Chapter 50
LEX
Manhattan, New York
Getting really fucking impatient.
“Sweetheart, come sit down,” Cade says to Bella from the couch in the corner.
She’s still wrapped in Tattooed-Dragon-Dick’s shirt, the black fabric swallowing her small frame as she frantically paces in front of the waiting room door. Every second she’s been stuck in here, her eyes have stayed glued to that glass waiting on news of Zeke’s condition.
“I should be back there!” she yells as her feet finally skid to a halt. “I-I need to be back there.”
I’m up in a flash, grabbing our girl’s hands and yanking her focus before she spirals too far out of my reach. “Baby,” I mutter. I lift her trembling knuckles and press a kiss to her soft skin. “He’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that, Lex,” she snaps, her voice breaking on my name.
I fling my arms around her and pull her body into my chest. “Sabine is back there with him. If anyone can detect and counteract the poison that fuckstick, Ivan, hit him with, it’ll be her.”
She sighs, peering around me to stare at that damn door once more.
The moments after Tex and Laing carried Zeke out of that house were as chaotic as ever. Tex threw me the keys to his truck and yelled at me to go bring it up. I ran faster than I ever have down the streets of Ditmas Park just to get the damn thing.
They hurled Zeke’s sweat soaked body into the back seat before I even had a chance to put the truck in park. Bella didn’t waste a second before climbing in the back with her brother. Sabine too. Cade took the front seat, instantly on the phone with the hospital to let them know what was going on.
Bella held onto Zeke and tried to keep him as calm as possible on the drive.
It didn’t work. The guy was delirious. He kept saying that he was burning up and freezing at the same time.
Mumbling gibberish about some fuck and that we needed to catch him.
That we needed to catch them both, whoever they are.
Not really sure because the guy wasn’t making any sense at all.
He kept rotating between names and locations and apologizing to Bella’s aunt.
And Claire’s been dead for years.
When Zeke’s eyes fluttered closed and his breathing slowed to practically nothing, Bella screamed at me to drive faster so loud my eardrums had to have been bleeding. I hauled ass to the hospital, running every red light in the process.
Hospital personnel swarmed us the second we arrived. But no matter how hard the nurses tried to reason with her, Bella wouldn’t let Zeke go. She was glued to him.
They said they were only going to allow one of us to go back with him. And despite the cruelty of it, we all knew Sabine was the right choice.
So I signaled Cade.
He wrapped his arms around our girl’s waist, and I moved in, yanking her hands from Zeke’s clothes. She lashed out at me and smacked the shit out of my face. The sting was immediate, but we didn’t let her go. I knew it wasn’t meant for me. It was just the only way she knew how to scream.
“Just come sit back down, baby,” I say, guiding her to the couch next to Cade.
She nods and plops down, throwing her legs over Cade’s as she leans back into me.
A few moments pass before my phone rings. I fish it out from my pocket and glance at the name.
O’MALLEY.
“Put it on speaker please,” Bella says, shifting her hips to try and find a semi-livable position on this cheap-ass brick this place calls a couch. It’s uncomfortable as fuck and feels like it was stuffed with gravel.
“Hey Mac,” I say, wincing when Bella sits up and her elbow digs into my thigh. My muscles are already on edge and the contact stings like a bitch.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
I shake my head, pulling her closer to kiss her temple. I don’t care about the bruise.
“You’re on speaker,” I say, leaning toward the phone.
“We’re almost done here,” O’Malley starts.
There’s a shuffle in the background followed by a low grunt and a loud thud that echoes through the speaker. “That’s the last of them,” Khoza’s deep voice sounds, muffled as if he’s a few feet away. “Is B sure Ivan was here?”
“Hey boss, Koz wants to—”
“Yes, Mac,” Bella cuts him off, snatching the phone from my hand. “It’s a long and crazy story but Ivan was definitely there.”
O’Malley scoffs. “Well he’s not anymore.”
“Damn,” she whispers, her grip tightening on my phone.
“And what do you want us to do with these bleeding bodies?” O’Malley asks, sounding more bored than bothered by the corpses piled at his feet. “Please tell me I can finally have some fun, yeah?”
Bella glances over at me. Her eyes narrow and her grin grows into something I haven’t seen since she lit Vince’s ass on fire.
“Upstairs in the main bedroom,” she explains, her voice dripping into a dangerous tone. “You’ll find three brand new purses near the vanity. Two of them are still in dark red boxes.”
“Purses?” O’Malley asks. I can practically hear the dude scratching at his fiery locks through the line. “You want me to bring ‘em to you? Looking for a bit of shopping in the middle of a massacre are we?”
“Fuck no,” she grits out, a cruel laugh breaking through. “I want you to lay them on top of my uncle’s disgusting body and use them to burn the house to the ground.”
Cade’s eyes widen. But he smiles, shaking his head through his own laughter.
“That’s our girl,” I say with a massive amount of pride.
“As you wish,” O’Malley chuckles. “We’ll get it done.”
The waiting room door slams open hard enough to rattle the glass.
Every head jerks toward sound.
“BELLA!”
Ellie’s voice cracks first. Haley’s follows a heartbeat later.
Bella freezes beside me, and for one stunned second, none of us move.
Then, Bella lets out a broken sound and takes off.
