I wasn’t letting her go.
I brushed her thick hair back. Jesus. The blood. There was so much of it. I could barely recognize her, her face was so messed up.
I held her, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Squeezing my eyes closed, nostrils flaring as I sucked in a ragged breath, the night air doing nothing to cool my blood. My head felt like it was going to fucking explode. I’d fucked up. I’d let my emotions cloud my judgment—now and then.
The Lulu I knew, the woman I’d loved, the same Lulu who I’d chained to a fucking bathroom sink, would have never betrayed me, not willingly. I’d been so goddamn angry, felt so utterly helpless, I couldn’t see past the red rage clouding the truth.
Lulu hadn’t let me go down willingly. Hadn’t left me willingly.
I should have known she’d never do that to me.
I’d been force-fed Pierce’s bullshit, what he wanted me to believe, and I had. I’d believed all of it.
Fuck.
The ambulance finally arrived and people tried to take her away from me, tried to take her out of my arms. I ignored them and kept moving. I wasn’t letting her go, not ever again.
“Hunt, brother, you gotta hand her over. Let them treat her.” Van’s hand came down on my shoulder, squeezing.
I shook him off. “I’m coming,” I said to the medic and climbed into the back of the ambulance, laying her carefully on the stretcher so they could get to work on her. Then I took her hand in mine. Shit, so cold. “Save her. Don’t let her . . . just fucking save her.”
“Are you family?” One of them asked as he moved to pull the doors closed.
I shook my head. “More.”
Then I did something I hadn’t done since I was a little kid, hiding under my bed while my old man beat the shit out of my mother. I prayed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lulu
Something warm covered my hand. It felt good to be warm again. I let it surround me, soak into me, and I drifted back to sleep.
When I woke next, it was to the sound of voices, murmuring, deep voices, and the heat that had covered my right hand was gone. I missed it. The voices stopped. It was quiet again. I tried to open my eyes, but they still felt kind of heavy, so I stopped trying and sunk back, letting myself drift away again.
The warmth was back the next time I woke. Something was stroking my wrist. It felt nice, really nice. The heavy weight of sleep wasn’t so heavy this time. I dragged my lids open, blinking several times, and took in my surroundings.
I was in a smallish room, the walls pale blue, a vertical blind covering the window. A beeping sound that had seemed distant grew louder. I tried to move, but I couldn’t, I was stiff and sore.
I knew where I was. A hospital.
That’s when it came flooding back, hard and fast. Everything that had happened. Pierce . . . what he’d tried to do to me.
The hairs on my arms lifted. I jerked my head to the left. A bag full of liquid hung on a stand beside the bed. A tube came out from the bottom, the other end fed under the skin of my hand, attached with white tape. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get to Josh. I reached down to tear it out.
“Don’t.”
That rough, low voice moved right through me, twisted in my chest, curled warmly in my belly. I froze, and the gentle stroking started up again, brushing the inside of my right wrist. Or had it been there the whole time? My mind was still too hazy to remember. The goose bumps on my arms turned to pleasant tingles.
I knew who it was sitting beside me. I’d always known.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. So I dipped my head, eyes focused on my right hand instead.
It looked small, pale. The hand surrounding it was big, tanned, with long wide fingers. Tattoos. Lots of tattoos.
I stared down at them, and tried to make sense of it. My mind was coming up blank. Why would Hunter hold my hand? Why was Hunter even here?
I sucked in a panicked breath and tried to yank it away, but those long, thick fingers tightened, refusing to let me go.
“Look at me, baby.”
The heat curling in my belly intensified, but I shook my head.
“You’re killing me here, Lulu.” His other hand slid under my chin, and he tipped my face back gently, making me look at him. With his other hand, he brushed my hair away from my face.
Oh God.
He was back. My Hunter.
“I know,” he rasped. “Baby, I know.”
My eyes stung. At his words, they filled and overflowed, tears running down my cheeks. I shook my head again. “You don’t.”
