The jolt sent his body forward, and an audible groan left his mouth seconds later.
“No!” he sounded like he had a mouthful of cotton.
Grinning at him a tad bit manically, I placed the pillow down onto his crotch and started to put pressure down on it.
He squealed.
“Ready?”
He nodded jerkily, tears now coursing down his face uncontrollably.
“Okay then,” I left the pillow there and sat back down. “Enlighten me.”
He swallowed, then started to speak. I had to really concentrate to hear his words, but in the end, I got the gist.
“Your grandfather, my best friend, ruined me. Ruined my life,” he hiccupped. “It all started with him stealing your grandmother—my fiancé—out from under my nose while I was off fighting in the war.”
My eyes closed as a wave of nausea rolled over me.
“Then, throughout the years, he continued to take from me. I ruled these streets, and the whole fucking city, with an iron fist,” he snapped. “And slowly, ever so fucking slowly, he continued to take until I had no more income left. Yet, I still let him have his way. ‘Oh, Beck. You need to be a good man,’ the old bastard used to say to me. And then he gave me you…and then you ruined my operation.”
I had.
The moment I’d realized exactly what was going on, I’d contacted a few people who knew how to handle this kind of an operation, and they set about dismantling Beckett’s business, which apparently had ruined his business for a second time.
First my grandfather had done it by refusing to make the townspeople pay protection fees by offering them his own protection and then I’d taken away his other source of income.
He must have thought that we had set out to make that happen, but he couldn’t be more wrong. My grandfather had never, not one single time, spoken a harsh word about Elais Beckett. It’d been me who turned him in to the cops. It’d been me who’d dismantled his operation, and it’d been me who’d had my computer man, Jack, hack into Beckett’s account and deliver ten million dollars to the man’s family that I’d killed.
Had I had it in me to give, I’d have given it to him.
I hadn’t realized, at the time, that the man was mentally unstable. Had no clue that he’d been a vet with severe PTSD who was hell-bent on going out in a blaze of cop assisted suicide. He got me instead.
But that could’ve been me, coming back from deployment only to have bigger, emotional battles at home. So it was almost like shooting myself the day I found out all the things that’d been plaguing that poor man.
The man that I’d shot during the rescue of a small child who I was told he had kidnapped.
“Anything else you’d like to tell me?” I asked. “If you give it to me now, I won’t take it from you later.”
He must’ve understood my sincerity, because by the time he was done speaking, thirty minutes later, I’d gotten not just the confession of my grandfather, grandmother, and cousin’s murder, but also the attempted murder on Verity, and how he’d planned the whole thing.
I was spitting mad, but I left him there, almost the same way I had found him, and barely made it to the bathroom in time to lose my lunch.
Lucky for me, Big Papa hadn’t gone too far, and he’d heard the entire thing. Something he told me five minutes later when I finally emerged from the bathroom.
“You did good,” he said. “I’m happy that you didn’t try to kill him.”
I wasn’t.
But I also wasn’t a killer…at least not anymore.
That didn’t mean that I didn’t want to go in there and skin him alive with my bare hands.
“Do you mind watching over Verity for a few minutes while I go home, change, and feed the cat?
The cat that I’d forgotten about in the last couple of hours.
I’d called my neighbor and told her not to bother going over today because we’d be back by nightfall. But that was before Verity’s head had nearly been blown apart, and I’d forgotten about everything but her.
Big Papa nodded.
“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, offering me his hand. “Maybe grab some food while you’re out.”
Was I hungry?
Yes. Yes, I was.
Would I eat?
No, probably not.
I nodded at Big Papa anyway, though. What he didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him.
Chapter 24
I’ll never, ever let you go.
-Verity talking to her dessert
Verity
A dog’s barking woke me up.
One second I was in dreamland, and the next I was staring at a man across the room, wielding a syringe in one hand and an IV pole in the other.
He was swinging it at the dog—Aaron’s K-9, Tank—and trying to keep the dog at bay.
He was failing miserably.
I started to stand, but froze when something in my leg started to pinch.
I looked down at the large syringe sticking out of my thigh, and wondered what the hell it was doing there.
I pulled it out of my leg, my heart starting to pound.
Sweat popped out on my forehead, and my stomach roiled. All over a single syringe in my thigh.
Nice, Verity, very nice.
I swung my legs over the bed, my intent to get to Tank and stop the man from hitting him again, but the moment my feet hit the cool tiled floor, my legs went out from under me.
I hit the floor with a thud, and my head and arm screamed.
Not that my head wasn’t already screaming, because it was. Loud, booming and seriously pissed off.
I got my legs underneath me, my hand going to my forehead to try to counteract the steady pounding of my head, and moaned.
The dog’s whimper had me glancing up sharply, and it took everything I had not to start crying in pain.
I didn’t make a sound, though, knowing that if I could just somehow help Tank, he would take it from there.
