by Moore,Mary B
Luke, lunged across the table to grab my hand and the look on his face shocked the hell out of me. “Isla, there won’t be a third time; that I can swear on everything. And before you say anything, no, it’s not because of the babies.” Proving that he could read faces. “I have loved you since we were kids. I fucked up in high school at the prom and I fucked up not being honest with you over Kendal, but I’m not going to fuck up again.” He let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t do emotions and lovey dovey shit, Isla, you know that, so this isn’t easy for me to put into words. I’ve never had to before.”
That last bit started my stomach churning again, which was really unfortunate. Guntur had agreed that I didn’t need the IV put back in after we had arrived because I was keeping down the crazy amount of fluids that I’d been drinking recently. I didn’t want to go back to being sick and end up back on an IV.
“Yeah, because you were too busy fucking your way through life and sharing them with your buddies right?” I knew I sounded bitter, but come on - everyone knew the rumors and stories, and it had eaten away at me. Those photographs that I’d had shoved in my face a couple of months ago may have been photoshopped, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t stuck in my mind.
“Isla, I haven’t been a saint. You know that and I know that, but they weren’t you. You are different, you’ve always been different.” He immediately nudged my chin back up again when I looked down at the table. I knew I was different, he had always gone with swans and I would always be the ugly duckling; this wasn’t news to me. “I didn’t care about them like I care about you. They were dispensable, you aren’t!”
“Really? That’s your excuse for the threesomes with your friends and the crazy amount of ‘dispensable’ women?” Yes, I used the air punctuation marks, but the word dispensable left such a bitter taste in my mouth. What guarantee did I have that I wasn’t ‘dispensable’, too? Even the fact that I was carrying his babies meant nothing, this I knew first hand from my Dad and how he’d treated my mom and I.
“Threesomes?” He looked so confused that I honestly wanted to punch him.
“What? Did you think I didn’t know?” I snorted. “Luke, everyone knows you shared with whomever else wanted to join in! Don’t try and make out that I’m stupid.”
Pulling my hand away, I leaned back and watched him as he stared at me. What I never expected him to do was throw his head back and burst out laughing like I’d told him the funniest thing known to man.
“I’m done!” I said, standing up quickly and throwing my napkin onto the table. Before I could walk away and find somewhere to cry in peace, fucking baby hormones, Luke had his arms around me and was pressed against my back still laughing.
“Angel,” he chuckled. “I may have been wild, but the sight of dicks and balls has never been a quirk of mine. Jesus,” he was still laughing, “threesomes!”
I’d given up trying to get away from him and just stood as still as I could facing forward and not giving away any of my emotions. It had been all around school and all around town that the guys had shared, so the fact that he was lying to me and the way that he’d condescendingly phrased it just fueled how pissed off I was.
He must have realized, though, because he stopped laughing and moved around so he was standing in front of me, still holding me around the waist.
“Holy fuck, that’s what you thought?” He was actually gaping at me and the temptation to knee him in the balls was so strong. Patronizing prick! “Angel, fuck no! We never…I haven’t…” He shook his head and shuddered like the thought of it really was disgusting. I almost believed him.
“Let go of me, Luke. I’d like to go to bed!” I tried pushing him away, but as always it got me nowhere.
“Isla, look at me!” The tone he was using wasn’t one that I’d heard before and had me looking up, obeying orders like a good puppy. Shit, this was annoying! “I can promise you, even swear on these two,” he put his hand on my stomach while still staring me right in the eyes, “that I never did that shit. When the word share was used, it wasn’t meant like that. It was meant in the way that none of us laid claim to them, so…” He trailed off and looked uncomfortable and with good reason. Even that didn’t sound good, but it kind of took the repulsed feeling that I’d always had about it all down a notch. Yes, it was still bad, but was it as bad as the thought that he’d engaged in nothing but threesomes?
“I see that look and I know what you’re thinking, Isla.” Of course he did, the big shit. “It was all consensual and it was their choice to do that, too, remember that.”
He had a point, but it still stung. Closing my eyes and leaning in so my forehead hit his chest, I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know what to do, Luke!” I wish that I had a family that I could have gone to for advice, the closest I had was Gram and this wasn’t the kind of thing that I’d talk to her about. If Calista or Jodie had been decent human beings I would have gone to them, but they were the opposite and would latch onto this and use it to make me even more miserable. There was always Maya, in fact with Ren being part of this she might even be the best person to talk to. I made a mental note to bring it up the next time I spoke to her.
“Right now, we just stay safe and we look after Thing One and Thing Two in here,” he said gently rubbing my tiny bump. The reference made me laugh and was actually pretty accurate. He lifted my face so I was looking back up at him and then continued, “and I’m going to prove to you that I’m worthy of you and of our babies, okay?”
A huge part of me wanted to give him this chance, regardless of how scared I was of being taken for a fool for a third time and how much it would break me when, no if, it happened. I had never been one for making rash decisions and I realized that because I’d been mulling all of this over since yesterday that technically this wasn’t a rash decision. So, because of that, I did the only thing that I could do - I nodded.
