71. Bay
SEVENTY-ONE
bay
You never listen.
Yep.
If there wasn’t anything more accurately said tonight, it’s that I don’t heed the warning signs, and I never read the whole lay-up on Ramsey Wildes.
Psycho.
Unhinged.
Demented.
And disturbed.
I’m also going to have to add rapist to the list if I don’t make this fucked up game Ramsey wants to play go quick.
With reluctance gushing through my veins, I ignore that too and pluck the gun from Ramsey’s palm, feeling another sense of dread coil tightly in my insides.
I might not make it out of here and save them.
“Sit in my brother’s lap,” Ramsey orders, not giving me a chance to move, so with whatever happens, Torin is front row, breathing in the fear and experiencing the blood splatter if I blow my own brains out.
“I’m a better shot standing up,” I retort, not immediately following his command when the ruckus of a bunch of stools captures my focus.
Ozzy is struggling against three guys, but there’s a fourth trying to work the zipper of his jeans and get them off.
This is ? —
“Don’t you want to be in my brother’s arms if you die?” Ramsey replies, as if he’s trying to be thoughtful in my last moment. “He’d catch you if you fall.”
Fuck you.
“How many bullets are in here?” I ask quickly, glancing at the silver revolver in my grasp.
“One.”
“I wanna see.”
Ramsey gestures patiently before glancing down at his watch. A body slides up next to mine.
It’s Passenger Prick and his plethora of tattoos I wish would poison him to death.
He takes the gun, pops the chamber, and spins it, then shows me the singular bullet residing inside. “Happy?”
“No,” I deadpan, feeling my pulse quicken as I count five chambers.
Four chances not to get shot.
“Sucks to be you, then,” he claims, spinning the chamber one more time before clicking it shut and handing it back over to me.
Taking the opportunity I have, I go to steal a glance at Ozzy, but then I see another body lying on the ground.
A small one next to the stools by the bar.
A furry one.
A fucking dog.
And it’s not moving.
I gasp for a shot of oxygen before a wave of nausea crashes into my gut and before I can wretch all the contents out, I hear Ozzy growl, “Fuck off me.”
Fuck off me.
Fuck off me.
Fuck off me.
Through blurred vision, I need Ozzy. But when I find him, he’s already in his own hell.
His black jeans are down his thighs, revealing black tattoos as he thrashes and kicks like a wild animal to keep the sick fucks at bay from violating him any further.
I’m helpless to help him because any normal plan I may have acted upon would only make it worse.
I kill Ramsey, they rape Ozzy.
They probably murder Torin.
I’m dead, but who cares at that point?
“Let’s start,” Ramsey drones through my inner turmoil and disgust before I hear Torin hiss. “Take a seat.”
“Don’t do this, Rams,” Torin says again, almost sluggishly, and I notice he’s having a hard time keeping his head up now.
“All will be over soon enough,” his brother claims, patting his head gingerly before taking his place behind Torin again. “Let’s do this, Miss Astor.”
“I got it!” a man shouts excitedly, earning the room’s attention as I find some sick prick waving Ozzy’s jeans around.
“Good,” Ramsey says stoically. “Get him warmed up for me.”
I point my gun at the motherfucker who’s still spinning my husband’s jeans around like he won a prized animal at a carnival and instantly get him to stop when he notices my aim. “You touch him, and I’ll fuckin’ murder you, bitch.”
“Haven,” Ramsey imparts evenly. “You use a chamber that’s not at your head, it counts in my favor.” I don’t answer him, and I don’t move, giving Ozzy the opportunity he needs to get back on his feet because he is almost vulnerable on the floor, but he’s still held by his captors. “If the chamber is empty when you pull the trigger, it counts toward me. Remove the gun, Haven.”
“My name isn’t Haven, motherfucker,” I grind out. “It’s Bay Astor. I’m not related to you, and I sure as fuck don’t recognize your father as mine.”
“Whatever,” Ramsey mutters. “Proceed, men.” They start at Ozzy again, and I pull on the hammer of the revolver in warning. “You use those bullets, you watch me fuck him. Then we start again. “
It takes everything in me to pull my attention off Ozzy and start this fucked-up game. Torin is sitting there with his head tucked into his chest again and something’s wrong.
“What did you give him?” I ask, settling back down in Pretty Boy’s lap, and crooking his head up with my free palm.
“Something to keep him calm,” Ramsey replies. “And immobile. Any sign of you and he’d fuck up my plans and get himself killed.”
Torin’s golden eyes connect with mine and I free-fall into the softness of them. “You okay, Pretty Boy?”
He blinks, but his eyelids appear heavy because it takes longer than usual for him to look at me clearly again. “I…love you, Wildfire,” he whispers softly. “I always…have.”