The night Truth had fed me nothing but cookies for dinner, I witnessed the power in Tank’s body as he’d taken the padded man—who just so happened to have been Truth, something I hadn’t known at the time—and forced him to sit still as he’d waited for Aaron to call him off.
The fury in his barks now, compared to then, were much different.
It seemed like Tank knew that this man was a real threat to me, and he was going to protect me with his life.
Maybe if I could trip the man with my prone body…
Alarms started to go off, and I heard a worried voice say ‘Code Brown!’ over the loudspeaker, and I would’ve laughed at the use of ‘Code Brown’ had this situation not been extremely fucked up as it was.
“Tank,” my voice cracked when the dog went down to his haunches.
Tank didn’t spare me a glance as he did some amazing roll thing and went for the man’s knee.
My eyes took in the man as he went down to drop his weight on the dog, and it was then that I realized that this man was dressed in a hospital gown with handcuffs dangling from his wrists.
His feet, which were bloody as well, slipped.
He came down hard on top of Tank, and I heard the distinct sound of something breaking.
Oh, God. Please don’t let that be Tank’s bones! I chanted to myself as I crawled another inch.
My heart was racing. My vision was blurry now, and I couldn’t control my breaths.
I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man had stabbed me with that syringe. And that something bad had been in that syringe, and was now racing through my bloodstream.
Saliva filled my mouth, and I took one last ditch effort to get to Tank…and failed.
***
Ghost
My heart was broken. My skin was tight. My eyes hurt. My head was pounding.
Though, I couldn’t tell which was physical or emotional, I knew that I couldn’t go on like this any longer.
Something had to give.
I knew as I walked into the hospital, rage filling my veins, that I had to find a way out of this mess that I found myself in.
“Code brown, second floor.”
I stopped as two doctors, three nurses, and a stumbling Big Papa ran in the direction of the stairs.
I hurried in the direction, my head no longer pounding as adrenaline poured through me. All my aches and pains were null and void as I took the stairs two at a time, surpassing Big Papa who was bleeding from a head wound.
He moved over, letting me pass, and I caught up to the last nurse.
I overtook her, too, and hit the second-floor landing and yanked the large metal door open before following the last nurse and doctor.
They were all standing outside of a room—Verity’s room—and staring in like they didn’t know what to do.
I could hear Tank snarling, and in between snarls were pained whimpers that he was trying very hard to contain.
“Move,” I barked out, pushing my way past the nurses and doctors gathered around the entrance.
They moved, and I almost wished they hadn’t.
Because on the floor was a nightmare.
Blood was…everywhere.
On the bed, on the floor, on the walls. If you had any imagination at all, this was worse.
A man lay dead, his throat torn out, on the floor.
Elais Beckett.
I could just see the edge of Verity’s hair as it lay fanned out on the floor, the last three quarters of an inch slowly becoming saturated with the blood that was pooling on the floor.
Her face was stark white, and small dots of perspiration were coating it.
And then there was Tank.
His left hind leg was hanging limply, and his eyes were wild as he tried to stay upright.
He had blood on him, too, but I couldn’t figure out if it was his or not.
I took a step forward, and Tank’s head snapped up.
His growl became deeper, and I realized that Tank wasn’t all the way home at the moment.
“Help me.”
Those whispered words had me trying to take another step, but Tank took a threatening step forward. Protecting his charge like he was told to do.
“Fuck,” I grated. “Big Papa…”
“Shit,” Big Papa said as he made his way up to my side.
He looked worse up close than he did far away, and I realized then that what I thought was just a cut was a goddamn gunshot.
“You’re about to fall over,” I said. “And you got shot in the head.”
Big Papa shrugged.
And that was when Truth arrived.
“Verity!”
Truth’s scream was heart-wrenching as he ran toward us.
“Truth…” I started to say, trying to grab his hand.
He shook me off and barreled into the room.
Tank went nuts.
Truth backed away, a look of horror on his face as he saw all the blood and Verity lying on the floor.
“Take him out!”
I pulled my gun free of its holster.
“He’s hurt, and not thinking straight. You’re not killing him,” Big Papa was bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“She’s dying!” Truth screamed.
My heart hurt.
But I knew, if I had to kill Tank, I wouldn’t feel bad about it. At least not until afterwards. Not when it came to Verity’s life.
“Find Aaron!” Big Papa bellowed. “He’s the only one who’s going to call him off.”
I pulled my phone out with my free hand and dialed Aaron’s number.
“Hello?” Aaron answered.
“Where are you?” I barked.
“I’m right here…what’s going on?”
I breathed a sigh of relief when Aaron rounded the corner, a to-go drink from Chili’s in his hand.
He saw all of us waiting outside, his brows furrowed, and then he rounded the corner and saw what the wall was hiding from him.
Truth tried to take another step toward Verity, and Tank launched.
