Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BELLAMY
“Lady! Come here right this moment!” I shouted, even as the dog ran with all her might to the wild overgrown bushes at the far side of the property. I’d never ventured over this far, never felt comfortable enough to. But as I got closer, a few things stuck out to me.
It wasn’t just overgrown bushes. It appeared to once have been an overgrown garden. The bushes were a border, some type of fencing that towered over me, and through a hole in the bushes, I saw just enough to note a stone fountain overgrown with vines. What happened to this once beautiful garden that it had gotten this bad?
“Bellamy?” Mercer’s voice startled me, as he called me from a distance, searching me out.
“Damn it, Lady. You’re going to get us in trouble. Where are you?” I looked over my shoulder at Max and Drew, who followed me, but had been respectful enough to keep a distance.
The dog barked, and I turned to the left, following the sound of her. The grass was high. Who knew the last time it was trimmed. But I trudged along, praying I didn’t step on a snake. “Lady!”
Another bark, and I turned around the bush structure, only to find an iron door, with Lady scratching at it. My fingers reached up, touching the latch, the metal cool against my skin.
“Bellamy.”
I jumped, spinning around to meet the gaze of Mercer.
“It’s dangerous over here. Nothing has been kept up in years.”
“I was trying to get Lady,” I offered, knowing that getting Lady may have been my priority, but curiosity was close on its tail.
“Adam would like to speak with you.” He reached up, rubbing a dried leaf between his fingers, deep in thought for a moment.
“Is something wrong?”
His eyes looked over at me sadly, his gaze lingering on my stomach for a moment too long. “Everything is fine now.” He sighed and dropped his hand from the leaf. “I’ll get Lady and meet you in Adam’s office.”
He stepped past me, whistling for the dog, who had run off the moment she saw her owner, trying to play hide and seek in the brush. I waited until he was out of sight before I walked toward the house, dread pooling in my stomach. After the appointment, Adam seemed to avoid everything but the most basic of contact with me. It was unnerving how this man could be hot one moment, cold the next.
He refuses to look at me while putting my sonogram photos on the fridge.
He works late, while ensuring I’m taken care of for anything I need and more.
He avoids me, while leaving me flowers.
And it’s so fucking much for my emotions to handle, too much for me to hope that he cares for me, when one second, he gives the illusion of affection and the next, he loathes my existence.
My feet were heavy as I stepped onto the stone steps outside. Each drag of my feet upward felt like lead was pulling me down. I didn’t want to be in his office alone with him. But I was curious. I’d never been to the west wing, never been invited to such a private part of him.
I’d explored everywhere but there, feeling like it was an invasion of privacy. Especially since Mercer had told me not to go there directly. Upstairs were only rooms with locked doors and offices for Mercer and Ace. Downstairs were the living quarters, kitchen, dining room, and what seemed like a million spaces with every sort of comfortable chair you’d imagine. But the west wing remained a mystery.
Luckily, my worry was for nothing because when I entered the house, Adam was coming out of the hallway. His face was unreadable. A product of some sort of turmoil he was feeling, yet for the first time, while he silently stared, I really allowed myself to look at him.
He was tall, but then again, all of them were. His sandy hair was past due for a haircut, but I didn’t think he cared. I didn’t think there was much a man like him cared about. His hazel eyes, more brown than any shade of green, screamed with words he wanted to say, but he kept himself in check, his body tense as he refused to break eye contact. Once I had thought he was grotesque, but that wasn’t right at all. No, he was classically handsome at one time, that, I was sure. The type of face that would have all the girls flirting and smiling, fluttering their lashes with lust. Now, with his marred skin and scars, I didn’t think he is any less handsome than what I imagined he used to be, just… different.
Max coughed somewhere to our side, and Adam’s head turned toward him, gifting me with his flawless side profile, and I swallowed hard at just how handsome my husband was. Was I growing attracted to the man, the beast, the wild soul that shifted and paced just under the surface, issuing orders and treating me with such hot and cold intensities I didn’t know how to react?
“Leave us,” he ordered his men and, without hesitation, the men turned and walked away, opening the door to allow Mercer inside before shutting it behind them.
