Like You Hurt: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance (Devilbend Dynasty Book 2)

by Kaydence Snow

  “You think you can get one over on me, boy?” Frydenberg’s mouth was close to my ear, but he was practically yelling anyway. “I’ve been in business for years. Been running circles around the police and everyone in this town. I have eyes and ears everywhere. You think I don’t know about that little weasel Drew? My son has been keeping an eye on him for months. Weak piece of shit. Shady’s already taking care of him. I’m going to personally watch the life drain out of your eyes, and then I’m going to feed you to the rats. And that little whore of yours? Well, I guess she’s just going to have to forget you ever existed. Just like everyone else.”

  He talked about business as if what happened here was the same as his stocks and mergers and emails. He insinuated he was having Drew and me killed as if it was just part of a bad day at the office. But when he mentioned Donna, that’s when cold, unadulterated rage coursed through me.

  I growled, then threw my head back as hard and fast as I could. It hurt like a bitch, another blow to my already aching skull, but the crunch of his nose when I connected was beyond satisfying.

  Will’s eyes widened and he rushed forward, but it was too late. I’d startled Frydenberg enough to wrench out of his hold and shove him toward his son. They stumbled but quickly righted themselves, both of them watching me with surprise.

  I bared my teeth at them like an animal, fists clenched, eyes narrowed. Warm blood was trickling from my split lip down my chin, but I didn’t bother to wipe at it. I knew I looked feral. I felt feral—I wanted to tear them to pieces with my bare hands for even mentioning Donna. But I wasn’t going to attack. I wasn’t going to be that guy anymore.

  “OK. That’s enough of that.” Shady strode forward casually, clicking his fingers and then slapping his hands, the sharp sound like a punctuation.

  “Stay out of this,” Frydenberg barked at him.

  Shady just cocked his head. “No. And for the record, I don’t like people taking credit for my work. You wouldn’t know my buddy here was even planning to bring your operation down if it wasn’t for me. Your idiot son was ready to fight him at the actual fight night tonight.” So there was another location, an actual fight. “I’m the one who got Drew out of the way. Unthankful bitch.”

  Frydenberg was ready to beat both our asses now, but before he could say anything, I shook my head at Shady and scowled. “I thought you might be a decent guy somewhere underneath all those tracksuits.”

  He laughed as if I’d made a hilarious joke. “Well, I don’t know about that.” He moved closer until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with me, facing Will and his dad. “But I did also save your ass.”

  “What?” the Frydenbergs and I all asked at once, frowning. Senior stepped forward, pointing a finger at Shady as if he were telling off a toddler. “Listen here, you lunatic, I’m—”

  Shady cut him off by placing his thumb and forefinger between his lips and letting off a piercing whistle.

  “I’d get on your knees, bro,” he muttered to me as he did exactly that, putting his hands behind his head while Will and his dad stared in confusion.

  Before Shady’s first knee hit the concrete, the empty factory exploded in a cacophony of sound. Several heavily armed men poured down those rickety stairs he’d been leaning against, guns pointed, shouting at us all to get down on the ground. More came in through a back door beyond the bright floodlights, and within moments, about a dozen police officers surrounded us.

  I took Shady’s advice and placed my hands behind my head, cringing against the pain in my torso as I slowly lowered myself to my knees.

  Joseph raged, cursed Shady and me to hell, vowed bloody murder. Spit flew from his mouth as he screamed at the police that they had no idea who they were dealing with. Will was as silent as his father was frantic while they cuffed him. When the officers pulled the two of them past us, the look on his face was stoic, but I could’ve sworn I saw a bit of relief in his lowered gaze.

  Once they were out of sight, the three remaining police officers lowered their weapons and approached us, but instead of cuffing us as I thought they might, they helped us to our feet.

  A guy with brown eyes and a salt-and-pepper five-o’clock shadow nodded at Shady. “You better hope your info is good. That’s a prominent member of Devilbend society we just arrested.”

