“But the condom…,” I started and he shook his head.
“Occupational hazard, babe. I haven’t had sex without latex since I got hired at the Harvey. I’m a whore. I’m not an idiot.”
“But how could you let me think…?”
“Because it was safest. I was scared shitless of losing you, honey. If she hurt you, I’d…,” he trailed off. “I just don’t think I could come back from that one. So I told you a lie to keep you safe. And to keep our little nugget safe. And maybe, just maybe, I thought I could pull it off. Husband. Father. All that white-picket bullshit. It’s what you wanted and I guess I wanted to be the one who could give it to you. But you don’t love me. Not like you love him. And I guess I had been fooling myself otherwise until he sang you that song, and I saw it in his face. I saw it in yours. If he can be free to be a part of your family, he should be. It’s what’s right, CC.”
As mad as I should have been that he lied to me, and put me through all these months of anguish, thinking I might never know who my child’s father was, I threw my arms around him for a ginormous hug. He was setting me free in more ways than one. “I think your heart just grew three sizes, Caz Bixby.”
He laughed as he hugged me tight. “All because of you, pussycat. I’ll never forgive you.” I kissed him softly before he pushed me away. “Now go find Dev. Make him fight for you, CC. Because he will. Because he should.”
“I really do love you, Caz.”
“I know,” he grinned before he finally let me go.
I stuffed my ill-gotten gains into my purse as I headed for the front door of the club, only to be stopped at the last minute by Suzanne Everhart. “You’re not going to leave without telling me hello, I hope.”
I turned to her. “If I never had to speak to you again, Suzanne, it would be too soon.”
She linked her arm in mine to guide me away from the door and towards a private corner. “I realize that there are hard feelings between us. I know how… difficult it must have been for you to come into the home you had shared with your husband, only to find him in the most indelicate situation with me.”
“He was fucking you,” I growled and she chuckled.
“I know that’s what it looked like. Ours is a complicated relationship.”
“I’ve talked to Harvey. I know all about your complicated relationships.”
Again she chuckled. “I can see why Devlin grew so fond of you. You’re a lot like him in many ways. If you’re smart like he is, you’ll heed my warning. Stay away from Devlin Masters. He belongs to me. He always has. He always will. There’s nothing you can give him that I can’t.”
“Except a baby,” I shot back.
Her eyes narrowed as she glanced me over. “So that explains your weight gain. I was wondering. I thought it was some misguided attempt to win him back, thinking that he could only love you with a little meat on your bones. Like his sister, bless her heart. You know, I worry a lot about Darcy. It’s not healthy to carry so much weight. Anything could happen. Anything,” she added in a whisper.
I stood back. Now I understood. What motivated Devlin all this time hadn’t been Suzanne at all. He had been protecting his sister. Suzanne had threatened his sister. “You evil cunt,” I breathed. I stepped forward. “You may think you hold all the cards, Suzanne, but I happen to have a couple of aces up my sleeve. So enjoy your victory at the convention. It’ll be your last.”
Before I could turn around she pulled me back, her bony claw-like fingers biting into my forearm. “You still think you can declare war on me? You silly twit. There’s nothing you could pin on me that I can’t deflect. I’m a queen in my world, and you’re nothing more than a slave in yours. If you lived in Georgia you’d be scrubbing my floor.”
“You’re despicable.”
Her face broke apart in a victorious smile. “Power isn’t pretty, my dear. Didn’t your father teach you that?”
“No, we skipped that lesson,” I admitted. “Instead he told me to fight for what I believe in, and to risk it all for my family. Dev is a part of that family. So is Darcy. You threaten them, you threaten me.”
“So be it,” she decided with a wave of her heavily jeweled hand.
“See you at the convention,” I hissed before I started away.
“Be sure to bring a sonogram photo,” she called out to me. “If there is one.”
When I whirled around, she had disappeared into the crowd.
I spun back for the door. It was time I found Devlin and ended this madness once and for all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I was beside myself as I waited to pick up my car from the valet. I barely tossed them a tip before I jumped into my car and headed straight for the entrance. It was only ten or so minutes to Devlin’s house in Brentwood–our house in Brentwood–and it seemed like every single light managed to turn red to make the wait even longer.
I inched along Sunset Boulevard, tapping my fingers against the wheel. Now that I knew what was at stake, and what had motivated Dev for so long, I knew that we had to fight this beastie together, not just for us or our child, but for everyone within Suzanne’s reach. This was about my family and my friends, and she had just declared war on all of them.
I used my phone to call him, but he wasn’t answering. Finally I left a message. “Dev. It’s Coralie. I’m on my way to the house in Brentwood. We need to talk. It’s important. Please,” I added.
Finally I turned off in Brentwood, where I finally pulled into the darkened drive of my former home. I eased out of my car and walked to the front door. I knocked for a moment. Rang the bell. There was no answer. I knocked some more, a little louder, a little more incessantly, until I heard a car pull into the loose gravel of the driveway.
I turned to see who it was, figuring that it was probably Devlin, but the dark sedan had deeply tinted windows. Two burly men got out on either side of the car, wearing similar dark suits and bald heads, making it impossible to make any distinguishing identification. I was reminded instantly of the goon who had been snooping around Caz’s house at the beach the day he left it.
