I’d started off screaming at him, obviously. It was how we communicated—through rage and mutual disappointment. But as our frustration escalated, Reid had said something to me I’ll never forget. Something that made him, in my mind, irrevocably human instead of the egotistical parody of a man I’d made him out to be.
“I ruined everything,” he’d said, his voice tight with emotion. “I fucked up Sarah’s life. I fucked up my life. I made the only good thing I had going for me slip away, practically kicked her right out the fucking door, because I was way more interested in being an alpha douchebag than a human goddamn being. She looked at me like I hung the fucking moon in the sky, and I looked away. I spat on heaven because I was so used to being in hell, and you don’t just come back from that, Ash. That’s a sin you have to live with for the rest of your life.”
There was nothing I could say to that. It had taken me so completely off guard I couldn’t even come up with a sincere reply, let alone an unduly snarky one. Reid Brody had grown a conscience, after all this time. I wouldn’t have believed it, had I not heard it with my own two ears.
After a few moments of silence, he’d added, “It’s not something I can fix. I get that, too. But the brotherly thing to do here would be not to rub that in my face, because I didn’t just screw up a stupid pretend bet. I screwed up that poor girl’s life—and my own.”
Knowing he was right—knowing that I needed to treat him better, if I was going to expect better from him—I’d merely asked, “You sure you can’t fix it?”
Reid heaved a sigh. He seemed so uncharacteristically despondent. When we’d started this thing, I hadn’t expected any of us to actually fall in love with these girls. But even so, the one I’d always suspected least capable of it was Reid. Yet right now, faced with the possibility of losing Sarah, I could hear in his voice that maybe he’d fallen the hardest of all. Maybe even for the very first time.
“I dunno, man,” he said. “I really don’t know…”
I was going to make an attempt to say something comforting when Hannah grabbed my arm, fiercely, and said, “Ash… look!”
When I followed her gaze to the tree line, I saw immediately what had turned her face such a pale shade. Sarah and Beth were being chased out of the woods by four hulking meatheads, one of whom I’d seen before.
It was the security guard from the carnival. The one who’d hauled Tanya away.
What the fuck?!
I didn’t have too much time to think about it. There were bigger problems—and how close those men were to Beth and Sarah was at the top of my list.
“Either way, bro, you need to get over here,” I said, adrenaline propelling me forward at a breakneck pace. “Fast!”
Before Reid could answer, I hung up the phone and shoved it in my pocket. I didn’t have time for niceties.
Wyatt wasn’t far behind me. I could hear him moving through the grass, charging ahead like a panther after its prey, the snarl in his breath distinctly feral. I wondered if these idiots had any idea the monster they’d provoked in him, or in me.
They were about to find out.
“The fuck is this?” I said, stopping a few paces away from the men. I held out an arm to stop Wyatt from jumping right into the fray; I didn’t want to risk Sarah or Beth getting hurt. I locked eyes with the security guard from the carnival. “What the hell are you doing here, man? You need to back off.”
“I’m not here for your bitch, Ash,” he said, spitting on the ground at the mere mention of Hannah. Already, I could feel something dark uncoiling inside me, threatening to spring at him and snap its jaws right around his throat. “I’m here for these two.”
“Like hell you are,” I growled, pushing him hard on his chest. Hannah had caught up to us and was trying to pull the girls away, but this asshole looked ready to go after them. “Leave them the fuck alone.”
He pushed me in return, his pack of thugs stepping forward to remind me we were outnumbered. “This ain’t your fight, Brody,” he said, ugly teeth bared beneath a nose that looked like it had been broken a dozen times before. “Let it go.”
“The fuck we will!” Wyatt chimed in, advancing to get in the asshole’s face. I almost pulled him back. If anyone was going to beat this bastard to death, it was gonna be me.
But we were in one hell of a spot. Four of them, all made out of muscle and hate, against the two of us? Shit. This wasn’t going to be easy. Maybe not even doable. I took a breath and prepared for the worst, summoning my deepest, darkest anger to give us an advantage.
