Chapter 30
EVE
Everything about my life with the guys at Bluebell House was starting to feel like a fairy tale, but no moment highlighted that feeling quite like walking the red carpet at the Oscars with Brodie’s arm around my waist.
When he won Best Actor for his role as Blood Sentinel, I was so proud I nearly cried. Okay, sure, maybe a couple of happy tears leaked out of my eyes, but I was quick to dab them away before I ruined my makeup.
The last few weeks had been utter bliss.
The boys were in good spirits, my assignments were graded with an A-average, and the sex was out of this damn world good.
Sure, I wasn’t getting much sleep, and there was one stage where I needed to sit on an ice-pack for a couple hours to calm things down in the pants area.
But all in all…we were living our happily ever after.
More importantly than any of that, no one had tried to kill me again.
There had been a couple of slightly scary incidents with Brodie’s fans while we were shopping one day, and a false alarm involving Andrew at our local Chinese restaurant, but as far as my safety went?
It seemed like the danger was over. My dad hadn’t resurfaced, though, and that fact lingered in the back of my mind like a bad omen. Did he know something we didn’t?
“…and did you see the way she ate the hors d'oeuvres?”
I paused on my way to the after-party bar, my spine stiffening with intuition at the tone of voice that woman had been using.
It reeked of mean girl backstabbing. Brodie had been fully locked in on a conversation with a very famous movie director.
I’d offered to grab us both drinks, and now I had regrets.
“Oh my God, yes!” her friend cackled. “Like she’d never eaten in her whole freaking life. Except painfully obvious that isn’t true with how fat her ass is. I didn’t know Madame Gwenevere offered plus-size gowns.”
Oh good. Something told me the she they were bitching about was me.
“It must be some kind of PR stunt. Did you see the scar on her back? Firstly, gross. Why would you not get cosmetic surgery to cover that shit up? It clearly has to be like some sort of charitable date. Brodie’s manager is all about that kind of shit.”
Fantastic. I was just the charity case Brodie was forced to date. Nice to know.
A glance in the direction of the voices only served to hurt my feelings even more. One of the cackling women was none other than Brodie’s Blood Sentinel co-star, Kitty Rose, a woman he’d had multiple sex scenes, and had been nominated for Steamiest Kiss with, in a recent awards ceremony.
“Oh, it could be method acting for his next big role?” Kitty’s friend, a supermodel most famous for lingerie brands, pondered aloud after taking a gulp of champagne.
“Like what if his next project is a Cinderella-type thing and he wants to get a feel for dating a plain-faced commoner? A purple-haired plain-faced commoner. Ew, why purple? So tacky.”
Wow. That was a bit harsh. My hair wasn’t purple. It just had a violet wash through it.
Shaking my head, I changed direction toward the bathroom instead.
Their petty remarks had churned my stomach, and to be fair, it hurt my feelings.
Especially the mention of my scar, which was triggering in more ways than one.
I’d finally reached the point where I wasn't actively hiding it from the world, and these two bitches had torn that sliver of confidence to shreds.
I definitely needed a minute alone to pull myself together or I’d make an even bigger scene by crying. Except…the line for the ladies’ room was enormous. Of course it was.
“Miss, you can use the staff bathrooms if you’d like,” a passing waitress whispered when she saw me standing at the back of the line wringing my hands anxiously.
“Really?” I hesitated. The line ahead of me could take ages to get through, and my throat was already tight with unshed tears over how silly and out of place I felt.
What had I been thinking, trying to fit in with these honest-to-fuck celebrities?
I wasn’t a supermodel, or an actress, or a singer.
I was just…the girl whose life Brodie happened to save.
Right place, wrong time? Or something like that.
The waitress nodded and smiled warmly. “Of course, follow me.”
She led me past the line for the ladies’ room and around a corner, where we passed a pair of swinging double doors to the kitchen, with a waiter on his way out carrying fresh hors d’oeuvres, and my stomach twisted horribly. Had I gained that much weight since moving into Bluebell House?
“Here,” the waitress announced, gesturing to a door clearly marked with the restroom symbol, along with a staff only plaque below it. “All yours. And for what it’s worth, I think you and Brodie Keller look amazing together. Kitty is a jealous bitch who can’t handle rejection.”