I turned back to the door, ringing the doorbell and knocked even harder on the door, praying that Griselda might hear me if no one else, but it was clear that no one was at home. The second that the two men hit the porch I tried to sidestep them to dart to my car, but they were quick to grab me, each outweighing me by at least fifty pounds. I started screaming, which made one of the men throw a black cloth bag over my head. “Get her inside!” one said to the other.
The door broke open with only a minor bang before the two men dragged me into my entry way. “Shut the door, block it!”
One of the men released me, and the other lifted me up by the middle to carry me through the house. I struggled and screamed, kicking and flailing, but he was unstoppable until he reached where he wanted to go. I knew the minute he deposited me on the bed we had entered the master suite.
My captor practically wrenched my arm out of socket to pull it behind my back, tying me with rope that burned my skin as he wrapped it tightly around my arms. “You can’t make this one look like a suicide,” I hissed through the bag.
“Shut up!” he shouted as he pushed me face down on the bed.
The other man must have entered the room, because he directed the next comment to him. “Go through her purse.”
“If you want money, just take it!” I cried but he just pushed me down further onto the bed, his elbow jabbed into my back to keep me still.
“I told you to shut up!”
“I already got the stuff,” the other man said. “In her purse, just like we were told.”
“Good,” the other man said. “Now let’s have some fun.”
I panicked when I realized that he was kicking my legs apart. I screamed as I felt him raise up my skirt, which made him tell the other man, “Shut her up.”
I felt the drawstring on the bag tighten until I could barely breathe, which made me struggle even more. I thought I was d
one for when I felt him rip away my underwear, so I kicked and fought with everything I had left. I felt the other man turn me over onto my back, and with one devastating blow, the other man punched me right in the stomach.
Oh my God… oh my God…
I settled down at once, afraid that he’d do any more damage, afraid he’d already done too much. I heard him unzip his pants and he was in between my legs a second later. “Too bad for you, honey. I was told to make it hurt.”
Just as I braced myself for the unimaginable, I heard the voice I had come to love.
“Get the fuck off of her!”
“Take care of him!” the other man said, but it was too late. The man between my legs was ripped away from me before he could finish the sentence. The other man holding me grabbed me tighter as I heard the battle rage on around me, as objects broke and fist clashed against fist. I gasped for air, barely able to breathe. My assailant pulled me off the bed and backed us towards the patio door. I felt something warm trickle down my thigh. I thought about the punch to my abdomen. Tears poured down my face. I couldn’t lose this baby. I just couldn’t.
After a sickening crack, the room fell still. Dev turned his attention to the man who still held me. “You let her go.”
“Nah. I think we’re going to go for a swim. Now you stand back or I’ll snap her neck just like you did his.”
“Coralie,” Dev said. “Listen to me.”
“Shut up!” the man said as he held me closer.
“Baby, I need you to trust me,” he said, and I could tell he was closer.
“I told you to shut up. Back up before I kill her, I swear to God!”
“Fall limp,” Devlin instructed. I didn’t even think twice as I slumped in the man’s arms, just in time to hear the gun fire. I felt the bullet wiz past my ear before warm blood spilled out onto me as the man let me go.
Devlin was at my side in a second, pulling the bag off of my head. I gasped for air as he turned me over to untie me. “Baby, are you okay?”
I cried as I shook my head. “He hit me in the stomach, Dev. I’m bleeding.”
“Jesus,” he muttered as he helped me to my feet. I saw both men dead in our bedroom.
“You killed them,” I gasped.
“They were going to kill you,” he said simply, as if that explained it. He walked me to the bed, where he sat me down. He parted my legs, where a faint trickle of light red blood ran down my thigh towards my knee. “Oh my God,” he muttered. “We have to get you to the hospital,” he said. He reached for his phone.
“She’s going to use this to hurt you,” I told him and he nodded.
“I don’t care what she does to me, Coralie. I never did. But she hurt you, and I swear to Christ I’m going to kill her for this.”
“Don’t say that,” I interrupted. Now that I knew he actually could, the whole game had changed.
“She’s gotta pay, Coralie.”
“She will,” I promised. “They came for a couple of flash drives that I got from Aubrey and Caz. It’s proof about Harvey’s fetish for underage girls and her abortion. We can leak it to the press.”
He shook his head. “That’s not enough,” he said as he abandoned me to go through the pockets of our intruders, pulling out the aforementioned flash drives. His call connected. “Yes. My home was broken into by a pair of intruders. They attacked my wife,” he said as his eyes met mine. “She’s pregnant. We think she’s injured.” He paused while they asked him something. “They’re dead. I killed them in self-defense. I have security cameras,” he added as he motioned to the digital clock on my nightstand, and the extra smoke detector overhead. “Please hurry,” he said before he disconnected. He ran back over to me, where he landed on his knees beside the bed.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt?”
I shook my head. It throbbed from where he hit me, but I wasn’t cramping or anything more severe.
He pulled me into his arms. “Coralie,” he murmured as he held me close. “Do you know what I would do if anything ever happened to you?”
