One New Message (A Dark Romance Novel)

by Vivian Ward

  “Sure, honey,” she rolled her eyes. “What’s his name?”

  “Shawn Bailey.”

  Her eyes rolled up and to the right as she recalled the name.

  “Bailey?” she asked, puzzled. “Is that…Anita Bailey’s father?”

  “It is,” I nodded and looked at Henry; annoyed.

  She scooted behind the U-shaped desk and pecked at the keyboard as the smile faded from her face.

  “Room 221, down the hall and to the right.”

  Inside the room, Anita and her mom were sitting in chairs beside his bed; her mom draping herself across his torso as she prayed. It broke my heart into a million pieces to see her so upset.

  I wanted to kill whoever tried killing him. They didn’t deserve to breathe the same oxygen as her, not after putting her through something like that. I could tell by the look on her face that she was thinking about all the possibilities; the worst outcome imaginable.

  He was sleeping; probably due to a combination of shock and pain meds. I looked down at the white blanket that was draped over him and saw that there was only one outline of his leg under the covers. The other bump in the blankets started just past his groin. They blew his leg clear the fuck off.

  “Have you gotten to talk to him at all?” I asked, walking around the bed to be closer to her.

  “No, he’s been out since I came in. He mumbled something in his sleep, but it was so incoherent that we’re not sure what he said.”

  “Have the doctors said anything to either of you? Asked any questions? Anything like that?”

  They both shook their head no before Anita started to sob as she turned to face my chest.

  “I’m so scared, Gage. Why would anyone do this to him? What if they would have killed him?”

  That was it. That’s all it took to make her lose it. She sobbed long and hard, drenching my t-shirt with her tears as I rubbed her back.

  “It’s going to be okay, babe. We’ll get to the bottom of this and figure it all out,” I nodded at her mom, giving her my word.

  “How? They’ve been hiding on our property for God knows how long now and you haven’t been able to figure out. Not even a clue or a single idea as to who it might be. We can’t lose him!” her fist pounded into my chest, tears streaming down her face; she was a mess.

  “Anita,” I pulled her away from me for a moment and placed my hand on her face. Wiping her tears away with my thumb, I tried to calm her. “I promise. Promise you. I will make sure that nothing happens to him, our family or your family property.”

  She stopped crying and nestled her head into my chest as I stroked her hair. The old man was out cold. Looking at his leg, I felt bad for him. Nobody should have to lose their limb over some asshole. This shit should have never happened, and now, this vendetta just became personal.

  “Gage?” she pulled her head away from my chest and looked up at me; fear in her eyes. “What if they…you know? Come back? To finish the job?”

  “They can come back all they want, babe, but it ain’t happenin’. Not on my watch.”

  Henry walked into the room with the nurse following close behind.

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Bailey needs his rest right now, so we’re going to have to enforce our two visitor rule. Which one of you would like to follow me back to the waiting room?”

  “We were just leaving,” I said, taking Anita’s hand in mine and nodding for Henry to follow.

  Outside in the parking lot, Henry dropped a bomb on me that I wasn’t quite ready for.

  “I talked to Mr. Sanders,” he began. “He said ‘his guy’ can’t make it down here at the moment, but I found something out about Mask and Bethany.”

  I was all ears. He hadn’t had any news about them since that one credit card transaction and even then, he was layering it with third party bullshit to protect his movements.

  “What’d you find out?”

  “I’m not sure if he ever left the country or not, but I do know that he’s around this area. My guess is that he’s never left Memphis, but I’m still trying to confirm that so right now it’s just a theory.”

  “Did you tell Mr. Sanders?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to run it by you first. Do you think I should tell him?”

  “Hold off on that until you have some solid proof. What makes you think he’s still around here?”

  “That credit card transaction? The third party one? He had another come through, but this time, they ran the charge a little differently, and I was able to trace it to a local hotel chain that’s exclusive to Memphis and its suburbs.”

  “Good work. Okay, now all we have to do is focus on the car lot. Until we can get this shit figured out, we’re all going to stay at her dad’s place.”

  “What?” she snapped. “You mean we could have been there this whole time? But you dragged me away from my father, and he lost his leg for nothing?”

  The heat in her attitude was fiery as hell. She was pissed.

  “I had no way of knowing they’d blow his leg off in an attempt to take his life, but yes, we’re going to pick up the kid and head back to your mom and dad’s, and stay put until I catch the son-of-a-bitch who did this to him. I’ll disfigure whoever it was with my bare hands.”

  I’d been itching for a fight, and now I had every right to rip some asshole’s head off. And just let them try to come and fuck with my woman or baby. It’d be the last thing they’d ever take a breath trying to do because I’d kill them.

  “Whatever you say, boss,” Henry said. “Let me know if you need help with anything.”

  “I’ll probably need your help bringing some of their things back over. Clothes, high chair, shit like that.”

  “You got it.”

  We headed to pick up Bentley before swinging by the house to pack up some things to take back to Shawn’s. I had a feeling that things were gonna go downhill from here, but I hoped that whatever happened, Anita and the baby would be safe.