“I do.”
He thought he did, but he didn’t. I remembered now, what I’d told him when he found me, but I hadn’t told him all of it. “It’s too late,” I whispered.
He gripped my chin between his thumb and finger, blue eyes locked on me, and shook his head. “It’s not. I won’t let it.” Then he leaned in and brushed his lips over mine, so gentle it was just a whisper of a touch, but he lingered, our breath mingling.
I blamed the pain medication they must have given me for my sluggish reactions, and why it took me a few seconds to wake the hell up and put a stop to it. “Please don’t,” I groaned.
“I fucked up, Lulu. I know I fucked up,” he said against my lips.
I pulled back and winced, pain throbbing through my skull. “You were going to hand me over for money. You were just going to give me to a man who has lived the majority of his life doing the shit he does, and you weren’t going to look back.” It hurt to speak, everywhere hurt, but I had to get it out. “You know why I did what I did. And I’m glad you do. I wanted to tell you every day for the last three years. But I don’t know you, not anymore. And you don’t know me.”
His hand squeezed mine. “You were bait.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Bait. I was never gonna hand you over. Once I drew Pierce out, I was cutting you free. But you freaked out, and I lost control of the situation.” He was breathing heavily. I could tell he was trying to rein his emotions in. “But, baby, I was never gonna to hand you over to that fucker.”
I shook my head again, not wanting to hear it, not wanting to believe it. Believing it made everything harder, more complicated. “No. No, you were going to . . .” He kept talking right over me.
“Now I know why you did what you did. And, Lulu, I’m not cutting you lose.” His eyes shone with a fierceness that made my heart flip around in my chest. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
No. I didn’t. Not at all. Did he think we could just brush three years of resentment and anger under the carpet and move on? I didn’t know if I could do that. I knew he couldn’t. No matter what he thought now. Yes, I loved him. I always would. But I realized, when we pulled up outside that abandoned lot and saw Pierce’s man there to take me away, how goddamn angry I was, about all of it.
I bit my lip and winced, tasting blood. Hunter growled like a slightly crazed, highly pissed-off wild animal.
“Fuck,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “I’m gonna find that fucker and end him. I promise you that.”
I shivered, all the warmth draining from me, along with what little energy I had left. He wasn’t the Hunter I once knew. He was a hell of a lot more dangerous. I didn’t know how he made his money. Aunt Sara said they were P.I.’s, but I didn’t know if that was true or not. What I did know was they carried weapons, had ways of contacting criminals like Pierce. And whether I was bait or not, they had obviously been in similar situations before. Scary, dangerous situations that could end with people losing their lives.
Hunter came from the world I wanted to escape. Had been in that world his whole life. He’d worked for Pierce once, had crossed that line. Maybe he was one of the good guys, maybe he’d left that part of his life behind. I didn’t know for sure, but he was still in that world. I didn’t want that for me, and I didn’t want that for my son. “I can’t deal with this.”
“You don’t have to deal. I�
�m gonna deal for both of us.”
I didn’t want to talk about us either. “I stuck a pen in his cheek,” I blurted. I don’t know where it came from, or why I said it. It just kind of poured out of me, like I was purging it. I had no room inside me for it. I had too many nightmares already; I didn’t need this as well.
Hunter was silent several beats. “What did you say?”
“Pierce, he had me on the floor, he’d pulled off my tights. I had his pen. I hid it. I grabbed his hair, held him steady, and shoved it in his face,” I shuddered. “That’s how I got away. I shoved a pen in his face.” The more I said it, the more I started to freak out. I started to breathe erratically, panic making it hard to draw a deep enough breath. “I wasn’t going to let him rape me. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.”
Not again. Never again. The words thundered through my head, and for a moment I worried I’d screamed them out loud.
Hunter exhaled roughly. “Thank fuck,” he rasped, hand tightening around mine. “Thank fuck, baby . . . I thought . . .” He ran his thumb over my cheek. “You did good. You did real good.”
