’t answer because I honestly had no fucking clue.
“My name isn’t Jace. It's Ethan. I think you have me confused with someone else.”
I hesitated. It had been a long time s
ince I could even bring myself to look at a photo of Jace. This man did look different, darker hair, more wrinkles, a little more weight, but it was the freckle by his right eye that convinced me I wasn’t going crazy.
“I’m not an idiot, Jace. I know it’s you.” My voice trembled and I hated that weakness. Bomber’s hand rested on my lower back, a warm weight that made me feel stronger than I actually was in that moment.
“Okay, Mom’s settled. We can come back this afternoon to check on her. Let's get this peanut some breakfast.” A woman’s voice broke the tension in the room, and she grabbed the backpack at Jace’s feet. When she noticed me standing only a few feet away, staring, she paused. She was beautiful, elegant even, but there was a coolness to her eyes which dimmed that beauty.
“Everything okay, honey?” she asked her husband, a possessive hand resting on his arm.
“It sure is, sugar,” Jace said with a false smile as he stood a little too stiffly. Sugar . . . the name he had whispered in my ear as we made love. ‘I love you, sugar, forever.’ The fact he was not dead, he was breathing, living, with a child and wife who he called by my pet name, made me sick to my stomach. “This young lady just had me confused with someone else. Let's get going.” He picked up his daughter and turned his back on me, ushering his family out of the waiting room.
Unable to move, unable to breathe, I watched in stunned silence until Bomber’s concerned face brought me back to reality. He clutched my cheeks in his warm hands, worry etched into the handsome features of his face. Bomber was a player, a womanizer, and falling for him scared the hell out of me, but in this moment, I was glad he was here. Someone familiar, someone real.
“Sweets, talk to me,” he murmured.
“That was my husband.”
“Your dead husband?” I couldn’t say the words, my throat tight with emotion, so I nodded. “Are you sure?” I had never been so sure of anything in my life. “Fuck,” Bomber spat out, glancing over his shoulder to watch the family stroll from the hospital. The woman’s cold and calculating gaze rested back on me a moment before she swung her long hair over a shoulder and walked away. “Let’s get out of here.”
With a guiding hand on my lower back, Bomber escorted me away from the hospital, and my heart broke for the second time in five years. My husband was alive.
CHAPTER 37
LOLA
The first time I had heard the buzz from a tattoo gun, I flinched. It reminded me of dentist visits as a child, and I sure as hell didn’t enjoy those. After more hours than I could count under the gun, the buzz was now something that made me feel calm and relaxed. The burn of the needle always ached to begin with, but after a short length of time, my skin became numb, and I managed to zone out as my tattooist, Sadie, got lost in her art.
It had been six months since Ben had been found dead in his home from a drug overdose. While the media had spent weeks painting me and Rachel as street peddling whores trying to blackmail a much loved senator’s son, I tried my best to ignore the sting those accusations left. There were so many stories, so many reasons I cried ‘rape,’ so many mental issues that made me the horrible woman the media wanted me to be. But the words that cut the most were, ‘she asked for it.’ According to a source, whose name was never released, I paraded around my adopted brother like a bitch in heat; I practically begged for the attention Ben tried so valiantly to deny me. That’s what made me finally snap, and when Rebecca found me sobbing hysterically on the kitchen floor one evening, Dillon disconnected the antenna to the TV and my Wi-Fi, so all I could watch was movies. Without Internet access and locked away in the apartment, I became oblivious to the publicity circus the media created from my pain. Then Ben Crane was found dead in his home from an overdose on heroin. Pictures of me were uncovered from his bedroom, pictures Dillon had made sure were taken after the rape, and a note with two innocuous words: I’m Sorry. It was the note that made me question the overdose. That and the fact Drew and Braiden had been MIA for over a month and returned home within twenty-four hours of the media’s breaking story on Ben’s death. Drew told me in the hospital that he was going hunting, but I never asked about it. In my heart, I knew the truth: Drew needed me safe, and there was no way Ben would ever say he was sorry. In his eyes, he had done no wrong; he had simply taken something he claimed as ‘his’.
Rachel and her family moved from their witness protection housing back into their home, and she was working through her recovery, much like me. We emailed often and exchanged text messages from time to time. When the days got too hard and the nightmares were too real, we leaned on each other, and it was enough to know we weren’t alone.