  Chapter 13: Anita

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about moving back into my parent’s place, but part of me felt relieved while the other part was on high alert.

  Home is where I always wanted to be, but Gage had said it was too dangerous and things would be better if we had some privacy to work on our relationship. He had a point, but now I wasn’t so sure that being home was the best plan of action.

  Part of me wanted to be selfish and stay at home with the baby, far away from all of this mess, but I knew why he wanted us close to him. He wanted us right under his nose so he could protect us and know that we were safe. I didn’t see the problem with us being at home; Bentley and I. It’s not like whoever was here knew where we lived.

  It seemed like whoever was behind all of this was out for my family’s property, our land. But I couldn’t imagine why. There wasn’t anything special about the woods surrounding the car dealership; it was a closed, remote area that just backed to heavily wooded areas. If it were terrorists and they were trying to plan an attack on the military base, they were too far away to do that.

  “You almost done?” he snapped as he poked his head into the bedroom.

  The duffel bag lay opened on the bed, all of our clothes spilling out of it.

  This is an eerily familiar sight.

  “I don’t know how I’m ever going to get this thing closed up,” I sighed looking at the mess I’d made. “I need more bags.”

  “If you need, I can bring you the box of trash bags. Come on, babe. Let’s get a move on. I want to get back to your dad’s place before dark and try to head up to the hospital before he wakes up.”

  Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my old gym bag out of the closet and began stuffing baby blankets in it for Bentley.

  He sure seemed to have a wild hair up his ass to get to the hospital to talk to my dad as soon as he woke up. I didn’t know why, and I honestly didn’t care. All I wanted was for this mess to be over.

  Gage came back into the bedroom with a few trash bags in hand.

  �
�Here, come on. Shove everything in and let’s go.”

  His huge hands smooshed the bags of clothes together before he pried the zipper shut and tossed the bags over his shoulder.

  “I’ll be right back to grab the others,” he promised.

  Pulling into my parent’s driveway, I asked Gage where the accident happened.

  “Over there,” he pointed. “That’s where Henry found him anyway. He was already gone by the time I got here.”

  Driving past the site, I saw the burned area. You could still smell it; sulfur and burnt flesh. I shivered thinking about my dad lying there, his leg beside him.

  Henry was already in place, waiting on the front porch like an obedient lap dog, and came walking down the stairwell.

  “I’ll grab the bags,” he said, heading towards the rear of the vehicle.

  “Let me grab the kid and I’ll give you a hand. She packs like she’s moving from one house to the next and those bags are pretty fuckin’ heavy.”

  I picked up my purse, ignoring the remarks about my packing, and reached for Bentley’s diaper bag. Walking up the stairs, I started to grab the doorknob, but Gage jumped in front of me.

  “Wait! Let me go in first and sweep the place. We don’t know what these assholes have been up to while we were gone.”

  Slowly, he turned the doorknob and walked into the house, checking it room by room to make sure whoever had hurt my dad wasn’t waiting inside the house while Bentley and I waited on the porch. Poor Henry was bogged down by bags upon bags of clothes while he stayed with us.

  It was a little awkward being around him, but it’s not like we had much of a choice. He was here to work with Gage and had to stay until they finished the job they were on.

  It made me wonder what Gage was going to do once they found their boss’s daughter; would he want to go back to California? Try to make us move with him? Or would he stay here?

  We had signed a one-year lease on the house so I would think that we’d be staying here, but I’ve seen the man do stranger shit.

  He was, and always has been, completely unpredictable. There was no telling what life was going to be like from day to day with Gage, but I loved that about him. There were no boring ruts, but sometimes I wished there was.

  It wouldn’t be so bad to be stuck in a boring little rut with him where we worked, came home to each other at the end of the day and made love every night. It had been working out for us thus far, and I sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

  “It’s safe,” he called out to us. “Go ahead and come on in.”

  Stepping inside the house, I inhaled deeply. Home; it smelled good, and felt good too. Just as long as I didn’t think about my dad’s leg getting blown off on the edge of the property.

  I sat Bentley’s diaper bag and my purse on the kitchen table.

  “You can just set those things right over there,” I said to Henry, pointing near the end of the couch. “I’ll have to figure out where I’m going to put them until we can figure something out.”

  We had moved all of mine and Bentley’s bedroom furniture to the house, so there was nowhere to put our things now.

  As things were, we could sleep in dad’s room on his bed, and I’d have to settle for shoving our clothes in my old closet. I could stack all of our socks and undergarments on the shelf in my closet.

  Gage walked into my old, empty room to check on me.

  “Are you getting hungry?” I asked him, looking at my watch. It was just a little after 4.

  “I could eat.”

  I walked up close to him and whispered so that only he could hear me. “Is Henry going to eat with us?”

  “How do you feel about that?” he asked, keeping his voice hushed.

  “I feel bad for what happened—the kiss—but I also feel bad that we keep tossing him to the side like an old rag doll like he doesn’t mean anything. I promise, there are no feelings between us and—”

  He put his finger up to my lip.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. Henry’s already apologized enough for the both of you and I know there’s nothing there between the two of you.”