My heart clenches tight in my chest. “I know. Go to sleep.”
“Stay awake,” Ramsey orders. “Five minutes, Haven. Or we’re ending this game, and you’re going to enjoy the pre-show.”
A loud roar shoots through the room, sending a wave of goosebumps down my spine as I remember Ozzy fighting for his virtue.
Lifting the barrel of the gun to my temple, Torin’s sleepy haze immediately transforms into unadulterated fear.
“No—” he begins, but with the click of the trigger and the relieved exhale I take, one of my nine lives has been taken away.
And even I don’t know how many of those I have left.
The gun is taken from my grip as I see Ramsey do his thing from my peripheral, but all I can see or seem to want to focus on is Pretty Boy, because anything else is going to get me to not finish this game.
A click and nothing.
No crumbling body to the floor.
No blood flying our way.
Nothing.
Which means another round for me.
“Your turn.”
I grapple with the gun without looking at it, involuntarily brushing my fingers against Ramsey’s skin as I retrieve the gun back.
My voice and heart are in my throat as I bring the hot barrel to my flesh and flinch from the heat, I pull it away a bit since it doesn’t matter, it’ll still get the job done regardless of the distance.
Tears prick at my eyes, but I don’t focus on them. My brain heads to Dad, wiping his hands clean with a dirty rag as he smiles down at me.
“You’re somethin’, you know that?” he says, stepping away from his Nova. “I pray for the man who falls in love with you.”
“Why?” I shoot back, taking another bite of his sandwich because I told him half an hour ago to stop working and eat. “Because I’ll teach him a lesson when I make him lunch, it means eat it within a few minutes?”
“Patience, Bay,” he lightly chides. “I was in the middle of something.” He shakes his head and mutters loud enough for me to hear, “God help him, he’s going to have his hands full.”
“Levi handles me just fine.”
Dad glances over his shoulder at me with raised brows. “Handles you how?”
I know what he’s implying, but I don’t feed into it. “He hasn’t left me yet.”
“I don’t think you’d let him.” I lift my shoulders. “You thinkin’ about leavin’ your old man?”
My nose wrinkles. “For what?”
He smiles at me. “Just checking. I needed to know if I needed to get my gun out.”
“Dad…” I begin with a roll of my eyes. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need a dude in shining armor to do that.”
“It doesn’t make you weak.”
“You’re right. It makes me stupid.”
“You’re too much of an Astor, Bay. Stubborn as shit and tough as nails.”
I finger-gun him with a wink. “Bingo.”
My index finger flirts with the trigger, and that’s when I close my eyes, inhale, then yank.
Click.
“Wildfire…” You are so fucked right now. You don’t even know. “Please, stop…”
He knows I can’t, but the gun is taken from me anyway by the power-hungry dipshit crazy enough to play this fucked-up game and leave the universe to decide which one of us is going to die.
Click.
I exhale sharply, cracking my eyes open. Two more shots—one bullet.
Ramsey already has the gun reached out for me, and I can’t do this.
I can’t .
This is insanity at its finest, and I’ve been known to do some stupid shit, but I don’t keep pointing a loaded gun at my head in the process.
“Fuck, he’s tight,” one of the men groans in the room, and my stomach guts itself out, because…he means Oz.
Ozzy is…
On either instinct, morbid curiosity, or both, I begin to turn my head, but Torin’s light touch cups my cheek, silently prompting me not to look over.
My body convulses in shock, adrenaline, and trepidation because I don’t know what to do. I shoot the guy, Ramsey is going to run a train on my husband.
He’s going to make me watch.
He’s going to break Oz more than he’s already broken.
This next round means I’m either going to live or stop it.
Or Ramsey is going to continue with his fucked-up torture. Fuck his promise of letting them go, I don’t believe him.
What are the chances I can somehow…do what, exactly? You have one fucking bullet in this gun and several others in here with a whole clip.
You have to do this.
End it.
End it, and do what? If you die, Ozzy is still going to be raped and brutalized. You don’t, you might skip out, and Ramsey gets the bullet.
Lifting the gun, I inhale shakily, and I am terrified this is the end for me.
I never got to do all the things I wanted to do—and that was just to leave in peace with no threats or apprehension.
I wasn’t able to kiss Mae and Ellie goodbye, and now they’ll have to deal with another loss at such a young age. They won’t grow up with me at their sides. I was exactly what I always thought and that was a complete failure on my part.
And Levi…this is going to shatter him.
Reeve is going to go back to getting high.
Cairo is going to…fuck if I know. That man is so goddamn toxic. I don’t know if he’ll go on a full-blown killing spree or crawl into a hole and die.
“Wildfire…”
Fuck me, Pretty Boy.