It was too much, having him here, treating me like I mattered, like nothing had happened. There were questions behind his eyes, about Pierce, about what happened, questions I wasn’t ready to answer. “Let go,” I whispered. I tried to shove him away, but my arms felt like spaghetti.
He ignored my pitiful attempts to push him away, those big, warm hands moving over me, giving me comfort. And it was working. It felt good, so damn good. That just made me freak out more. I didn’t want his comfort. I couldn’t afford to believe in him. “Let me go,” I said again.
“Lulu . . .”
“Let me the hell go,” I shrieked.
He did, instantly. But those beautiful blue eyes stayed fixed on me, searching my expression. I don’t know what he saw, but it made him curse repeatedly.
The door opened and the nurse walked in. “The police want to speak with you, honey, but they’ve agreed to let you have some visitors first.”
I didn’t have a chance to reply before the door was pushed wider and Van walked in. His gaze landed on me, scanned me from head to toe, then swung to Hunter. The look he gave his brother was intense, communicating something I had no hope of understanding. Hunter’s big body stiffened in his seat a second before I spotted movement behind Van . . .
Sara walked in.
Her eyes were round with fear and worry. She had Josh cradled in her arms.
Oh God.
Hunter
My eyes swung from my brother, to the door, then to Sara walking in behind him.
She was carrying a little boy.
I looked back at Lulu, at the warmth, the softness transforming her eyes when she saw him, at the way her lower lip quivered as she attempted to smile, lifting her arms out to him.
The way she refused to look at me.
Van moved in beside me.
What the fuck was going on?
“Mama’s okay,” Lulu whispered. “It’s okay, baby. I’m okay.”
Everything inside me seized, locked solid.
Mama?
I watched in stunned silence as Sara brought the child over to Lulu. Both women had tears running down their faces.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Sara said.
Lulu squeezed her hand. “Thank you for keeping him safe.”
Sara kissed Lulu’s forehead and placed the boy carefully on her niece’s lap, his little legs surrounding Lulu’s waist. Lulu leaned in, burying her nose in his dark hair, breathing him in. “It’s okay, Josh,” she said softly. “It’s okay now.”
I started at the pair of them, my brain still struggling to comprehend what the fuck I was seeing, what this was. Then Van’s hand squeezed my shoulder. I turned to my brother. As soon as his eyes met mine, it hit me all at once, like a motherfucking hurricane, destroying everything in its path. Washing away everything, leaving only the truth.
Lulu had a son.
A son with dark hair and bright blue eyes.
A little boy that looked like me.
Josh wasn’t her son—he was our son.
My gut twisted. I had to lock my fucking knees so I didn’t go down.
I turned back to them, watching as Josh leaned back, lifting a chubby little hand to Lulu’s cheek. “Mommy. Owie.”
Lulu blinked rapidly. “Yeah, baby, Mommy has an owie.”
His little face brightened. “Kiss.” He leaned in and planted a wet kiss to his mother’s bruised cheek.
“Did you kiss Mommy better?” she whispered.
Josh nodded his head, his dark curls bobbing, then he leaned in, resting his head on her chest and popped his thumb in his mouth. Lulu brushed her hand over his hair, kissing him again.
“Lulu?” Her name was torn from my throat. My voice was guttural, question and demand combined.
She still wouldn’t look at me. “Not now,” she whispered.
I was breathing heavily, so many emotions firing through me. My hand dropped to the bed, not touching them, but resting beside Lulu’s hip, a centimeter from Josh’s leg.
Mine.
The word roared through my head.
They were mine, both of them, and because of Pierce, I’d been forced to give them up. I’d been without my woman for three fucking years. Didn’t even know I had a son.
Rage exploded though like a gale force wind, and my fingers curled into a tight fist. Pierce would pay with his life for that. I let my hand drop away. I needed to get the hell out of here, before I lost my shit, before I scared them both.