Mercer let the puppy down on the floor and she ran toward me, happy to see me again. I pushed back against the uncomfortable feeling of attraction to my husband and opted to bend down, peppering kisses on the pup's head as she jumped happily.
“Train her,” Adam demanded as the dog acted wild.
“I could say the same.” Mercer laughed, but Adam didn’t find it funny. Instead, Mercer sighed before scooping up the dog. “I’m working on it.”
He carried Lady toward the hallway, and I knew he was putting her into his room. When Mercer was out of view, Adam turned his attention back toward me. “Take a seat.”
Nervous energy flooded me, and as I sat, I strategically placed my palms under my thighs to hide the slight tremor that had taken over my body. When he was silent, staring at me with no sign of what this was about, I spoke, unable to handle the silence, needing to fill the room with something. “I was wondering, well, I didn’t wonder until today but, if it’s possible, you can say no, of course…”
“Say it, Belle,” he groaned.
“Your property?—"
“Our,” he cut in.
I gnawed on my lip awkwardly. Did ours include me? Or was he only referring to the joint ownership with Mercer and Ace? I went with the safest form. “The property is overgrown.”
“I had seen little reason for an upkeep when there wasn’t anyone here to enjoy it,” he admitted.
“Can I, if it’s alright, work on the garden?”
He did what I assume was his equivalent to rolling his eyes. “Will it make you happy?”
“Very much so.” I always wanted to garden, but my father wouldn’t let me leave the house most days, even if it was on our property.
“Then do what you wish. Make a list of what needs to be done and we can hire someone. Write down tools and equipment you need for whatever it is you’d like to partake in.” He finally sat, close enough to me that if he leaned over just a few inches, I’d be able to feel his body heat. That thought made my stomach suddenly burn with a feeling I wasn’t too familiar with.
Before I let myself dwell too much on the feelings his closeness invoked, Mercer strolled into the room, carrying a laptop, and sat next to me. They had some sort of silent conversation, using only their eyes before Adam turned to me and spoke.
“Were you a virgin before getting pregnant?”
“Excuse me?” If I had been drinking anything, I’d have choked. As it was, I barely survived the sharp intake of breath without coughing.
“Were you a virgin, Belle?”
“I don’t think that’s important to this relationship we have.” My face felt like fire, and I knew it would be red if I looked in a mirror.
Adam sighed, “Please. For my sanity, humor me and answer the question.” When I still didn’t speak, his voice grew louder, the tone so harsh that I jumped as he growled, “Answer me.”
It was in that moment that I knew my husband held his control tight. He was a man, clearly. But under the skin, I wondered what type of feral animal lurked, waiting to be unleashed. Was this where the rumors stemmed from? The hushed whispers I heard at night while eavesdropping on my father’s meetings.
The beasts must be eliminated.
The beasts made a move first, again.
How can the beasts have so much control while lying low? Hadn’t we crushed them enough?
They are ruthless, they’ll do anything to get what they want.
They aren’t human; they have no morals. They really are beasts.
All whispers, of course, off handed comments I had no clue at the time were about the men that captured me. Or would it be saved? The line was blurred. But I knew after the moments in the church, watching them ruthlessly slay men, their enemies, who whispered behind their back for so long, I’d no doubt that they were capable of almost anything.
Adam closed his eyes and inhaled, letting it out slowly. “My anger is not directed at you, Belle. My anger would never be at you.”
With trembling lips, I admitted the truth. “Yes.”
How could I be anything else when I was never allowed out of my father’s sight? Never allowed off his property unless with an escort. Except the one time I had gotten permission to go out, and somehow…
“And you know that Joseph Accardo is our child’s grandfather?”
My heart pounded so loud it was all I heard roaring in my ear. How had he known? Who told him? “Y-yes.”
“You weren’t going to tell me?” The intensity of his gaze was unnerving. I wanted to look away, but doing so only brought my gaze to Mercer’s, his eyes equally hard.
“I had nowhere to go. I didn’t want to go back to my father.” I pleaded with my eyes, begging them to believe me. “But if you knew…”
“If I knew our child was related to the man who killed my wife. My son…”
I flinched. I hadn’t known, not fully. I suspected. I didn’t know the entire story. But hearing the words coming from his mouth, with such clarity, only solidified what I feared. He wouldn’t let me stay. Not when the blood of the man he hated so much ran through my baby’s veins.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t want to cry, but the tears came anyway. The words were inadequate, but they were all I could offer. There was no coming back from this, I was sure. I may be his wife right now, but I was never the wife he wanted.
