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Every face swivels in various directions.
Looking for Nolan.
Where the fuck is he?
“Like I said. I want her back. Virginity intact. Then you can have your son.” He hangs up.
54
PEARL
* * *
My hands go to my mouth, my lungs burning with the sudden effort it’s taking to breathe. “Send me back,” I demand. “Send me back, send me back.” I feel the tears coming, and I look around at the people who have shown me nothing but kindness. The women, mothers, and Beau’s pregnant. I can’t allow this. “Send me back!” I turn into Brad, fisting the front of his suit jacket with my hands. He’s a statue. Blank as he looks down at me. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have stayed. I should have left sooner. I should never have accepted their shelter, their safety.
Brad blinks, his long eyelashes fluttering. And he seems to come back into his body. His soft, vacant gaze slips away, and in its place, a terrifying expression. Fearsome. Apoplectic. He blankets my fists with his hands and detaches them from his suit, and Beau moves in, taking me from him as the men fly into action. Brad takes his phone to his ear, a wrathful scowl on his face. “Nolan’s been taken. Get everyone out of the club now and take all the stock to the house. Guns and money.” He hangs up. “Where the fuck is Ella?” he yells, walking out onto the veranda. I watch him look across to the containers. “Fuck,” he curses, dashing back through the cafe, James following.
Danny goes to a stunned Rose. “Home,” he orders in a tone she’d never challenge. She nods and Danny goes after the others as Beau walks me down the steps to the cars.
“Fuck!” Brad roars, disappearing inside the green container. He appears a few seconds later with Ella draped across his arms.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, trying to break out of Beau’s hold.
“No, Pearl, we have to go,” she snaps, hauling me on, her strength far greater than mine, even pregnant. And of course, I don’t fight her because of that. “She’ll be okay.”
“She’s breathing,” Brad says, carrying her to a car. “Someone get Doc on standby.” Fury opens the back door to a Mercedes and helps Brad place Ella in the back as Rose loads Maggie into the other car. Beau gets her phone out and makes a call, walking my useless, dazed body to another car.
“Doc,” she says urgently. “We need you back at the house.” She helps me into the back of the car and closes the door, running back to James and taking his forearms, looking up at him. I don’t know what she says. But the way he’s looking at her? Anger. Love. Hate. He dips and lets her kiss his cheek before turning her around and sending her back toward me. Danny’s quiet. Observing. A face that’s frankly terrifying as he pushes bullets into the magazine of his gun, a cigarette held between his lips. All of them. Like robots. A button pressed. No longer husbands, friends, and fathers.
They’re killers.
Unlawful Men.
And I’m scared.
Brad rejoins the others, and James smacks his back lightly, talking. He looks back at me sitting in the car, stares hard. And yet it’s soft. “I love you,” he mouths, and my heart cracks, my hand taking on a mind of its own and opening the door. I get out and go to him, and he turns, giving me access to his chest, letting me walk into his body and bury my face under his chin, unconcerned by the spectators.
“I don’t want this,” I whisper.
“You don’t want me?”
“Yes, I want you,” I say, remaining in his neck, the smell of him, his heat, soothing me. “I don’t want everyone put at risk because of me. I love you all too much. Give me back to him.” I feel Brad’s body solidify. His chest expands.
“Didn’t you hear him, Pearl? Virginity intact. So even if that was an option and, to be crystal fucking clear, it really fucking isn’t, it’s not happening.” I close my eyes. “I took your virginity, Pearl.” He pushes his face into my hair, and I hear a collection of quiet gasps behind me.
“I gave it to you,” I grate. “He’ll never know.”
Brad pulls me free of his body and cups my cheeks, getting his face close to mine. “What did I tell you?”
“That you love me?” I ask as he looks into my eyes, his thumbs stroking across my cheeks.
“I do love you, but not that.” He pushes his mouth to my forehead and breathes onto my skin. “I told you no one else would ever touch you again.”
Such glorious words. I want to believe them. A huge part of me knows that if there is anyone in this world who can keep me safe from that monster, it’s Brad. It’s these men. But at what cost? He’s taken Nolan. Blown up the spa. “If you run,” Brad says. “I’ll bring you back, Pearl.” He looks up over my head, and I stare at his rough neck. “Take her back to the house.”
“And what about you? What are you doing?”
“Take her.”
