I look okay though, when I walk to the sink and check myself in the mirror, hitting the faucet to wash my hands. My makeup has only started running a little from the heat and my mascara is almost entirely intact.
Too bad, I need cold water on my face, I think, leaning over to splash some on my burning face.
The blow is hard and has me slumping. It comes so fast and catches me unaware, so that I can’t do a thing about it when my eyes droop and my knees buckle.
I fall with a thud, woozy, disoriented, and blinking rapidly to clear my head enough to defend myself.
“You think I’d let you go after ruining my life?”
What? I don’t even know what to think as I fight to stay conscious and get my limbs moving. They don’t respond though, the pounding from the hit and the shots making movement slow and ineffectual.
“Oh, poor little Rosie. So weak and defenseless. Do you know what I had to endure after you got me kicked out of that foster placement? Years of abuse and rape. You took everything from me.”
I hear only bits and pieces of it because I’m fading in and out as I fight not to pass out, but I get the gist of it.
Then it settles in, and I know. This person is one of the kids Nana fostered temporarily. We spoke about it for a while before we both agreed that providing a pit stop for kids was what we wanted to do.
I wanted a sibling, but Nana wasn’t about to add another kid to her burden, so we compromised and took in some kids who were waiting to be placed.
That’s how Frankie and I connected in the first place. We relate because I get how cruel those places can be, and she’s totally in awe of what Nana and I did for kids up till she got too sick to take in any more.
“I didn’t—”
“You did. You took everything from me, and now I’m going to take it from you.”
I try to scream, but all I get out is a moan before something hits the side of my head. I stop breathing as pain streaks through me. I try to do something, but my body just refuses to obey as I fight to breathe.
I’m fading fast, the hot slide of blood pooling beneath my head telling its own tale before I hear a chuckle and footsteps before the door opens and closes.
And then nothing.
Chapter Twelve
Lex
I’m so excited I can hardly sit still as the club pumps and sways around us as I wait for Rosetta to come back from the bathroom
“That was not cool, you fuck! Jesus, I never took you for a dick, Lex, no matter how much you want people to think so,” Jericho snarls, his eyes glued to the corridor leading to the women’s bathroom.
King is in my ear. He stays silent, but I can practically feel his disgust all the way across the club as he starts weaving his way closer to the bathrooms to go check on Rosetta.
“It wasn’t—”
“You kissing on and dancing with another woman when Rosie was standing right there? Oh, and I suppose you’re going to tell me your hands weren’t on her ass either? If you wanted to give her a message, Jacobs, you could have just told her without humiliating her that way.”
I wince and look away guiltily because I can’t deny that a part of me took it a little too far in the hopes of putting some distance between us before I have to break away.
I’m an ass, I know it, but I need Rosetta to be the one to walk because I know I can’t do it. I just can’t. I want her too much, and the truth is, I don’t want to leave here without her.
So I let Claire jump me, and yeah, I didn’t do a thing to stop Rosetta from getting the impression I know she did from it.
“That was a contact of mine, one I’ve been waiting for weeks to get back to me. I haven’t heard from her in so long that I was a little unwilling to miss that opportunity, Jericho.”
What Claire told me confirms a theory I’ve been working on about that shooter, and it’s so astounding and freaking great I don’t know how to keep a lid on this for long.
Gunny.
I always knew something was up with the way he died on that mission, and now I know why. The intel is classified, black ops, spook stuff that makes me nervous as hell. But excited too, because while I don’t have intel on Zulu, I have something that may or may not lead me to the man.
If I can find Gunny.
Elation hits me again at the thought of going after a ghost that’s haunted Storm and the rest of us for years, and when something inside me eases, I realize that I’ve been carrying around a huge weight for years.
“What the fuck?!”
Jericho takes off and leaps sofas and tables, and I’m right behind him, my training kicking in before I can form a thought. We’re across the club and running for the bathroom amid screams and yells as I shove people away, not caring that some of them are probably female.
My heart stops when I shove past a cursing Jericho and look down to see King and Blaze kneeling over Rosetta, her red hair flowing so freely it takes me a moment to realize it’s not just hair I see, but blood.
“We need a bus at Oasis. Women’s bathroom. She’s bleeding from two head injuries, and it looks like she was caught unaware. Yes, goddammit, just hurry,” King yells into his phone before ripping off his shirt to hold it to the wound on Rosetta’s head.
There’s so much blood I can smell it, like a thick cloying metallic perfume on the air.
“What happened? Where are her friends?” I yell, falling to my knees to take in the damage.
She’s out cold, white as a sheet and unresponsive even when I tap her cheek gently and lean down to kiss her lips, begging her to wake up.
“Baby. You gotta open those eyes for me so I can talk to you.”
Not a twitch. She doesn’t move a muscle, tense, or anything when I slowly peer at the side of her head and see two open gashes pouring blood. She’s taken two very hard hits—
“Move!”
The paramedics shove us away, and I find myself watching as they start working on her before cursing and lifting her onto a stretcher.
“Rosie! Oh my God, is she okay?”