His brows pulled together. “You think I blame you?”
“Don’t you?”
“I need to apologize to you, Belle.” He swallowed. “I’ll admit I brought you here out of revenge and my sheer desire to be petty. I didn’t want you. I didn’t want another wife. None of this reflects on you, just a reflection of my mindset. But you’re here now, and you belong to us.” His eyes flicked to Mercer. “All of us, and I’d never blame you for actions that were beyond your control.”
“But—“ I tried to argue that I was pregnant and those actions had a cause, even if I didn’t remember them too clearly.
He cut me off. “We saw the video, Belle.”
Video. I was confused. I hadn’t a clue what he was referring to. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“You didn’t know?” Mercer’s face went harder. Harder than I thought possible for the man who usually had been nothing but gentle with me.
“I don’t understand what we are talking about.” My pulse was so intense I wondered for a moment if I was going to pass out. They were scaring me. They had never sat me down like this, never stared at me so intently that every nerve in my body pulsed. In fact, if it weren’t for the meals they insisted we eat together, I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever been in the same room with more than one of them for more than a few seconds.
“There is a video, Belle.” Adam’s face gave away no emotion. “Of you with the young Accardo.”
“I-“ I shook my head, horror filling me. “I didn’t know. Have you watched?”
“Yes.”
I’d watched these men gun down a church, kill the father of my child inches away from me, and yet, I’d never felt such horror. “No.”
I tried to deny it but they ignored me. “Would you like to see it?”
Did I want to see? Absolutely not. Except I was curious what exactly was on that video. Horrified, but curious. Scared to know, but scared to be left out of the knowledge they had about me. When I didn’t answer, Mercer opened a computer and sat it in front of me. “Hit play when you’re ready.”
I may never be ready.
Still, I reached forward, hitting the play button, watching as my father mixed a drink innocently enough in our kitchen. I walked in, wearing the outfit I was going to meet Hannah in, except Hannah had told me my father said I was sick and canceled our meeting. Then I drank, and that’s when the innocent scene turned to utter destruction of my heart. I remembered that moment vividly, though I must have blocked it out until now. The feeling of unease, knowing something was wrong but not being able to pinpoint it. Then, I felt nothing.
My breathing picked up as my father scooped me up. It became nearly unmanageable when he handed me off to someone like I was trash. Mercer reached over, pausing it. “Do you want us to continue?”
I nodded my head, and Adam reached over, brushing a tear I hadn’t known I let fall from my cheek. “Play it.”
The order held no joy. He didn’t want me to see what was coming, but I suspected he knew it was something I needed to watch, even if it was near impossible for me to comprehend.
“No.” I covered my mouth with a gasp as I was handed, unconscious, to Joseph Accardo and his men. He wouldn’t. He was my father, and though he was a terrible parent, I was still his daughter. He wouldn’t do this to me. Except the proof played out in front of me, a reel of the pitiful truth, taunting me.
I watched it to the very end. Every second of the horrid details, filling in the blank of my memory that I thought I had just forgotten. And when the video ended, and I was dizzy with despair, Adam reached in front of me, ending the feed.
“I’m showing this because you need to know.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to kill your father. And after that, I’ll end Accardo too.”
Not a question, just casual information. He was going to kill him and I… I felt nothing. Not after that. Not a single defense for the man who shared my genetics. Not after this.
I nodded, trying to get words out, trying to tell him that my father deserved everything he got and more. He wasn’t a good person. He’d done some awful things to me over the years, but this, this had to be the worst of the worst. Except, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. My heart was pounding so fast, my body shaking, I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the feeling consuming me. I wished Ace were here. He’d know what to do, but he wasn’t, and the panic was taking over. The panic was consuming me. Gnawing at me from the inside, scratching at every surface inside of me.
“Are you okay?” Mercer's voice was funneled, barely audible.
“Fuck,” Adam growled, “grab her.”
And right as my vision funneled, turning black, four hands took hold, encompassing me with security before I fell into a void.