I didn’t expect the fierce hug that he gave me and refused to let me up from, but I did notice that he never squeezed my waist, he just kept his arms around my shoulders. Eventually, I pulled back and looked up at him and made sure he knew how serious I was when I said what I had to say next.
“I’m going to try. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you, but I promise I’ll try. But if you fuck up again, I’ll pull each one of your pubes out individually and slowly wax the skin and then neuter you with nail clippers.”
His shock lasted about five seconds before he burst out laughing yet again and pulled me back into him and said between laughs, “Consider me warned!”
Just to make sure, I pinched the sensitive skin under his bicep as hard as I could, making him jump back and rub it frantically while glaring at me. I used to do that when we were younger, and I couldn’t help the smug smile when I saw that it got to him as much now as it did back then. I just needed to work on doing what I’d promised to do now.
Chapter
EIGHT
Cole
Sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, I put my face back in my hands and groaned for the millionth time remembering what I’d done. A fucking windmill? A goddamn unicorn? And then chasing butt nekked after Ebru? I was never gonna live this down.
I could feel the glare of the nurse that I’d apparently shown my windmill to burning into the top of my head. She’d come in five minutes ago and just stood against the wall with her arms crossed glowering at me. In my defense, I apparently had a concussion and had been given some strong painkillers seeing as how I’d been blown across an entire yard and all. Where was the sympathy?
I couldn’t hide forever, so I looked up and saw all of the fucking shit around my room for the billionth time. As soon as I’d finished humiliating myself, i.e. had been caught and brought back to my room, the crap had started to arrive. I had unicorn balloons, stuffed unicorns, those windmill things that kids love because they move when the wind blows, a unicorn blanket, cards, and the best thing yet - a unicorn piñata that was apparently stuffed with more of
the windmills with the sticks cut down and small fucking My Little Pony unicorns of all sizes. Betraying horse-loving dickwhistle spack twat’s. This new phrase came courtesy of the new app on my phone that generated swear words and was now a new obsession of mine. Thankfully the most recent one fit the bastards perfectly.
The door to my room opened and I figured it would be my parents or one of Coleman’s guys, but instead the one person that for once I didn’t want to see walked around the corner carrying a bag. Ebru.
Her lips twitched as she took in the ‘generous’ gifts from my friends and family who will from this day forward be commonly known as the disloyal animal-fondling semen twat extractors. Seriously, this app was too good to be true.
Watching Ebru look around and try not to smile, it hit me again how much I liked this woman. I knew I had a bad reputation in town, but I definitely hadn’t been as bad as the rumors made out I’d been. I’d just never corrected them because then there would be expectations and I had expectations of my own, so it suited me to hide behind what people assumed I was. Ebru meant something to me, though, and her thinking that of me or believing the rumors didn’t sit well with me. I never got the chance to prove otherwise to her or set the record straight because there were either other people around or I was making a twat of myself. Then again, with my history and the shit and betrayal that I’d gone through, would I ever have the balls to do anything about how attracted I was to her? I knew that I’d never be able to trust anyone like that, ever, so was it worth even thinking about?
“So…how’s your magical horn today?” It rankled that she’d witnessed it, but at the same time she was looking at me in a way I hadn’t seen yet and I liked it. The embarrassment won, though.
“Any chance I could convince you to forget that yesterday happened?” It was worth a shot!
I would have held my breath waiting for her to reply, but she stared at me for that long that I would have passed out and then said, “Not a fucking chance Robin Sparkle Reins!”
Ebru
He looked so damn miserable that maybe I should have said yes. My ‘perfect’ parents would have been disappointed in me for cashing in on someone’s misfortune, not that I gave a fuck about their opinions on anything or they actually gave a shit about me. But that shit face had chased me around the entire hospital ass naked trying to catch me. When he’d eventually cornered me in the cafeteria, he’d run toward me yelling, “Rub my magical horn and the dancing leprechauns will grant you a wish!”. He’d then turned around and done the devil horn rocker thing with his hands and yelled “VIVA EL UNICORN!” to the cafeteria. Explaining that to the boss had been interesting. Thankfully she’d seen from his chart that he’d been given strong painkillers and had a concussion or I could have lost my job. The humiliation wasn’t so easy to deal with, though. That said, I did like the guy for some reason. Sure he needed to be tested because something was definitely loose in there, but I couldn’t stop thinking that he was hiding who he really was under his clown act. The fact that he might actually have a vulnerable side made him a bit… endearing.
That said, I was still going to get revenge for yesterday.
“Here’s your medications. As the doctor explained earlier when he signed your release papers - you’ll most likely have a headache for a while, but if it gets worse or you’re struggling then come straight back or call me on my cell. Follow the instructions on the bottles with the medications, too.” I passed him the bag with what he needed in it.
“None of these are the…” he stopped and glared at the unicorns everywhere. “The same medication as yesterday, are they?”