Lonny and his Rod are trying to get past Jericho to get to her, and I see that Lollipop woman with the nasty ass boobs run up too, followed by the other mean girl Rosie seems so fond of.
I don’t have time for this though.
“King, get that footage before we walk out of this shithole. I want to know what the hell happened here!” I roar back at King and Blaze while Jericho and I run to keep up with the stretcher.
Fuuuuuck. Shit.
I feel like a failure as I dive into the ambulance and watch Jericho snarl when the paramedic tries to order him out of the passenger seat.
“Listen, you fuck, that woman is my charge. I’m here to protect her, so either drive or I break your face!”
I ignore the tussle and keep my eyes on Rosetta the whole time, praying for all I’m worth that it’s just superficial. I’ve had my share of head wounds, and I know that anything is possible at this point. One bled so much you’d have sworn I was dying but I didn’t even have a concussion to show for it, while another didn’t even break the skin but had me flat on my back for over a day as doctors monitored me for a brain bleed.
“Rosetta? Honey, please open your eyes and look at me.”
I know begging is futile, but I do it anyway, cursing myself to hell and back for this. If I’d stayed with her, danced, maybe taken her to a corner and kissed the hell out of her as I’d wanted to, she would never have gone to that bathroom alone.
I’d still be teasing her, and she’d be smiling even as I stood outside the stall waiting. This is my fault; I fully admit it. And the worst part? I don’t want distance, I realize as we come to a stop and the doors burst open. I want her. With me.
I want to take her back to Mayberry and get a house for us with lots of land so she can have a dog and as many ugly cats as her little heart desires. I want…more. Nothing specific, really, just time to get to know her better and prove to her that I’m more than some playboy who screws as many wo
men as I can.
I want a chance to love her, as I now know I do because the thought of her hurting tears me apart inside.
“Come on!”
I snap out of it as Jericho grabs me and pulls me out of the ambulance, our feet pounding the floor as we run behind Rosetta all the way to the ER where security stops us.
My legs give way then, my adrenalin vanishing and dumping me as I fall into a wall and slide down to the floor with a curse.
“I should have been with her.”
“It’s not your fault, Lex. She was with other people, and King was watching that fucking door the whole time, man, as was I. No one else entered that bathroom beside Rosie and her two friends.”
I’m in guilt mode and ready to start yelling at myself, shouting self-recriminations when I pause and look up into Jericho’s hard eyes, my own going glacial.
“That fucking bitch.”
“Yeah, believe me, I want to pop her one too, female or not.”
Pop her? I want to rip her apart, because even if Rosetta is okay, I know it’s going to hurt her to know that asshole did this—that it’s been her all along.
“I want to know why before we call Gino and the cops to have her picked up.” He nods and grabs my arm, pulling me up to drag me to the waiting room just outside.
“Watch the door while I look into it. King just texted, and he lost her when the crowd tried to get closer to the doors. They’re headed to her apartment.”
“Make sure they get her, Jericho, or I swear to God they won’t find that woman once I go after her.”
“Christ.”
He walks away without another word and leaves me alone in the waiting room to watch the doors for the next hour. It takes so long. Every minute feels like an eternity before the doctor comes out with a smile and a beleaguered sigh.
“We stitched up Miss Mayhew’s head. She suffered blunt force trauma to two areas of the head and lost a bit of blood before she got here. We’ve got her on fluids and we’re giving her a unit of blood. We’ll want to keep an eye on her—”
“Is she okay?!” I demand, my legs shaking, as I rise and tower over the small woman.
“Yes. She’s got a minor concussion, some bruising, and the wounds we sutured, of course. That’ll give her a hell of a headache, but she seems fine. She roused right after we started stitching her wounds and hasn’t stopped swearing at us to let her go. She seems really angry about something.”
Likely the fact that her best friend just tried to bludgeon her to death, I think, ignoring Jericho’s snort when the doctor waves us ahead and yells at the nurse who tries to stop Jericho from following.
I’m freaking sweating by the time we reach the hospital room, and I almost roar when I walk in to see Rosetta sitting up looking dazed, fragile, and not at all happy with life.
“This sucks! She couldn’t at least wait for me to have a decent buzz before she tried to kill me?”
“Baby.”
“Oh shut up, Lex! I don’t want to even talk to you right now, you whore! Just get me the heck out of here and someone tell me you got that bitch.”
“Baby, listen I…I take it you saw Frankie?”
“No! But I’m not stupid, Lex. No way would the guys let anyone else into that bathroom when the girls left me in there, so I kinda deduced it could only be one of the two, and Lollipop cries when we watch freaking Lassie! I just don’t freaking get it, Lex. We’re friends, you know? She’s been with me since I met her at the church for Nana’s funeral. She was there when I needed someone. I thought she was…”
She stops talking and looks away, but I don’t miss the tears that spring up before she can’t wipe them away.
“We’re looking into Frankie—”
“Don’t bother,” she mutters into my chest when I manage to get her into my arms, though God knows her struggling doesn’t make it easy. “She ran her mouth off, another thing that caught my attention. I’m not sure, but I think she may have been one of the temporary fosters we housed back before Nana got her arthritis diagnosis. She blamed me for Nana not keeping her.”
