But as the humming of the song filled the room, I finally remembered her body on the ground and I saw the life drain from my mother’s eyes. I watched the light go out and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Chapter Six
~ BEAST ~
“How’s he doing?” Shooter said, waking me from my dark dreams, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to someone else in the room.
I was still groggy. Still waking up from whatever dark memories my mind had brought forth and decided was a good time to show me—now, of all times. Stupid mind was as useless as my stupid body.
“Better,”hervoice replied, cutting through my woozy thoughts. “I think he’s through the worst of it.”
I sighed internally.
Belle.
Things must have been real bad if Shooter had brought her here.
And they must have been really bad for her to agree to come here at all.
“Need you to stick around for a couple more days, make sure he’s definitely on the other side of this, Belle.”
It was her turn to sigh now. “I have a life, Shooter. I can’t just put it all on hold and stay here. I don’t even have a change of clothes, and I’m pretty sure the toothbrush you gave me wasn’t new like you promised.”
“I’ll get you some clothes,” he replied calmly. “And another toothbrush. And of course you’ll be paid well and compensated.”
“It’s not about the clothes and the money, and you know that. I have to get back to my life. I’ve been here for four days now. I need to go home,” she whined, and the sleepiness fell from me as my irritation clawed its way up my throat.
Four days I’d been out, and all she cared about was going back home to her man?
“He could have died, Belle,” Shooter growled in annoyance, all softness falling away from him.
“I know, and I got him through it, didn’t I? But I have a family and a life I have to get back to,” she retorted.
“That’s my brother, my enforcer, and a valued member ofmyfamily. You’re staying and you’re keeping him alive until I say so. You feel me?”
She fell silent, hearing the warning in Shooter’s tone.
“I’m not dead yet,” I grumbled, my words coming out throaty and cracked as I broke the silence. Probably not a moment too soon, knowing Belle, because if there was one thing I’d learned from being around her so much, it was that there was only so much shit she’d take from a man before she came out fighting. And Shooter was backing her into a corner that she didn’t want to be in.
I opened my eyes, seeing Shooter and Belle looking down on me, their tired expressions mirroring each other.
“Jesus Christ, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I complained, embarrassed by their staring. But if I looked even half as bad as how I was feeling, then they had a good reason to be staring at me like that.
My head throbbed, my body ached, my muscles were contracting and protesting, desperate to move and stretch. My stomach felt empty to the point of hollowness and it roared in hunger, breaking the uneasy silence. What had she said? I’d been out for four days? God, I’d kill for some chocolate pudding.
“Where’s Doctor Collins?” I asked, eyeing Belle, who shifted her gaze from me.
Shooter chuckled. “That fuck wouldn’t come near the place, not even when we threatened his family.”
“He don’t have any family. Just a string of women who he fucks for money,” I replied.
“Yeah, figured that out real quick.”
“You threaten his credibility?” I asked seriously, because that was the route I would have gone down with someone if they didn’t have family.
Shooter chuckled again. “Yeah. He took off after that and no one has seen him since.”
My throat was hurting, and Belle must have sensed it because she reached for a glass of water on the small side table next to my bed. It had a small straw in it and she brought it to my lips. I sucked greedily, my gaze on her the entire time, but no matter how much I stared, she wouldn’t look at me. Her gaze was on the water, the straw, her hands, even the wall. But never on me. She finally pulled the straw away even though I wasn’t done.