I shivered as I held onto him, the shock of the attack finally setting in. I wanted to tell him everything, but everything sort of crashed in on me at once. I blacked out before the ambulance arrived.
I finally came to in the hospital, where Dev curled around me, stroking my hair, watching me carefully as he waited for me to wake. He had done that so many times in our marriage that it was almost like going back in time. It took me a minute to figure out I was in a hospital. My eyes shot open as I realized what had happened.
“Dev!” I said and he shushed me.
“It’s okay. I’m here.”
The ultrasound technician entered the room. Devlin held my hand as she began the examination. When he heard our baby’s heart beating, his fingers clutched mine as he looked down at me with wonder in those glassy green eyes. I couldn’t stop the tears even if I wanted to, because hearing my baby’s heart beat was about the sweetest sound ever, and nothing was better than sharing it with his or her father.
With Devlin.
With my husband.
After a few minutes, taking photos and checking vitals, the technician turned us. “I’ll give the results to the doctor,” she said before she patted me on the knee. “She’ll be in to talk to you in a few minutes.”
I nodded as I watched her leave, then I turned to Devlin. He clutched my hand in his.
“I am so sorry, Coralie. This is all my fault. I never should have…,” he trailed off, because his list of perceived sins was endless. “I dragged you into this, thinking I could keep us safe. It wasn’t fair. I should have told you from the start, from that very first time in Las Vegas.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked softly.
A tear spilled from his eye as he looked at me. “I’m not a good man. Like I told you.” He brushed my hair from my face. “And you were so good. The best. All I wanted was the chance to deserve you. I should have known she’d never let me go.”
“It’s Darcy, isn’t it? That’s how she controls you.”
He let out an anguished, strangled breath. “I killed him, Coralie.”
“Who?”
“Harlen.”
My eyes widened as I listened. “I didn’t do the deed, but I might as well have. I was so pissed when I saw him in court, sitting there like all cleaned up in a brand new suit like he hadn’t done anything wrong. I told Suzanne that I just wanted him dead, and the next day he was. She told me that it had been a gift to me,” he spat. “I told her that I’d go to jail for it. I didn’t care. And that’s when she told me that her goons made it look like a suicide, but had hidden the smoking gun that pointed all evidence to Darcy. If I ever do anything against her, she’s going to frame my sister for our stepdad.”
“Dev,” I said as I squeezed his hand. “That’s the best thing she could have ever done. Darcy could have argued self-defense.”
“That’s what I said,” he muttered. “But Suzanne owns that fucking town and everyone in it. When she told me to ‘go right ahead’, I knew that was the last thing I could ever do. I’ve done enough to hurt my family, Coralie. It’s because of me that pig even touched her…,” he trailed off, unable to complete the sentence.
“So you threw yourself on the grenade,” I said.
He nodded. “I thought with everything happening with Harvey trying to win the election that I could just… slip away. And then I got your email. It was perfect timing. Marrying you was my ticket out. Until she found out about it. She cozied up to your dad and that was all it took. You were trapped in her web as much as I was. A long time ago, she made me a deal. Every single time I … entertained her… or was obedient… she’d give me a clue. She’s been feeding me crumbs for years, and I’ve been trying to piece it together for years, one fucking piece of the puzzle at a time.”
“Overture,” I concluded and he nodded.
“That was where she videoed our encounter the night I told her I wanted Harlen dead so bad I was willing to ki
ll him myself. In that suite in her hotel, just like every other encounter we ever had.”
“And if we use the flash drives, she’ll take you both down for ruining her.”
He nodded. “We need those videos, Coralie. They’re her trophies. Her one true weakness. Without them… she holds all the cards.”
The doctor knocked on the door before entering. She sat down beside us. “Everything looks good,” she said and I let out a relieved cry before I squeezed Devlin’s hand. “Would you like to know the sex?” I glanced at Devlin, who nodded. “It’s a girl.”
I held my hand to my face as I cried, and Devlin swept me up in a massive hug. The doctor left us alone. He leaned back to touch his hand along my slightly rounded tummy. “Chloe,” he murmured. He looked back up at me. “It doesn’t matter whose baby this is, Coralie. She’s yours, and I love her every bit as much as I love you. I’ll find a way to make this right for you both. I promise. No one is going to hurt either of you again.”
“Dev,” I said as I held his hand in mine. “She’s yours.”
Even my big strong alpha couldn’t stop a few tears as he took me into his arms. “Coralie,” he whispered.
I honestly didn’t know how we were going to get ourselves out of this pickle we were in, but I knew one thing.
Neither one of us were going to do it alone even one more day.
Devlin drove me back to my father’s estate after we were finally released from the hospital. He took me straight to Petit Paradis, where Caz promptly lost his shit when he saw what kind of shape I was in and realized what happened. For the first time he was the one who raged against Devlin, flying at him and pushing him up against the wall. “You sorry motherfucker! How the fuck could you let this happen?”
This time I pulled Caz back. “He saved my life, Caz.”
“He wouldn’t have had to save you if he hadn’t put you in jeopardy in the first fucking place!” He turned back to Dev. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Masters Forever (Masters #3) Page 27