I’ve loved and hated him forever. No one understands me the way he does. He lets my wild out and loves me for it. My petty rivals his, and I might want to beat the shit out of him half the time, but he’s mine and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.
I hadn’t realized until he calls my name that my eyes had closed, and when I open them, I find Torin staring up at me.
I’m either going to die in his arms, or his brother is going to pull some shady shit and finish the job.
“Don’t leave me,” he says, straining to hold himself together with glossy gold eyes. “Use that hard head of yours for once in my favor.”
“I love you, idiot,” I croak out with a choked sob. “You know what to do if things don’t go my way.”
“They have to,” he retorts as his fingers brush along my stomach and around my waist. “I can’t live without you.”
The sound of a grunt ricochets through the air, and I’m practically strained at the idea of Ozzy being assaulted.
Now or never, Astor. Help him.
The metal against my index fingers taunts me with life or death. It doesn’t give me any comfort or promise that it might save me.
The only thing I have is looking into Torin’s eyes while I possibly take my last breath on this Earth and hope he moves on without me.
For me.
“Be strong for me,” I mutter to him, clenching my eyes shut as I yank on the trigger before I can talk myself out of it and wait for whatever happens next.
I hear the click.
But I don’t believe I’m breathing.
Hard lips slam into mine before warmth spreads through my still operating veins, and it’s Torin’s mouth demanding my sole focus.
I’m quick to respond with a kiss of my own when the gun is ripped from my grasp, causing me to pry my lips off Torin’s.
“Fuck this ,” Ramsey spits out, lifting the weapon to his head, nostrils flared in fury, and I stare at him in utter shock that he’s going through with this shit.
That this stupid motherfucker is going to put the final bullet into his pea-sized brain.
I mean, do you, asshole.
But, of course, he’s a fink. A fucking liar .
He removes the revolver from his temple and directs it instead at the back of Torin’s head.
“ No ,” I bark out, cupping the back of Torin’s skull like it’s going to do anything. “He wasn’t involved. You called me out.”
“And we’ll have a re-do.” He reaches out, violently yanking on Torin’s hair and forcing his head back. “How ’bout it, little bro? You wanna take this bullet for me, or should I just take out this little bitch?”
“We’ve already had this conversation,” Pretty Boy deadpans.
Ramsey scoffs with a small shake of his head. “You’d really die for some stupid whore who spreads her legs to just anyone? You think you’re special?”
“I know I’m special. But you’re not man enough to take that shot, are you, bitch?”
Ramsey’s nostrils flare. “I’m man enough, just fine.”
He returns the weapon to his skull, and on bated breath, I hear it click.
Then nothing.
No blood splatter.
His head doesn’t pop like a balloon.
Ramsey just stands there—more alive than ever—and I’m so fucking confused.
“Damn,” I hear a familiar voice say from somewhere behind him. “Let me help you with that.”
Warm liquid suddenly sprays against my face when I hear two consecutive shots ring through the air, causing my eyes to clench closed.
Then silence.
Except for the intense ringing in my ears that has me stretching my jaw because…did I just see Ramsey go down?
Cracking an eye open, he’s gone.
Lifting another eye, Torin’s head isn’t back from being pulled backward by his brother.
“ No ,” I quickly gasp, carefully reaching for his dome and dragging him back to me.
His light gold eyes are open, and I stare back at him, absolutely terrified he’s—then he blinks.
Exhaling, I run the pads of my fingers along his skull. “Fuck, are you?—”
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
With each gunshot, I pull Torin’s face closer to mine, covering as much of his body as I can while I clench around him as a shield.
“McQueen…”
A broken exhale escapes my lips as I slowly pull away from Pretty Boy and find Reeve standing a few feet from where Ramsey existed.
He flexes his fingers, prompting my focus on the Glock in his palm and the perfect spot to end Ramsey himself.
“Damn. Let me help you with that.”
Reevie.
He fucking killed him. He saved his brothers.
He saved me.
“It’s okay, baby,” he says confidently, flicking his gaze over my shoulder. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
What would exactly happen to me?
A mixture of curiosity, dread, and awareness floods through me as I slowly turn around to take in the rest of the room.
How everything just stopped on a dime.
Ozzy is standing near the bar, tense and ready to throw down, not what I expected to see when I believed we were finally in the clear.
I continue to turn my body toward the rest of the room.
Passenger Prick.
The other mellow guy who forced me out of the basement with a gun.
Then a new body that’s stationed behind me.
Tall.
Lean.
Gingerbread-brown hair with golden eyes and boyish features.
My pulse decelerates as he fully comes into vivid memory.
My lips part as I force the reality to fully transform out loud for confirmation.
It’s hard.
Almost as hard as pulling the trigger on myself in a fucked-up game of Russian Roulette.
There’s absolutely no fucking way.
“Judah.”