Then there was Drew, fiercely protective, brooding Drew. My Drew. As soon as he returned home, he packed my bags and moved me into his home which was a tiny two-bedroom cabin on the outskirts of town. It was quant, tidy, homey, and I loved it. I loved the sun that spilled through the windows and lit the rooms up with natural light. I loved the scent of pine as I sat in the swing on the back porch and sipped my coffee. I loved coming home to Max who would come bolting down the hallway and skid into the living space, his tiny paws scrabbling for purchase against the hardwood floors before launching himself at Drew and me. But most of all, I loved that living in such a small space seemed to bring Drew and I closer together emotionally. He touched me often, small, gentle touches, big strong hugs, and soft kisses. We talked about everything and anything, and Drew even agreed to try reconnecting with his family.
There were so many moments that made me fall a little more in love with Drew King every day. Like when he snuck up behind me in the tiny kitchen and wrapped his big arms around my waist and held me close. Or when we spooned on the oversized couch in front of the TV and watched silly movies. Then there were the times he would sense my rising anxiety and silently take my hand in his before tugging me into the surrounding forest for long, quiet walks. What really made me swoon – and yes, I did indeed swoon for this man - was when he would hold me tight after a nightmare and talk to me for hours. We’d talk about our childhood, music, books, and vacations he planned to take me on. Sometimes I worried that one day there would be nothing left to talk about. The one time I voiced my concern, Drew’s grin turned wicked and the way he eyed me made me blush like a damn virgin. ‘I’m sure we can find other ways to occupy our time’, was all he said. My man was a horn dog, and I wouldn’t have him any other way.
We made love often on his king size bed, which took up almost the entire bedroom. He worshipped my body and showed me things that made my toes curl. My fear of intimacy was well and truly vanquished. Each morning I would wake with the sun peeling through the windows, warming my skin, and I’d thank God that I had survived.
I still had weekly sessions with David, and we were working methodically on my PTSD and the ever present, though somewhat controlled, OCD. Some days I felt like a walking, talking acronym, but I was determined to destroy those disorders, even if I had to do it slowly, one letter at a time.
“All done, chick-a-dee!” Sadie’s voice broke through my meandering thoughts, and the buzz of the tattoo gun became silent.
“Finished?”
“Yeah, babe, we’re done.” She said, wiping down my chest.
I breathed out a long sigh and stood from the chair I had been leaning back in for the last few hours. Standing in front of the full-length mirror in the private room, I studied my reflection. Wearing a bikini top and shorts, I looked nothing like the girl who used to swim in oversized clothing just months ago. Across my chest were three dandelions, with their spores being whipped into a wild frenzy by an invisible wind. The delicate spores danced across my chest and over my shoulder. Following the trail were the words: learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The tattoo was in black and white, with the words in a softer blue. They were faint, but visible, like my scars. The word ‘mine’ was cleverly hidden behind the dandelions and the spores covered smaller scars that littered my skin.
“Wow,” I breathed
.
The scars on my chest weren’t gone, but they had vanished in the beautiful art work Sadie had inked into my skin.
Sadie sighed from beside me. “Your skin is every tattoo artists dream, babe. I’m almost sorry I had to finish working on you.”
I smiled and Sadie must have seen something in my eyes. She began to bounce on the balls of her feet and clap her hands together. Sadie somehow managed to dig under my skin, literally and metaphorically, and we had become great friends in a short amount of time. For a socially awkward introvert, it was nothing short of a miracle that someone had so easily penetrated my walls.
“You want more?” Sadie asked, excitement lighting up her face.
“Maybe,” I laughed. The one thing I had discovered about tattoos: they were addictive. “Not right away, though. Drew’s next. He has something planned for his chest, too.”
Drew’s skin was surprisingly tattoo free, and the thought of some ink on that virgin skin made my heart skip a beat.
“Hot damn! I get to ink your sexy man with his shirt off!” Sadie rubbed her hands together with delight, and I elbowed her playfully.
“Maybe one of the guys can tattoo him.”
“Oh, hell no, I belong to you and Drew. Going to another artist would be cheating!”
I laughed loudly as a knock on the door interrupted our moment. “Mouse?” came Drew’s voice from the other side.
Losing Lola (Mercy's Angels Book 5) Page 25