  “Okay,” I leaned up and kissed him. “I’ll get dinner started then.”

  “While you’re doing that, I’m going to send him up to the hospital to sit with your mom and watch over your dad, and I’ve got some stuff to do in the woods.”

  “You be careful. I don’t know what I’d do if we lost you.”

  He kissed my forehead, “Don’t worry, babe.”

  The next couple of days in the house were boring and isolated. We’d shut down the car lot—something that had never been done in our entire family history, and stayed inside.

  Every once in a while, I’d take Bentley out on the back porch, but only if one of them were watching over us like prisoners to make sure nothing happened to us. Prisoners are what it felt like instead of feeling like we were at home.

  “Gage?” I walked into the living room, interrupting him and Henry while they were on the computer. “We’re going to need some more groceries. I’ve cooked almost everything dad had here, and we’re starting to run low on diapers, too.”

  He sighed. “Make a list and I’ll run to the store to pick up whatever you need.”

  I was a bit disappointed that he wasn’t allowing me to go because I could use a trip out of the house but I knew there was no point in arguing with him.

  There wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to let me roam freely across town while we didn’t know who was behind the attack on my dad. I was surprised that he was letting my mom stay with him at the hospital, but I guess he couldn’t tell her what to do.

  Taking inventory of the pantry and the refrigerator, I made a list of items that I’d need to cook for the next few days, careful not to leave anything out. He didn’t seem happy about doing the grocery shopping, and I didn’t want to ask him to go out for something I might have forgotten.

  “Here,” I shoved the list at him; still bitter that I wasn’t getting to leave.

  “Thanks,” he took it from me and looked it over. “Shit, I can’t wait until you can do all this again. It won’t be long. I promise.”

  Then why don’t you let me go to the store? I didn’t dare ask that question, but I wanted to.

  “You watch over her and the kid. I shouldn’t be gone long,” he glanced at the list again. “Or maybe I will. Shouldn’t take me longer than an hour.”

  After he had left, I took Bentley into my dad’s room and laid him down for his afternoon nap. As I was lying with him, lightly scratching his back to put him down for the count, I thought about the woods and how I was tired of being cooped up in the house like a caged rat.

  When we came home, I didn’t get that good of a look at where the accident happened. I’d taken to calling it an accident because it sounded nicer than the alternative.

  Obviously, there was no accident, and I wanted to get a better look at it—up close. Sneaking down the hallway after Bentley was fast asleep, I saw Henry was still busy on the computer.

  The old wooden boards creaked beneath me, threatening to betray me, as I tiptoed across them. Just a few more steps and I’ll be at the back door. Don’t mess this up, Anita. Henry was so consumed with the computer that he didn’t notice me and continued staring at the screen.

  A couple of more sidesteps, a jiggle of the handle and I was inhaling the sweet smell of freshly clipped grass and blooming flowers as the afternoon breeze swept across my face, blowing my hair back a little. The warm sun spilled across my face, and it felt so good to be outside—until I remembered why I’d snuck out of the house in the first place.

  Looking around, I spotted the area that was dull and lifeless, ashed over and burnt to a crisp. The area where there was a bomb, where dad had lost his leg and almost his life.

  If it weren’t for Henry finding him early that morning, he might have bled to death because my mom had left to take one of her church friends a few baked goods since she’d b
een feeling under the weather.

  Approaching the wooded area, chills ran down my spine as my stomach did somersaults. Something didn’t feel right; things felt off. My Spidey senses were on high alert as I neared the edge of the woods where it all happened.

  I brushed it off, telling myself that I was creeped out because of what had happened out here. Whoever done it wouldn’t be around during broad daylight, especially while the guys were guarding the house.

  I’d imagine the person or people, responsible for all of this would have to have an eye on the house and car lot. It would only make sense that they did since they had such a great interest in the land. They were using it as if they owned it and planting all of these things on the property.

  I stared down at the ground and saw where a hole was; it was about two feet wide and three feet deep. It must have been where the bomb blew up.

  The dirt was displaced, and everything around it looked like it was burned a few shades darker than the rest of the nearby ground. Squatting down, I reached out and touched the soil with my fingers. It was hard to the touch, but as I picked it up, it crumbled in my fingers.

  To my right, there was a deep crimson stain on the ground in the shape of a circle; I’d imagine where dad lost a lot of blood. As I neared it, a foul taste and smell of pennies filled my senses; it was blood all right. Flies hovered inches above it and the closer I got, the stronger the smell became.

  Walking away from it before I vomited, I thought I heard someone. Looking around for Henry, I didn’t see him or Gage. I thought I imagined things until I heard the noise again.

  “Who’s there?” I called out. “Show me where you are; I have a gun!”

  I was lying through my teeth, but I didn’t want these people to think they could harm me.

  Suddenly, I heard a whooshing sound and was grabbed by a man wearing all black. The only thing I could see were his fierce, unforgiving eyes that burned a hole straight through me and I felt as though he could read every scared thought running through my head.

  I fought hard to get my wrist away from him but he was much larger than I, and before I knew it, he had me in a choke hold with his forearm straining against my throat, cutting off my airway as he hissed in my ear.