by Susan Stoker
As if her thoughts about her brother were spoken aloud, her ex turned to the little boy and hauled him into his side with a tight grip around his arm. “Joel, did you miss me?”
He nodded quickly.
“You did? How much?”
“A lot,” Joel murmured.
“Hmm, I’m not sure I believe you.” Donovan scowled, his mood going from jovial to suspicious in the beat of a heart.
Bailey had seen this kind of unpredictable mood swing in the past. She glanced at his arms and saw the bruises inside his elbows and on the backs of his hands. Drugs. Somehow she knew without a doubt that Donovan had crossed the line he said he’d never cross. He’d always said drugs fucked people up. Made them make bad decisions. But it looked like he’d changed his mind.
“I-I found a movie like the ones you showed me online. I’ve been w-watching,” Joel stammered.
Bailey’s heart broke. Damn Donovan for doing this to her brother. Damn him to hell.
“Good boy,” Donovan told Joel, tousling his hair as if he were a dog.
“Look, if she’s your girlfriend, I didn’t know,” Nathan said quickly. “If you untie me, I’ll leave. You can have her. I don’t want to get into the middle of a gang situation.”
Bailey’s eyes went to Nathan, and she flinched. He was staring at her as if he didn’t know her. She knew he was pretending. Knew it. But it still hurt.
“You think I’m dumb?” Donovan asked. “I’m not going to let you go. For one, you’d just call the po-po. For two, I know who you are. If you didn’t call the police, you’d call your fucking brothers. The strong ones. The ones who have probably fought every fight for you since you were three years old. You’re the weak link. And C, I’m not letting you go because it’s hilarious as fuck to see your geek ass tied to the chair, and I like beating up nerds. They make such fun whimpering sounds.” With that, he picked up his foot, turned sideways, still holding on to Joel, and shoved it as hard as he could into Nathan’s knee.
Bailey looked away as Nathan screamed in pain. Donovan simply laughed. Then he did it again to his other knee. Again, Nathan cried out. Then he started begging.
“Please, don’t do that again. Let me go. I won’t call anyone. You can have her. She said I sucked in bed anyway. I’m begging you, untie me. Please.”
Donovan laughed even harder. “Oh man, this is priceless. What? You gonna offer me up your collection of science-fiction toys? Give me your ticket to Comic-Con?”
“Anything, anything you want,” Nathan cried out pathetically.
Bailey opened her mouth to stop this. The plan wasn’t working. Donovan was really going to hurt Nathan. They had to do something different while they waited for the cops and Nathan’s brothers to show up. But her brother spoke before she could get a word out.
“Donovan?” Joel asked tentatively.
“What?” he barked, obviously irritated at being interrupted.
“I gotta pee.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Donovan swore. Then, grabbing Joel’s arm in a steely grip that had the boy standing on tiptoe to try to take the pressure off his muscles, and pointing at Bailey, he said, “Don’t move, bitch. You so much as move an inch, I’ll hurt him.” He shook Joel to make his point.
Bailey nodded immediately, frantically. “I won’t. I swear. Don’t hurt him, Donovan.”
The gang member smirked then. “I’m not going to hurt your precious brother, Bailey. I’ve never wanted to hurt him. All I’ve ever wanted was for him to be an Inca Boy. Why do you think I kept you around for so long? Don’t worry, he’s in good hands with me. You ought to be worried about what I’m going to do with you, not Joel.”
With that, he hauled the boy down the hall to the bathroom. He kicked open the door and quickly glanced in, obviously making sure there were no windows the boy could crawl out of. Seeing nothing but the nondescript bathroom, he swung Joel around and said, “Hurry the fuck up.” Joel closed the door quickly, and the last thing Bailey saw was his scared, pale face looking out from the crack, before it shut.
Donovan stomped back into the small living room and went straight to Bailey. He hauled her off the ground and into him, his arm going around her chest, her back to his front. Then he licked a path from her shoulder up her neck, and across her face. He grabbed her chin with his other hand, turned her head to the side, and forced his tongue into her mouth. She struggled against him, hating the feeling of him inside her in any way. Not only that, but his breath was horrid. She gagged, and he immediately pulled back.
He didn’t immediately say anything, but simply looked at her with an indescribable look on his face. Bailey remembered that look, and it didn’t bode well for her. Not at all.
“You wanna know how Bailey here likes to be fucked? Watch and learn, pansy motherfucker,” Donovan told Nathan, who was sitting silent, his head down in dejection.
When he didn’t move, Donovan roared, “Look at me, asshole.”
Nathan’s head slowly came up, and his gaze locked on Donovan’s. Bailey didn’t see any emotion other than pain and fear in his face. He didn’t look upset. He didn’t look pissed. She was pretty sure he was acting . . . but suddenly wasn’t one hundred percent sure.
Donovan’s hand moved up her body, and he grabbed onto one of her breasts. Her heart sank. God, was this really going to happen? Was Donovan going to rape her in front of Nathan—and possibly Joel too? She’d been so brave when she talked about what would happen when Donovan caught up to her, but the reality was so much worse than she remembered or thought it could be.
“Donovan—” She started to plead with him not to do this, but he didn’t let her get anything out other than his name before he spun her around and hit her.
He’d hit her before, but it hurt more this time. Maybe because she’d gotten used to Nathan’s gentleness. Maybe because she hadn’t been expecting it. Or maybe because it had simply been so long since she’d been hit. Pain exploded around her eye, and she whirled around, tripping over the arm of the couch and ending up half-sprawled over it.