With that heartfelt sentiment, she ushered me into the vacant bathroom and I quickly locked the door after myself. It was an accessible sized restroom and I was thankful for the fact that it wasn’t a block, where I might run into other staff who’d question me using their toilet.
“Fucking hell, this was a bad idea,” I whispered to my reflection, my hands gripping the edge of the sink with desperation as the actress’ nasty comments swirled through my head.
I couldn’t stop myself from turning slightly to inspect my own ass in the mirror, the gold dress hugging every curve.
Was it big? I didn’t think so, but…maybe I was wrong?
Someone knocked on the door, startling me out of my spiral into self-hatred for a moment.
“Just a minute!” I called out, already panicking that I’d be in trouble for using the staff toilet. But I was in here now, I might as well pee. With that in mind, I started the careful process of gathering up the fabric of my gown, until a slight noise jerked my attention back to the door.
Specifically, to the lock that I’d just locked.
“I said, just a minute!” I called out louder, wondering if it was a supervisor or someone, because the “occupied” was very slowly turning to “vacant” before my eyes. Shit, this was going to be embarrassing when they realized there was someone in here about to pee.
I dropped my skirts—not wanting to be caught with my fat ass hanging out—and started to the door to reiterate my point that the restroom was occupied, but before I could get there the lock flicked up and the door burst open.
A startled scream escaped me as a nondescript man in a suit rushed in and kicked the door shut behind himself as he reached for me. The room was spacious for a toilet, but not spacious enough for me to get away from a determined attacker.
“Stop!” I screamed in panic as he got a handful of my hair and jerked me toward him without a word. “Help! Someone!” Anyone…
His arm locked around my neck in exactly the position Connor had warned me about in several of our self-defense classes and all his techniques flew completely out of my head, chased away by my fear as I thrashed and kicked with desperation.
Holy shit. Is this it? Is this how it ends for me? All because I needed to pee at the Oscars after-party?
Surely not. Surely it wasn’t the end of my story to literally piss myself in a bespoke golden evening gown as some crazed seat-filler choked me to death.
And yet, no matter how hard I clawed at his arm, no matter how hard I thrashed, he didn’t let up.
My lungs burned with the need for air, and my vision started to go spotty and dark and then…
Then he let me go and I collapsed to the tiled floor in a crumpled heap, coughing and spluttering, frantically trying to draw oxygen into what felt like non-functioning lungs while my pulse thudded hard inside my head.
My vision blurred and the room swirled, but that thumping of my pulse was unshakable until my head cleared enough to realize it wasn’t my pulse at all.
It was Brodie. Beating the shit out of my attacker. With his Oscar.
“Brodie!” I exclaimed, scrambling to my knees. “Brodie, stop! He’s dead!” Because there was no way in hell anyone survived having half their skull caved in, or how much blood now splattered the marble tiles of the bathroom. Brodie’s white tux jacket was a goner too.
“Piece of shit,” Brodie grunted, kicking the corpse for good measure, before scowling down at the very bloody statue in his hand. “Fuck, this is going to be so hard to clean.”
I spluttered a shocked laugh, then instantly tightened up my pelvic floor. Somehow I’d managed not to pee myself while being strangled, but my bladder just stood up and demanded attention.
“This is really bad timing, but I need to pee. Can you—” I gestured to the door, and Brodie nodded swiftly, flicking the lock back to occupied once more.
“Go now, while we have a chance. I’ll call the guys.
” He politely turned his back toward me, and I quickly gathered up my bloodstained skirts and tried to ignore the fact my face was burning with embarrassment as I peed with Brodie standing just a few feet away.
It needed to be done though. If we were going to be running for our lives tonight, I couldn’t do it with a full bladder, and I’d rather him hear me pee than see me wet myself.
Talk about a turn off.
Brodie pinned his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he rinsed off his Oscar in the sink and shot me a wicked, somewhat unhinged grin when I flushed and crossed over to wash my hands.
“Got it,” he said, to whichever of the boys he had called.
“Right, then second left, then out to the alleyway. What’s the car’s plate number?
” He paused, waiting, and brushed a kiss over my forehead as I frantically soaped my hands.
I hadn’t been the one to kill the guy, but my hands were bloody nonetheless, in more ways than one.