“Tank!” Aaron shouted. “Platz!”
Tank fell to his haunches, then rolled over all in one move.
His head fell to the ground, and he started to whine.
Truth launched himself over the dog, gathering Verity into his arms.
The doctors, nurses, and other hospital personnel rushed in as well.
And then everything went to shit.
The dog died. Verity died. Beckett died.
Everyone fucking died.
***
Truth
Something heavy fell from the bed that they—at least ten nurses and doctors—were standing around.
I let my eyes fall to the floor.
Bloody footprints were everywhere.
Nurses were slipping in it. One nurse in particular was covered from ass to ankle from when she’d slipped, fallen and gotten up.
Verity was clinically dead. That’s what the doctor told me, anyway.
“Get him out of here!”
The same doctor that told me she was dead also kicked me out of the hospital room.
They were doing chest compressions on Verity’s small body, and each pump of the doctor’s arm I could hear her ribs breaking.
They weren’t even in a room. They weren’t down in the ER.
They were in the fucking hallway right outside of the room where her life had been stolen from her and snuffed out right before my eyes.
My hands were numb. My brain was, too.
The only thing I could feel was the gaping hole in my chest.
“Everyone clear!”
Every single person moved away from the gurney, and the man wielding the paddles—ones I’d seen many times throughout my years of combat— placed them on Verity’s bare chest as I watched helplessly.
The moment her tiny naked body jolted off the bed, I lost it.
I moved to run, but before I could take a step, I was pulled into Big Papa’s arms as they encircled me in a bear hug. He held tight and yanked me back.
“Cover her!” I screamed.
Everyone was looking at her, vulnerable and broken, and they didn’t even care.
The nurses. Doctors. Techs. Fuck, every single one of the members of my club. People that were in the hospital rooms on either sides of Verity. Everyone was there, watching her, seeing everything.
My eyes were filled with grit and tears, and I strained to get away.
I would’ve accomplished it, too, but one set of arms became two, and then those two became four.
I was being forced back. Inch by impossible inch.
My body strained to get to Verity. But the harder I tried, the stronger my brothers held on to move me further out of the way.
Then, there was nothing left to see because I was moved into an empty room where we all landed on the floor in a heap.
Big Papa, Sean, and the two prospects—Fender and Jessie James—followed me down.
“Get the fuck off me!” I bellowed, huffing and puffing as I tried in vain to get away from the men.
I knew I wasn’t in my right mind.
They knew it, too.
I fought harder, I had to get away.
They couldn’t see me like this…not with my heart broken. My pain threatening to spill over from my eyes.
“Get off!” I repeated, swinging blindly.
My fist connected with Sean’s face, and the momentum of my punch caused him slide across the floor. His angry eyes full of pain met mine as I winced when I saw his jaw hanging limply, clearly not where it was supposed to be.
His hand went to his face, and then he scrambled across the floor toward me.
Once he was within reach, he returned the punch.
I, at least, took it to the eye instead of to the jaw like he’d done.
Fortunately, when the pain exploded behind my left eye, it didn’t br
eak anything pivotal.
I doubled over in pain, grunting as I tried to get to my knees but the weight of the other men who were struggling to contain my rage held me back.
“Get off,” I rasped.
I kicked, punched, and genuinely attacked until I had nothing left in me to attack with. All my energy was gone as the adrenaline left my system and I began to crash.
With one final, exhausted huff of breath, I collapsed and let the pain wash over me.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sean grunted as he moved to place his entire body on one of my arms, all the while he tried not to move his jaw that was most certainly broken.
The others moved, too.
Off of me, unlike Sean. Though, I didn’t think that was because he wanted to stay there. More because he couldn’t move.
Unfortunately for him, he’d given me an easy target. And I felt apologetic as soon as I’d reacted.
“Truth?”
My heart, already shattered, broke even more.
Because standing in the doorway in front of me was Verity’s grandmother. She was looking at me with horror written all over her face.
I was bloody. I probably looked wild and broken, but that didn’t stop her. No, not Verity’s grandmother.
“I’m so sorry,” my voice cracked as I climbed to my feet.
Ilsa ran to me, threw her arms around my blood-stained chest, and pressed her frail body into my much larger frame.
***
One hour later
“There’s nothing left to do but wait,” the doctor said gently.
He knew he was talking to a man on the edge. Someone that was on the verge of going fucking crazy. Someone who’d already torn up one room in this hospital.
Someone who clearly made him very wary, which explained the two security guards and two police officers that were at his back.
He was scared of me. Though, I’d given him reason to be.
“I don’t…”
“We’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the doctor said. “I’ll call you periodically, throughout the night, but after what happened here this afternoon… well, hospital policy is clear. We can’t allow you to stay.”
My heart literally sank.
“But…” I started to say.
Tough and McClain started forward, and I got the drift very quickly.
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