There was no alternative. I couldn’t let Hannah, or Sarah or Beth, suffer any more than they already had. I steeled myself for the pain, squared my shoulders, and got ready for the worst.
And that’s when Reid showed up.
“The fuck is going on here?” he roared as he approached, nearly shoulder-checking me out of the way. I narrowed my eyes at him, but now was not the time. He was not my enemy, and shit, part of me was even glad to see him. “I know you, fuckface. You’re the bastard who grabbed Sarah at the carnival. Is this what you do, huh? Creep around, grabbin’ girls? You some kind of pervert?”
I stared at Reid. The same guy had tried to grab Sarah?
How long had he been stalking them?
And then I realized… this guy was obviously responsible for some of Hannah’s pain. The only reason he could be tracking her and her sisters is if he knew them, and the only ones that knew them were people involved with their life back home. Which meant this guy wanted to inflict more pain, and not just on her, but on her Sarah and Beth. This guy was going to try to take them back to a place where fucking rapists ruled. I thought of what Hannah had endured and my stomach rolled with bile, but it was enough to give me purpose, to make me believe that no matter the odds, I could at least take this asshole down.
And when I did, he wasn’t gonna get back up. I’d make sure of it.
“I’m here on business,” Asshole gritted. He didn’t even bat an eye when Reid got in his face. “But what that is, is none of yours.”
“When it comes to my woman, you bein’ an asshole is definitely my business,” Reid replied, shoving him back. Asshole stumbled, just barely, but it looked like Reid had flexed pretty hard just to be able to move him. “The hell could you want with her? She’s Amish, for Christ’s sakes!”
Asshole scowled. “I’m well aware of what, and who, she is. That’s why we’re here. And if you don’t get out of our way, we’re going to have to stop playing nice and make you.”
“Tough talk, coming from a man whose momma should’ve swallowed,” Wyatt snapped. “Beth—dial 911 on your phone.”
I saw Reid give him an incredulous look. Wyatt was the hothead out of the three of us, and hearing him suggest getting the police involved must’ve confused the hell out of Reid. It was a stark reminder of the divide I’d placed between us when I made this stupid bet. All the trouble it had caused since then. All the misery.
Beth flipped her phone open. The moment she did, Asshole was lunging at her.
“You’re not calling anyone,” he snarled.
Before he got anywhere near her, I grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked. Hard. “And you’re not fucking touching her.”
Asshole threw an elbow at me. It connected with my teeth, splitting my lip and filling my mouth with the taste of my own blood.
After that… things get a little blurry.
I remember sounds. Sarah screaming. Reid and Wyatt yelling. The sounds of a scuffle, of fists landing on flesh, of swearing and kicking and grunts of pain. I don’t remember getting hit again after that first time, but in retrospect I must have, because I came out of that fight with way more going on than just a busted lip.
That was fine. I’d take whatever injury I had to as long as I could make this asshole pay. That thought consumed me like a flame, and the darkness inside me was suddenly in my hands, and my hands were fists burying themselves in the fact of the man who was responsible for all this pain and terror.
�
�Ash!” Hannah was screaming, but she sounded so far away. “Ash, you have to fucking stop! You’re killing him!”
And I was. I was sure I was. Asshole was down on the ground and I was on his chest, and I just kept hitting him, again and again. It felt so good. So right. It felt like every blow I landed might heal Hannah just a little, might take away some of the anguish she’d lived with all these years because of him. Because of her father. Because of everyone who’d ever taken advantage of her. Everyone who’d ever made her afraid or made her cry.
I was doing this for her. And I knew it’d be a long damn time before any of these punches made up for even a fraction of what she’d been through. No way Asshole could withstand that. Hannah was right. I was going to kill him.
And all I could think was: Good.
I have flashes of what I did. That’s it. Small memories that blink in and out of the fog of rage that consumed me. I remember breaking Asshole’s nose in more ways than one. I remember loosening teeth, feeling them rip into my knuckles but not giving one good goddamn. I remember, distinctly, the way one of his cheekbones caved in, and the wet sucking sound he made as he tried to breathe through all that blood pooling in his throat.