“Understood,” Brodie grunted, drawing my attention in a way that made me realize I’d just zoned out.
Not good in current circumstances. I needed to keep my wits about me.
“She’s fine, I promise. I’ll give her a thorough head-to-toe inspection once we get to the hotel.
Not a single inch of Evie’s perfect body will go untouched, I swear.
” He chuckled at whatever the response was, and I rolled my eyes.
It was probably Andrew if he was winding him up like that.
Brodie ended the call, then slipped his phone into his pocket and grabbed me with a rough hand at the back of my head. He kissed me so hard, so intensely, that I almost forgot what’d just happened. How I’d nearly died.
“Later,” he whispered. Promised. Then he kissed me again in a way that made my core tighten and my pussy flood with heat.
Shit, he really knew how to push my buttons.
“Later,” he said again, laughing slightly.
“We have instructions to get to safety, and not a lot of time.” He tucked his wet and still slightly bloodstained Oscar into my hand and wrapped my fingers around it.
“Keep this safe for me, Evie babe. We’re going to need to run. ”
With that, he grabbed my hand in his strong grip and hauled me out of the bathroom with him.
Not waiting for the door to close behind us, he speed-walked down the corridor with me right beside him.
We took a left, then exited the building through a heavy fire-escape door, which spilled us out into a dirty alleyway lined with dumpsters.
At one end of the alley, a car flashed its headlights and Brodie paused a moment. He held his hand up to his eyes, squinting. “I can’t read the plate,” he murmured. “Be cautious until we’re sure it’s our guys.”
Another door burst open between us and the waiting car, a black tuxedo-clad man hurrying out and looking around frantically. His gaze snapped to us, and he audibly gasped…probably because Brodie was covered in blood and had just won Best Actor, so he was understandably recognizable.
“It’s just a fashion statement!” I quickly lied, gesturing to Brodie’s once white suit jacket. “Cutting edge design and an environmental commentary about…uh…the world?” Fuck, this was why I wasn’t an actress. That, and my fat ass.
“Evelyn!” the man choked out, shocking me enough that I physically recoiled.
He rushed toward us and Brodie pushed me behind him protectively.
The lighting in the alleyway wasn’t good, and the man had a dark beard covering the lower half of his face, but there was something unnervingly familiar about him. “Evie, baby, it’s me! Daddy!”
“What the fuck?” Brodie exclaimed, echoing my thoughts exactly.
Curiosity more than anything had me step out from behind Brodie, just enough to peer at the man claiming to be my Daddy. He sure as hell wasn’t Andrew, so he could only mean it in the biological sense, and…holy shit.
“Dad?” I croaked, taking a better look at the bearded man when he moved closer to us. I still brandished Brodie’s Oscar like the weapon it was, so he wasn’t rushing forward to hug me or anything silly like that. But…was that really my dad?
“Baby, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, holding his arms out to me, silently begging me to hug him. “I never wanted to put you in danger. This is all my fault.”
It was him. It was him.
“Yeah. It is all your fault,” I snapped, hot rage filling my chest. “I got shot because of you. People died because of you. I have been stalked, hunted, crashed into, terrorized, attacked…all because of you!”
My volume increased with every word and my father—Abraham—flinched as they landed with the intended effect.
“Evie,” he croaked, his expression stricken. “I came to warn you that you were in danger.”
“Too little, too late,” Brodie scoffed. “Where the fuck were you when Evie had a bullet in her back and needed emergency surgery? Where were you when they desperately needed Type-O blood to save her life? You sure as fuck weren’t sitting in the ER with an IV line, were you?
That was me, and she was a total stranger to me then.
The least you can do at this stage is explain why the hell you’ve put such a massive target on your innocent daughter’s back. ”
Abraham gaped at Brodie in shock, his gaze flicking to me with guilt and sorrow and regret. Before he could answer, shots started exploding all around us.
Brodie grabbed me firmly around the waist, hauling me along the alleyway with him at a dead sprint toward the waiting car.
Everything was a blur of motion, Brodie shoving me into the back seat and diving in after me; the screeching of tires before the door even shut, and the nonstop bang, bang, bang, of gunfire haunting us as we sped away from the scene of the crime. Literally.
So much for that happily-ever-after I thought we were living.