  “It’s good. And here’s junior’s phone. I already forwarded the voice recording of senior’s little villain rant before you all showed up. You should have enough to charge them both from that alone.” He pulled an iPhone out of his pocket and handed it over to the cops, who sealed it in an evidence bag. I glanced at the varsity jacket Will had draped over the railing next to where Shady had been standing.

  “You’re lucky we got other anonymous tips on both these locations. They were enough to justify a bigger force than we initially planned. A lot of arrests tonight.” He grinned, as if he ate arrests for dinner and tonight he was having a feast. Donna and the others were responsible for calling in this address; I wondered who Shady had gotten to report the actual fight.

  “We good?” Shady raised his eyebrows.

  The cop eyed him up and down. “For now.” Then he turned to me. “We’ll need to take your statement, but I think an EMT should check you out first. Can you walk, son?”

  “Yeah.” I gripped my ribs but hobbled out of there on my own two damn feet.

  “That was a dumbass thing to do,” the cop said to me as he hurried ahead, one hand resting on the butt of his rifle. “Next time you might not get so lucky.”

  I resisted the urge to give him the finger. All things considered, shit could’ve gone much, much worse. Instead I turned to Shady. “You’re an asshole.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe.”

  “You couldn’t’ve let me in on your plan?”

  “You couldn’t’ve let me in on yours?”

  Fair point. “I told you to stay away so you wouldn’t get caught up in this shit.”

  “Yeah, but you know how it is, man. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Everything worked out.” He winked at me.

  As we emerged into the night through the same creaky door, I realized Shady was a fucking genius. And I needed to be more careful around him. He’d wanted to be rid of the people running the fights and making his life difficult, and maybe he’d wanted to help me out on some level too, but at the end of the day, he was always going to look out for his best interests first. He hadn’t told me jack shit because if the police hadn’t shown, he’d still be in with Frydenberg. I had no doubt he would’ve handed me over if shit hadn’t gone to plan. It was a win-win for him.

  The area outside the factory was lit up now. A few cop cars and a van had converged near where I’d parked, and several police officers were milling about, talking on their radios, searching the property—doing whatever the fuck it was they did after busting bad guys doing bad shit.

  I just wanted to sit down, go to sleep, maybe have Donna run her hands through my hair while I nestled my face into her tits.

  As if I’d summoned the little hellion, her pearl-white Beamer came screeching around the corner and pulled to a stop next to my Tesla. She burst out of the car, and several cops tensed.

  “Hendrix!” she bellowed as they approached her.

  My heart lodged itself in my throat at all those guns pointed at her, but before I could yell, run, do something, they realized the little blonde chick in jeans and an oversized hoodie—my hoodie—was not a threat. The cops lowered their guns and just held their arms out instead, trying to herd her back.

  “Don’t you touch me.” She pointed in their faces. “I’ll sue the department so fast and so hard none of you will be able to sit for a month.”

  Despite the fucked-up situation, I chuckled. She was glorious when she was livid, and now that it wasn’t directed at me, it was hilarious. And she’d cracked an anal joke.

  “What is she even doing here?” The plan had been for Harlow to send the address to the cop she’d been emailing as soon as the agreed-upon tw
enty minutes were up. In the meantime, the others were supposed to make anonymous calls from various public phones—which are not that easy to find anymore—while Drew headed down to the station to make his statement. Donna’s role was to wait for my call and, if I was arrested, come down to save the day with the lawyers the Meads paid an exorbitant amount of money to keep on retainer.

  “Apparently Drew didn’t head to the station like he was supposed to and wasn’t answering his phone. So weird!” Shady grinned. “Then she found out the fight had actually gone down at a completely different spot—man, these rich people gossip when their kids start getting arrested. When she didn’t hear from you and couldn’t get any information out of the cops, she blew up my phone demanding to know what I knew.” He raised his arm to wave at her. “Over here, baby doll! It’s OK, guys, that’s just my girlfriend!”

  Reluctantly, they let her pass, and she jogged over to us.

  “You told her to come here?” I gritted my teeth. If she’d gotten here five minutes earlier . . .