She reaches Ellie first, damn near tackling her best friend into the nearest row of chairs.
Haley crashes into them a second later. Suddenly, all three girls are wrapped around each other in a tangled mess of tears, shaking shoulders, and desperate hugs.
“Oh my God,” Ellie sobs, clutching Bella’s face between her hands. “Oh my God, you’re really here.”
Bella laughs and cries at the same time. “I’m here,” she whispers.
Haley pulls her into another crushing hug. “Never do that again.”
“Get kidnapped by my psycho uncle?” Bella barks out a watery laugh. “I’ll do my best, Hales.”
That only makes the girls cry harder.
I end the call with O’Malley and slip my phone into my pocket. Cade moves beside me, his shoulder brushing mine as we watch the three of them collapse onto the floor together.
Bella looks up from the girls at the three cowboys towering over them. A wall of broad shoulders, denim, and boots. “Thank you,” she says, eyeing each of their golden-brown stares in turn. “For everything.”
“Don’t mention it, B,” Briggs says, kneeling down and placing a hand on Ellie’s shoulder. He presses a kiss to her blonde curls. “Had to get El’s best friend back.”
“Uh huh,” Bella says, smirking. She waves a hand between the two of them. “I need to know how this happened.”
“It’s a really cute story,” Haley chuckles, pushing up to her feet.
“Oh!” Ellie beams, leaning back and eyeing the backwards ball cap cowboy. “Brett hand me that bag.”
Brett’s boots thud on the floor as he steps up and drops a pink duffel. “Here ya go, Buttercup.”
“Buttercup?” I ask, my brow pinched as Haley shoves herself between me and Cade. “What does butter—”
“Don’t get him started,” Ellie groans. “Trust me.”
Bella’s fingers brush the bag. “What is this?”
“Necessities.” Ellie unzips the duffel, revealing a fresh change of clothes, makeup, soaps, and Bella’s favorite cherry-vanilla shampoo and conditioner. “Figured you’d want to erase every bit of that house from you ASAP.”
???
Our girl emerges from the shower in a fresh pair of leggings and a Trifecta crop that Ellie brought her. She looks small, but she looks like mine again.
Like ours.
“Feel better?” I rasp into her neck, holding her flush against me. I inhale that cherry-vanilla scent, a smell I will never fucking take for granted again.
Ever.
“Much,” she breathes, pulling back just enough to look me in the eyes. “Baby, I need a favor.”
“Anything,” I say, my curiosity piqued. I’m already running through a list of possible people she’s about to have me kill, but the look in her eyes tells me this isn’t about blood.
Not yet anyway.
Her eyes drop. “I saw him in the shower.”
The last ounce of softness drains from my face as the rage bubbles back up. “He’s gone,” I whisper, every muscle in my body locking.
“I know he’s gone. I know you—” She stops herself, swallowing hard before continuing. “But every time I close my eyes, he’s there.”
Fuck.
Her fingers fist in my shirt. “I can still hear his voice in my head. Feel his breath against my neck.”
My hands immediately find her cheeks. “He’s gone, baby,” I repeat because it’s all I can fucking force out.
“I know.” Tears well in her eyes. She sucks in a shaky breath. “But I can still smell his roses.”
My stomach twists.
“I can still feel him, Lex,” she whispers.
Her confession nearly knocks the air out of my lungs. Because that’s one thing I can’t shoot. One thing I can’t stab.
I can’t beat a memory to death. No matter how hard I’d fucking try.
“Hey.” I gently force her eyes back to mine. “Look at me, malyshka.”
She does.
“I just wish I could forget,” she whispers. “Him. That house. All of it.”
The words rip something open inside me.
“It’s only been a few hours,” I murmur, resting my forehead against hers. “In time, you will. We’ll make sure of it.”
Cade walks up and wraps her up from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head. “You’ll never be alone again, sweetheart.”
A tear slips down her cheek. “I know,” she sniffles as she leans her head back against Cade’s chest.
“No, baby.” My thumb wipes it away. “We mean it. Every memory. Every nightmare. Every single time that fuck creeps into this beautiful head of yours.”
We both tighten our holds on her.
“You give it to us,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Then to her nose. Then her lips. “Cade and I’ll replace every single one.”
“Every single one?” she asks, her voice shaking slightly.
Cade and I nod.
“Every touch,” I murmur.
I bring her knuckles up to my lips and press a kiss gently over them.
“Every smell.”
Another kiss to her nose.
“Every thought.”
I finish with a kiss to her forehead before resting mine against hers. “And eventually when you think about that house…” I wrap my arms around her waist. “…you won’t think about him any more.”
Her bottom lip trembles.
“You’ll think about coming home.”
“I just—”
The waiting room door slams back open. I swear to God the universe has a personal vendetta against us finishing a fucking conversation anymore.
Sabine doesn’t even check the corners of the room when she walks in. Her guard is completely down. Hell, it’s nonexistent. She’s blinking in slow motion. Her eyelids drag every time they close. From the way her body’s swaying, I can tell she’s running on fumes and stubbornness.
And yet she has the balls to call me the stubborn fool.
“He’s awake, chérie.”
Bella’s hands drop from my shirt instantly. The haze of our moment shatters as she spins toward the door.
“Take me to him.”