“Why do you want me to call Lorenzo?” she asked, and she genuinely looked confused as shit about it. The sort of confused you couldn’t fake.
Shooter glanced between Gauge and Rider, his face expressionless. “Because this is all on him, Belle,” he said, looking back at her. “And we’re going to make him pay for it.”
Belle’s face paled further and she stumbled back. I moved forward quickly, catching her so she didn’t fall, but she shrugged out of my grip like she’d been burned.
“Don’t touch me!” she yelled, glaring before turning back to Shooter. “No, no it can’t be.” She shook her head. “I’ve never told him anything.”
Shooter frowned even further.
Belle glanced between us all. “I never told Lorenzoanythingand he never asked anything. He was awful to me—treated me like…like…” Her hand went to her mouth, rubbing her bottom lip subconsciously. “But this has nothing to do with him.”
“Shooter,” I warned, because if they’d gotten this wrong and I’d lost her because of it, heads were gonna roll.
“So who have you been talking to?” Rider asked.
Belle swallowed
“It’s his brothers, Mateo and Carlos,” she said, looking like she was going to be sick just by saying their names. Like saying their names might bring them forth, kinda like sayingCandymanin the mirror five times. “They came to me, threatened me.” Her hand went to her stomach. “Beat me.” Her gaze dropped to her feet. “They said they’d kill my godmother Jenna if I didn’t do what they said.”
“Fuck, I thought those two had moved back to Italy,” Gauge said.
“Looks like they’re back,” Rider replied.
“Don’t change anything,” Shooter said. “She’s still a traitor to the club.”
“I hate to say it, brother, but the prez is right,” Casa said to me, because we all knew that this wouldn’t even have been a conversation if it weren’t for me.
“They left a mutilated dog in my bed!” Belle cried, like she’d been holding everything in for so long and now she just needed to get it all out. “They chopped off its head and left it in my car!” She grabbed them hem of her T-shirt and lifted it to show the faded bruise on her stomach, which I’d seen earlier. “They hit me, threatened to rape and torture me.” Belle was sobbing now, her cheeks flushed red as tears streamed down them. She looked between us all. “They said they had someone watching me, that if I told anyone what was going on that they’d have Jenna and I tortured for days before they killed us. I was terrified!”
Rider stood next to Shooter. “Prez.”
“I know,” Shooter said sharply.
“This changes everything,” he continued.
“I know,” Shooter said again.
“And believe me or don’t, it doesn’t really matter anymore, but when I told them about that drop, I knew none of you were going to be there.” She looked between us all. “I heard you say that it was a drop and go, or something to that extent. I would never put any of you in danger—not because I’m scared of you, but because I care about you all.”
Silence descended like a lead balloon and we all stood there with our tails between our legs. We’d fucked up, bad. We’d been in such a hurry to finish this shit and find someone to blame that we hadn’t looked into it properly, and it had nearly gotten her killed. Belle was far from innocent, and what she’d done was still wrong, but we should have helped her. We should have spoken to her. Let her know in no uncertain terms that we would protect her from anything and anyone.
Belle scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks and finally turned to glare at me, her eyes connecting with mine and burning with pain and anger and resentment. “This is all your fault, Beast. You dragged me into your world, and these monsters came for me because of it.”
And she was right.
Every last word of what she was saying was right.
This was all my fault.
Chapter Seventeen
~ Belle ~
“You should have told Beast. He would have protected you,” Joey was talking, but I wasn’t really listening. How could I? Thirty minutes ago I’d been a dead woman walking, my final breaths ready to be breathed before Beast put a bullet in my head. My future was still hazy and uncertain, and death was still in the cards, but for the time being I was alive.
“The club would have protected you, girl,” Joey continued. “Hell,Iwould have protected you.” He shook his head, sounding less like the Joey I’d come to know and more like a stranger. He even sounded sad.
“I shouldn’t have ever been put in this situation,” I finally said, still refusing to look at him. “This wasn’t my fight, yet I’ve been dragged into it, terrorized and then told I was going to be killed…by Beast, no less.” My voice cracked on his name, the disbelief that he had wanted to be the one to kill me still squeezing my heart in a vise. “He wanted tokillme.”