And then I remember Reid grabbing my shoulder. “Dude. That’s enough, man. Get off him.”
I pushed him off and hit Asshole again, this time in the skull. I wondered how many punches it would take with my bare, bloody knuckles to crack it. I was willing to find out.
How many hits will it take to get to the center?
“I’m gonna fucking murder you,” I told him. I remember there was no affectation in my voice when I said it. This fury was cold. I just wanted him to know he wasn’t getting out of this. This was the end of the line for Asshole. He’d never hurt anybody ever again.
But then Wyatt and Reid were grabbing me, hooking their arms under mine, around my chest, and bodily pulling me off. Real quick, that icy hate bloomed into an uncontrollable fire.
“No!” I screamed, kicking at Asshole’s broken body, flailing and trying to rip myself away from my brothers. How could they betray me like this? How could they keep me from doing what I was supposed to do? “No, you stupid fuckers! He has to die! He has to!”
“He’s not worth it, man,” Wyatt said, ducking under my arm as I swung wildly, determined to claw my way back to Asshole lying ever so still on the ground. “You really wanna spend your whole life in jail?”
“Well, actually,” Reid said from my other side, “I’m pretty sure he could plead self-defense.”
“Oh my God,” Wyatt hissed. “You are not helping!”
It took what seemed like an eternity to get to a place where I could think of anything but murder. Longer still until I could speak like a human being and not like the animal I’d become for Hannah. My muscles were tight, threatening to burst from my skin if I tensed any harder. I’d quit smoking when I got custody of my brothers, but damn, I would’ve sold my soul for a cigarette right about then.
“We got ‘em,” Reid said as I paced, raking my bloody fingers through my hair, pushing it out of my face and hoping that would help me see straight again. “All right, man? We got ‘em.”
“Yeah, Ash,” Wyatt agreed, holding up his hands in a disarming gesture. “Breathe, okay? Calm down.” That was rich, coming from him.
“I can’t,” I panted, spitting blood to clear my aching throat. I turned from both him and Reid, pointing to Asshole’s body still unmoving near the trees. “I can’t fucking calm down while that piece of shit is still breathing.”
“You’re gonna have to,” Reid said, putting his hand on my shoulder and directing my attention to the girl. “Look at her. Jesus, you scared the shit out of her.”
Slowly, I dragged my gaze to Hannah’s. She had her arms around her sisters but she stared at me, wide-eyed, that pretty jade color looking pale even in the sun. And just like that, she took the fight out of me. Just like that, I realized how far I’d gone. How much farther I was willing to go. What a goddamn monster I’d become.
“I made her a promise,” I whispered so only Reid and Wyatt could hear me. “I said I’d protect her. Keep her safe.”
“I don’t think you gotta worry about that anymore,” Wyatt said, jutting his bloodied chin at the men once more. “Look at them, Ash. They’re toast. We did a number on ‘em. We won.”
Funny how it didn’t feel like a victory. Even as I watched the trio of thugs start picking themselves up from the ground, covered in blood—most of it their own—dirt, and bruises, there was no sense of triumph for me. There was just emptiness, a hollow void that made me feel like, regardless of how hard I’d tried… somehow, I’d failed Hannah. And the girls.
“Shit,” I said, turning and looking at my brothers in the face for the first time. I noted their many injuries, including the deep gash over Wyatt’s eyebrow that was definitely going to leave a scar. “You two look like hell.”
“Guess that’s why we fight like demons,” Reid said, a weak attempt at humor in a truly abysmal situation. But it was true. What we’d done out there… we were warriors, but we’d never fought like that before. Never so hard. Never so determinedly. Never together.
Then again, before now… we’d never really had anything worth fighting for.
21
Hannah
I felt like I was going to throw up.