She’s upset and hurt and I feel the way her spine stiffens when I hug her into my arms, and then pull back before laying her back gently against the pillows.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me right now, but I need to get this all straight before the cops get here. King?”
“I called Storm, and he started digging. It seems Frankie Malone was one Arabella Stacey before she timed out of the foster system and moved here to Vegas. She spent about two years working up in Boston where she was placed, and then suddenly just disappeared.”
“Only to reappear here in Vegas,” I say.
“Yep. I’m not too clear on the whys or anything, but I think she may have snapped when they published—”
“That article about the late greats!” Rosetta yells, clutching at her head with a moan.
“Calm down.”
“Shut up. I know this. Just before Nana passed, they were putting together something in the paper about the old days or something. They did one part about the best showgirls the city ever had, and she was one of them. I still have that article framed. Nana died the day before it went to print so they included her obituary in the article.”
And there we have the story. I still don’t get why Frankie blames her though. Rosetta is sweet and she’s a good friend. And they’ve been friends for four years.
“Why wait to come after you though?” I ask, needing answers even though I know this must hurt her a lot.
I think I’d cry like a bitch if one of my friends did this to me, and I don’t cry since I have a dick and balls. Rosetta, with that soft heart and upbeat attitude is probably feeling slayed by this.
She shrugs then, and I see her eyes close against the pain in her head.
“She was my friend. For a long time. About a year ago, though, she started getting really dark, you know? Talking about her childhood more and more, and drinking. Frankie is a normal twenty-something who likes to party, but recently she’s been really wild. Even Lo doesn’t hang with her as much because she’s so nasty to people. And she also started doing some stuff with men that I don’t agree with.”
“Rosetta—”
“Darn it, I’m getting there, Lex. About eight months ago, we had this huge fight because I met one of the guys she took home, and he was really not in a good place. I realized that she’s getting harder and harder to curb, so I told her that if she wouldn’t get help, we couldn’t be friends. It pissed her off at first, boy how it did. You should have heard some of the stuff she said to me. She called later and apologized though, so I just assumed we were okay.”
“She obviously wasn’t.”
“No. But I didn’t see it, you know? She was being her old self again, laughing and joking around. We even went to the Disney show together when her boss gave her tickets because his wife was sick. I should have known that night something was up.”
“Why?”
“We both got a little tipsy at the bar afterward, and she came home with me. I put her in the guestroom that I gave you but the next morning, I woke up and found her in Nana’s bed, wearing her nightie and slippers. It pissed me off,” she says sheepishly, her pale face not blushing at all though because she’s that sick.
I agree though, that shit is creepy. I loved my grams, but I wouldn’t have slept in the bed she died in if you promised me my weight in chocolate. Or gold.
“Jesus, that is weird,” Jericho mutters, grabbing a chair to straddle it beside the bed.
“Do you think she’s obsessed with Nana because of the time she spent here with us? Because I so get that, guys. Nana was an old battle-axe sometimes, but she was great. She loved everyone and treated those kids like they were hers for however long they stayed before the state found them homes.”
Ahh, I so do not want to tell her what I’m thinking right now, not until I know for sure, if it’s even possible. All I know is that this woman is nuts, completely ba
nanas and crazy, and I’ll be damned if she gets anywhere near my girl.
“I don’t know, baby, only she can tell you that.”
“But, she said I ruined her life, Lex.” She sniffles, looking at us through wet eyes. “That’s not true, though. I never wanted the kids to leave. Nana wouldn’t listen though. She said we were just a stop on their journey and that it wasn’t fair to expect us to keep them all because she wouldn’t have been able to choose, you know? She was a marshmallow that way.”
I gape at her and see Jericho’s mouth drop open when she says it because, goddamn, did she just use the right words to say something instead of purposely fudging her words to confuse us?
Dammit, she must really be in a lot of pain.
“Rosie!”
I tense and step closer to the bed as Seri comes rushing in, followed by Gino and an older version that is my old poker buddy, Gio.
“Hey,” she says weakly, her eyes drooping.
“Oh honey, you look like hell. I saw a vision of it happening just before Mr. Jericho here called Gino. It was awful. I wish I could get my hands on that little tramp and ring her nasty neck.”
Rosetta tries to laugh and even makes a cursory effort to rib them when Gino pulls Seri into his side and kisses her head, crooning nonsense at her because she’s taken to crying.
“Told ya you liked me.”
Seri laughs through her tears and so do the rest of us as I watch Rosetta’s eyes droop and close, finally succumbing to the medication.
“I’ll kill her,” Gino hisses.
“Get in line.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rosetta
Bowling ball. Sledge hammer. Thor’s hammer.
Oy, my aching head. And heart.
I’ve been pretending to sleep for a good hour now, and still I can’t do anything but think about Frankie, my poor, crazy Frankie who needs help.
I could hate her right now for hurting me the way she has, for taking all the things from me that I loved, but all I can bring myself to feel for her is pity.
I know what she went through in foster care. She told me those stories once when we were both drunk and lying on her sofa, moaning about everything that made us sad.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle Page 72