Turning, I walked out and kept on walking.
“Hunt, wait up.” Van’s voice echoed down the hall after me.
I spun to face him. “You knew?”
He shook his head. “I only found out when Sara called the office about Lulu. She thought Lulu told you while we had her locked down.”
I gritted my teeth. “You should have told me.”
“There wasn’t any time. I thought she’d tell you when she woke. I sure as hell didn’t expect you to find out like that.”
I started back down the hall.
“Where are you going?”
“I need some air.” I kept on going until I was outside, sucking in oxygen, my head spinning.
I tilted my head back, the sun beating down on my face. For a moment, the anger subsided and I let the emotion trying to fight its way through, loose. An emotion I was almost too afraid to believe in, but couldn’t contain another moment.
Joy.
Despite everything that had happened, despite all the pain and lies and heartbreak, it built and grew, took root.
For a long time, too long, I’d felt like I was standing in a storm, clouds so black and low and heavy I could barely see my own hand in front of my face. For the first time in three years, the clouds were parting and the light, the warmth was breaking though.
I had my Lulu back.
And there was a little boy back in that hospital room with my eyes.
The man who carried the title of father in my life had been an abusive asshole. He’d hated me from the minute he found out I was in my mother’s womb. The man who planted me there, even worse, a monster in the shadows, no face to put to the pain and agony he inflicted on my family.
I’d carried that anger and hate inside me all my life, had never known what it was to truly be loved until I found Lulu. Then I’d lost her and all that anger had returned, along with a need for revenge that consumed me, became part of me.
But that anger that I’d lived buried under, it didn’t come close to how I felt about Lulu . . . or that little boy.
To be what they needed. To be what my own father never was.
It was so much bigger.
Lulu
I woke when Van stood and opened the door.
After Hunter walked out earlier, I spent time with Sara and Josh, trying not to think about what would happen next, the conversation I was going to have to have with him.
> Van had followed Hunter, but returned a short time later and stayed.
He stayed while the police questioned me. He remained when my aunt and son left. He also didn’t say a word. Hunter’s older brother was an intimidating guy. Just as tall as Hunter, the same striking blue eyes and dark hair, but his skin was darker, his coloring obviously from their Hispanic father. I’d never met the man, and I was glad of it. But I’d seen photos. Even in his pictures, he’d exuded an unyielding hardness and a cruelty that caused a prickling unease just looking at them. Van and Hunter both had that same hard exterior, whether inherited or due to the tough lives they’d led, I didn’t know.
But neither one of the King boys was cruel. Their father hadn’t passed that on. I didn’t know what Van was thinking, but whatever it was, he kept it to himself. The whole time, he sat silently in that corner, texting, making phone calls, going about his business.
I hadn’t been able to summon up the courage to look at him. I faked sleep for the last hour.
If I looked at him, maybe I’d see exactly what he thought about me. Right then I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t want it.
I heard him approach the bed, standing there for few moments. Making sure I was asleep? I’d obviously fooled him, because finally he left, the door clicking shut behind him.
I had no idea what time it was, but the blinds were open and it was dark outside. Jude, a big guy who also worked at Hunter’s agency, had shown up when it was still light to take my aunt and Josh home, promising me he’d keep them safe. The guy was huge, and extremely intense, and I believed him. I trusted him immediately. That was rare for me—these days I trusted no one. He picked up my son and cradled him in his big arms in a way that told me it wasn’t the first time he held a child. He’d placed his hand on Sara’s shoulder and, after telling me he’d bring them back to visit the next day, steered her out the door.
I didn’t understand fully what was happening, but for now, it seemed the men from the King Agency were taking care of my family and me. I wasn’t stupid enough to turn that down, no matter how uncomfortable it made me.
Yes, I was lying in a hospital bed, my body battered and bruised, but for the first time in a long time, I was safe. Van had stayed, guarding me, so I remained that way.
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