  “Psh! Naw, man. I got ninety-nine problems. I don’t need rich bitch drama on a night like this. Not like she didn’t have your last known whereabouts though. Must be true love.” He placed both hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes at me.

  “You fucking prick!” Donna put the momentum of her jog behind a shove to Shady’s chest. He actually staggered back but laughed at the same time. Then she noticed me, and those gorgeous mismatched eyes went wide. “Oh, shit. Oh my god, what did they do to you?”

  Her hands ghosted over my chest as she scanned my face. I must’ve looked even worse than I felt, because tears welled in her eyes, and her bottom lip quivered. Donna never cried in front of other people.

  Keeping one hand braced against my aching ribs, I cupped her cheek with the other and pressed my forehead to hers. “It’s OK. I’m OK. I’m still standing.”

  She just breathed, ragged, trying to get her emotions under control.

  “How’d you get here so fast?” I tried to distract her.

  “I was parked halfway between here and the nearest police station where I thought they’d take you.” She still looked as if she was fighting those tears, as if she was losing.

  I quirked up the side of my mouth that wasn’t bleeding and tried for humor instead. “You should see the other guy.”

  “The other guy is just fine.” Will’s cocky voice made me look up, and Donna froze. A police officer was leading him past us toward the back seat of a cruiser, while his dad was already being assisted into another one next to it.

  “Bro, you’re in handcuffs.” Shady gave him an incredulous look. “You lost.”

  Before he could reply, Donna turned toward him, putting her back to me. “You’re a piece of shit, Will. I hope you and your dad both rot in jail. And Hendrix might be too noble to hit you, but I’m not.” Lightning quick, she threw a punch. It was wobbly and off-center, but it still landed, making Will’s head snap back a little.

  “Ow.” He lifted his hands to his face, prodding his nose, then balled them into fists at his chest. “What the fuck, Donna?”

  I wrapped my free arm around her middle and pulled her back, wincing through the pain, as another cop rushed over.

  “Ma’am, you need to step back.” The cop leading Will had let him pause, but now she was holding a hand out. “I’m going to have to place you under—”

  Shady stepped forward and threw a punch of his own. His was much more powerful and accurate, and Will cried out in agony as blood started pouring down his face.

  The cops rushed in, grabbing Shady and shuffling Will into the cruiser. Donna was forgotten as they roughly cuffed Shady’s arms behind his back and arrested him for assault.

  Donna and I both raised our eyebrows at him.

  “What?” He shrugged and grinned. “I like hitting people. Also, that guy was a dick. And I got a reputation to uphold.”

  He winked at me as they dragged him away.

  One of the cops eyed Donna disapprovingly, her hand hovering over the cuffs at her belt. But then she glanced at me—I made sure to look extra pathetic—and gave us both a warning look before walking off.

  Donna turned to me as the two cruisers carrying Will and his dad peeled out of the lot. With a hiss, she held her hand out. “Holy fucking shit, that hurts so much.”

  I smiled at her, and more blood trickled out of my busted lip. “I hope the pain was worth defending my honor.”

  Her face was dead serious as she replied, “It was.”

  An ambulance pulled in, lights flashing but siren off. I slung my free arm around her shoulders and started shuffling toward it. “Let’s get that checked out, Rambo.”

  “Me? You’re the one who looks like you went into the ring with Ronda Rousey.”

  “You know who that is? I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t fucking patronize me, Hendrix.”

  We bickered all the way to the ambulance. It was the perfect distraction from the pain of every step.

  Chapter Thirty

  Donna

  The weather was warm enough that we could have the windows down as Hendrix drove us to school. With both our sunglasses firmly in place and Post Malone blasting from the speakers, we held hands over the center console. That car practically drove itself anyway.

  The girls wanted to give Hendrix this boyfriend moment—driving his girl to school—so they were meeting us there.

  I was looking forward to getting back to classes, routine, some semblance of normalcy, but I knew all eyes would be on us instantly, and I wasn’t sure I was looking forward to that. We hadn’t been to school for about a week with everything going on between our families and the police. Plus, Hendrix had needed time to heal from his injuries.