I’d seen Ash go after guys before. He was a bouncer, after all. Part of what he did required a bit of necessary force. But what I’d witnessed out here, today… that would stay with me forever as one of the most horrifying scenes I’d been a party to. The look on Ash’s face when he’d told that man he’d kill him—it would be seared into the back of my eyelids forever. I was sure of it.
I flinched when he stormed up to me, obviously not completely free of that anger. “What the fuck, Hannah?” he hissed into my ear. It might as well have been a stage whisper. I could tell everyone heard it. Hell, the goons still recovering from their beat-down some distance away, trying to heft their broken teacup of a leader up into their arms, probably picked up on it.
“I don’t know, okay?” I told him, still shivering so hard I couldn’t get my teeth to unclench. “I don’t fucking know…”
The look Ash gave me was hard. I knew he wanted to say more, but Beth was right here, and it seemed cruel to just drop it on her after what had happened. She was traumatized enough as it was. I wanted to get her inside, sit her down with some hot chocolate, and go into it after she’d had a moment or two to recover.
But then Sarah was pulling away from us, looking so pale I was sure she would pass out. “I can’t,” she murmured, absently touching her throat as though she hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. As if the tremor in her voice repulsed and surprised her. “I can’t right now.”
I reached out to stop her, but it was too late. She was running headlong into the woods, the same way she’d gone before with Beth. My stomach turned. What the hell was she thinking?
“I got her,” Reid said, rushing past me to chase her down. He crashed through the underbrush none too gracefully in close pursuit. His head start and the look of grim determination on his face were all that kept me from going after her myself.
“Hannah,” Ash said, reminding me there were other matters to attend to. He flicked his eyes in Beth’s direction, lips thinning. When I didn’t respond, he added, “You need to talk to her.”
“Can’t we just…” I started, but Ash shook his head. I slumped. No, I knew he was right. It had to be now. I just wished, so very badly, that I could spare her…
She was standing a little closer to the tree line now, staring in the direction Sarah had disappeared. Her nails were in her mouth, teeth dug into them, and I could see even from a distance that she’d bit them to the quick. There was nothing left of them, and a thin crescent of blood was starting to drip into her cuticles. I motioned to Wyatt to stay back. This wasn’t going to be pretty, and as much as I wanted to pass the buck, I knew I had to be the
one to tell her. I was the one who’d gotten her into this mess, after all.
I walked up behind her, laid my hand on hers, and pushed it way from her mouth. “Beth… how are you holdin’ up?”
She didn’t even meet my gaze. “Sarah was going to tell me something in the woods,” she said to me in Dutch. “She was so angry. Do you know what it was?”
Out of sheer cowardice, it took me a few moments to answer. When she turned to me, those beautiful blue eyes so full of fear, it just made me feel worse.
“Yes,” I told her, granting her the comfort of our mother tongue. I’d grown to hate the language—it was just a reminder of all the awful things I’d been through, all the trauma I’d tried to leave behind—but I knew for her it meant something different. It made her feel at home in a place that had never been safe for me, but obviously had been for her.
That should have granted me some kind of solace, the knowledge that Beth could look favorably upon the village because she’d never gone through what I did, but right then, all it really did was twist a knife in my gut. I knew her innocence would make what I was about to say next even more unbelievable. My worst fears were about to come to life, and I was going to have to relive that night my own mother hadn’t believed all over again.
“Well?” she said when I failed to elaborate. “What was it? I assume it was some lie you told, or some truth you hid from us. Like those men…” She gestured vaguely in the direction they’d limped away to. “One of them knew you, Hannah. And I could see by the look in your eyes that you knew him. What in God’s name is going on?!”
I wanted so badly to tell her. I wanted to confess everything in that moment, regardless of who else might hear us. I knew Beth needed the truth from me, just as I knew now for certain that having kept it from her for so long was a sin.
But Beth, ever curious, was not content to let me gather the right words. Holding my gaze steady, she asked me, “What was Sarah going to tell me, sister? What was she going to say that you ran after her like that, so desperate to silence her?”
The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance Page 36