Oh, how I wish they were! The shit I could get on the guy would be awesome, but it had been decided that for his safety, and also the safety of the public, that he wouldn’t be given that medication again. “Umm, no, they’re not!” I couldn’t help laughing at the thought, and his glower made me laugh that bit harder.
“Listen,” I took a deep breath so that I wouldn’t burst out laughing again. “I know that you’re embarrassed about what happened and that all of this stuff,” I pointed at a particularly big unicorn balloon, “Must be making it worse. So, I got you something.”
I almost felt guilty as I turned around to get the surprise that I’d left beside the door when I came into the room. But then I remembered all of the crap that I’d had thrown at me by my colleagues since it happened and how long he’d chased me around the hospital for and gave his surprise a shove away from the door.
His scream as I opened the door made me chuckle. Apparently, he wasn’t a big fan of the five-foot walking clown balloon that I’d got him. I’d even glued a red wig onto its head the night before and widened its smile with a red Sharpie. So ungrateful.
Brett
I sat back in the chair at my desk and looked at Coleman and Mace. We’d only just come back to Dallas and I was seriously behind with the work that needed to be done, but this was more important.
“So far, I haven’t picked up on anything suspicious here,” Baz said over the secure line from Singapore.
“My men and I have been looking at every avenue,” Mace said. He had gone to ground with his buddies from the Marines and the months of shit that he’d, no doubt, had to wade through showed with his messy hair and the beard that was growing. “So far, we have the description of a tall, thin man buying some chemicals and a beige car which he apparently got into. Neither description gives us much to go on, though, but we’re still trying.”
Coleman shifted in his seat and looked at me and I just knew from the look on his face that I wasn’t going to like what he said. He was a big guy with tattoos that were mostly covered by his suits, when he wore one, but were highly visible when he was dressed casually. He and Mace knew each other from the Marines, but Coleman had been in there longer and had got out a year before Mace had. He had set up Swift, his security company, which then anchored itself to me and the rest was history. They did do some private jobs with a team that he kept specifically for them, but the bulk of his team worked for me, especially at the moment.
“We’ve been looking into who might have an issue with both your family and the Montgomery’s. I’m sorry to say that the two don’t look like they are connected; which is what we had thought to begin with. With regards to your family, we looked into previous business dealings to see if we found someone that might be holding a grudge,” shifting again he cleared his throat. “Brett, there were quite a few people who might be to blame. Now that we have a possible description of the suspect though, we’re including that in one of our searches.”
“Why do you think that this is business and not personal?” I didn’t know what difference it would make, but I needed to know the answer to this.
“We don’t,” Coleman replied in his normal brusque way. “This adds even more suspects onto the list, so Tanner is analyzing the information that we’ve found and ruling people out.”
“Why is someone going after the Montgomery’s then?”
“More than likely for the same reasons,” Mace spoke up. “They’ve won a lot of contracts recently and that’s bound to have got them some enemies. Or maybe it’s personal, like with your family; we just don’t know at this stage.” The ticking of his jaw was the only thing that showed that the shrug he gave wasn’t as blasé as it looked. “I hate to interrupt,” Baz said, still on speakerphone. “But have you ever thought that perhaps someone is orchestrating this?”
We all murmured in agreement with him on that, but what Mace said next shot my frustration levels through the roof.
“If that’s the case, then this is going to be even more difficult. Looking for a bomb expert with a description is one thing, looking for two people who are basically acting as hit men and saboteurs is another thing. But who do we look at who has a grudge against one family and who knows someone who has a grudge against another family and who can get everything synced up to this magnitude with all of those parties involved? That’s power on another level and pe
ople with that power often make sure that there are no loose ends and that they’re squeaky clean.”
“That fucker almost killed one of my men, one of my brothers! I don’t give a flying fuck who they are and what power they have; I’m going to fucking kill them,” Coleman ground out. He was always so calm and rational, but this was pissing everyone off.
“A buddy of mine runs Seal Security in Kansas City, and they’re shit hot at shit like this. So I made the call, and me and Coleman spoke to the boss Neil this morning,” Mace said. “They’re going to help us out and see what they can find on the fucks doing this.”
Mulling this over, I squeezed the stress ball that I kept in my top drawer for moments when all I wanted to do was beat the shit out of something and couldn’t. Well, people would talk if I started doing that mid meeting or in my office, so I had to go for the next best thing - the ball buster as my little bro Tom called it.
A thought hit me. “Everyone fucks up at some point; no one can organize something like this and have everything linking it to them hidden. Something is going to come out and when it does we’ll catch it, and then they’re mine.” I’d started thinking about what I would do to the bastard responsible after Luke and Maya’s accident. Then my one that followed it, and the plans had grown since then.
“You got a concealed permit?” Mace asked, knowing full well that all the men in my family had them. Shit, even Mom and Gran had them, and I gave him a brusque nod in return. Then his lips twitched, “Did you hear that Ren is teaching Maya how to shoot?”