  The EMT and the two separate doctors his aunt had insisted he see all said he was very lucky. Nothing was broken or permanently damaged, but he did have some internal bruising, and his ribs were black and blue. It made me wince every time he took his shirt off. While the bruises did finally seem to be fading, the cut on his lip was going to leave a scar. I’d told him “chicks dig scars” and distracted him with a BJ, and he hadn’t seemed too put out by it after that.

  His parents hadn’t even bothered to fly over to check on their son. I’d overheard a stilted phone conversation with his mom while he was waiting in the hospital to be x-rayed and tested, but he hadn’t spoken to his dad once. His parents really were trash, and I was glad he had his aunt. Hannah had been frantic with worry and pissed Hendrix hadn’t told her what was going on, but in the end, she admitted she was proud of him—for the way he handled himself and the way he stuck to his values throughout the whole terrible ordeal.

  We pulled into the student parking lot at the busiest time. People were arriving, walking up to the entrance, some hanging out and talking—it was still a good twenty minutes until the bell.

  The lot was filling fast, but my spot right near the front was empty. Hendrix rolled to a stop and looked at me over the top of his sunglasses, the sun glinting off the frame. A lock of hair fell over his forehead, and I resisted the urge to sweep it back, run my fingers over his scalp, pull him in for a kiss . . .

  I rolled my eyes but smiled. “I’ll allow it. But only because I’m in the car with you.”

  He laughed low, the sound sending a shiver down my spine, and pulled into my spot.

  Amaya’s purple Jag was on one side, and Drew’s matte black Audi was on the other. They were all milling around on the path in front of us, chatting, leaning against the hoods of their cars.

  Shady’s men had released Drew as soon as Will and his dad were taken into custody. Apparently, they’d picked him up on his way to school the morning of the fight and had been the ones replying to anyone who texted his phone. Drew had been nearly out of his mind with worry, but they wouldn’t let him leave the suite at the Hilton they’d stashed him in. They’d actually treated him pretty well, hadn’t gotten violent—much—and had explained the whole situation before
letting him go.

  He was so relieved that Will and his dad had been arrested—that his nightmare was over, that we were all OK—he hadn’t even reported Shady or pressed charges. I tried not to think about what would’ve happened to him in the hotel room had things gone sideways and the police never showed up.

  The Frydenbergs’ arrests had shaken the Devilbend community to its core. No one had suspected Mr. Frydenberg of being involved in anything illegal, let alone the extent of what the police discovered.

  His lawyers put up a good fight, but ultimately, the evidence was too damaging. They’d managed to get Will out on parole by arguing he was a victim of his father as much as anyone, but he was being strictly monitored until his trial date.

  As we’d hoped, the info Harlow had dug up was enough for the police to launch a massive investigation. Joseph Frydenberg was practically running a crime empire while moving about in California’s high circles and pretending to be an upstanding citizen. It appeared he had some legitimate businesses, but he’d also been at the helm of an operation responsible for multiple fight rings across the state, drug dealing, prostitution, all kinds of things.

  He might have been able to get away with a slap on the wrist—he was, after all, filthy rich and not above buying his way out—but he’d embarrassed a lot of people in Devilbend who had invested in his business ventures. Not to mention the fact that he’d put so many people in danger, that his thugs had been responsible for the accident that nearly killed Luke and the other guys. The rich and famous of Devilbend were going to make sure he went away for a long time—they were going to ruin him, bury him. If he ever got out of jail, he’d never step foot in this town again, let alone do business.

  Raine Clayton, the CEO of BestLyf, was denouncing him as vehemently as all the other people who had been at my parents’ Christmas party. She’d brushed off questions about his regular sizeable donations, and her PR machine was working in overdrive to squash any suspicion in that area. They’d put out only one statement, making it clear they had no involvement with Joseph Frydenberg past his being a member of the organization, like so many other prominent Americans, and that they’d been unaware of the illegal activity. The press was so preoccupied with all the other constant bombshells surrounding the case, no one hardly looked in BestLyf’s direction.