Exactly where Donovan wanted her. He put a hand on the back of her neck and squeezed at the same time that he pushed her down. Forcing her to bend farther over the arm of the couch. She could barely breathe as he was pushing her face into the cushion. She kicked out with her feet, but Donovan merely stepped closer into her, taking away her leverage and pushing her hips against the side of the couch in the process.
“You watching, nerd?” Donovan asked.
Bailey didn’t see Nathan’s reaction, but she assumed he nodded, because Donovan continued his instruction on how best to rape a woman.
“Here’s the thing. Bitches want cock, even if they don’t admit it. It actually feels better for her, and you, if she’s dry. More friction, you understand.” He paused and ripped her shirt up and over her back, moving his hand on her neck just long enough so he could push the material over her head before replacing it and pushing her back down.
She whimpered. God, this was so not part of the plan. It had been a possibility in the back of her mind, but she’d never said anything to Nathan. She couldn’t bear this.
“The reason I had this slut tattooed with my name was so I could see it when I fucked her from behind.”
“I’m done,” Bailey heard Joel say in a small voice. No. God, no. He couldn’t be there. Couldn’t see her like this. Could not watch Donovan violate her.
“Good, come here, Joel. I want to show you up close and personal what it’s like to fuck a chick.”
Bailey struggled in earnest then. Thrashing in Donovan’s grip as if her life depended on it. Screw the plan.
“Fuck,” the gangbanger swore, trying to hold on to the wildly flailing Bailey. “Stay still, bitch, or it’ll only get worse for you.”
“Fuck you,” Bailey cried, still kicking and thrashing in Donovan’s grip.
Several things happened at once.
Donovan let Bailey go and screeched in fury.
She felt his
weight leave her back.
Joel screamed.
Nathan grunted.
Bailey quickly brought herself upright and tugged her shirt back down so she was covered, and she turned around.
Just as they’d planned—okay, not exactly as they’d planned, but close enough—Nathan was dragging a struggling Donovan toward the bathroom. But the gangbanger wasn’t cooperating. Whether it was the drugs in his system, or something instinctual that told him if he didn’t get away, he was in big trouble, Bailey didn’t know. But it was obvious Nathan was going to lose the battle with her ex if she didn’t do something to help him.
Looking around, Bailey ran for the kitchen and grabbed the closest knife she could find. This definitely wasn’t in the plan, but screw it. She wasn’t going to leave Nathan to deal with Donovan by himself. She’d grabbed a steak knife. Not the biggest one she had, but it would have to do. She ran toward where Donovan and Nathan were wrestling and slashed at her ex’s legs. She didn’t want to stab him. Definitely didn’t want to kill him—she had enough problems at the moment, and a murder charge wouldn’t make her situation any better.
He yelped and kicked out, catching her in the side of the head. Bailey grunted, but ignored the pain and went back at Donovan. Slashing at him when his limbs were clear of Nathan’s. Together they herded the man down the hall, and with an inhuman amount of strength, Nathan threw him into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. He immediately leaned against it with his entire body weight.
“Help me,” he said urgently.
Bailey dropped the bloody knife and threw herself against the door, adding her body weight to Nathan’s.
“Joel, you did as we talked about, right?” Nathan asked more calmly than Bailey felt.
“Y-yeah,” the little boy stammered.
“And it worked?” Nathan asked urgently.
Joel nodded. “Definitely.”
Bailey turned her head and saw a brilliant smile creep over Nathan’s bleeding face. “Awesome. Run and find your phone, buddy. It should still be in your backpack. Make sure the others are coming, then stay outside. We’ll be there in a minute or two.”
Without a word, Joel spun and raced toward the front door.
“You motherfuckers! When I get out of here, you’re dead. You hear me? Dead!” Donovan raged from inside the windowless bathroom. He coughed, then the door shuddered as he threw his body against it.
“I’m serious!” He coughed again. “I’m gonna knife that pansy-ass geek, then shove that blade up your cunt, bitch!” More coughing. “Then when you’re pleading with me to stop, I’m gonna force your precious brother to use it to slit your throat.”
There were a few more loud pounds against the door that Bailey felt reverberate through her body, but between both her and Nathan’s body weight, the door didn’t give. They heard more coughing, then swearing, then wheezing.
“Slow your breathing down, pixie,” Nathan said softly, the tenderness in his tone almost breaking the control Bailey had been holding on to by the barest margin. She looked over at him. He had blood streaming down his face from a cut on his cheek. His nose was oozing blood as well, and he had bruises all over his face. But he was looking at her and speaking with her as if they were sitting next to each other at Scarpetti’s, having dinner.
“It’s working. Joel did it. But we can’t move until we’re sure,” Nathan reassured her.
“Are your brothers coming?” Bailey asked.
“Absolutely,” Nathan affirmed immediately. “I saw Joel hit the silent alarm when Donovan first pushed himself into the house. As we thought, he was more concerned about subduing me than paying attention to Joel. They should be here any minute.”
He coughed then, and Bailey realized that her eyes were burning. She looked down and saw a slight fog coming out from under the bathroom door. She turned panicked eyes up to Nathan.
“It’s okay. Stay calm.” Nathan coughed, then went on. “Just one more minute, then we’ll join Joel outside.”
“I love you,” Bailey blurted suddenly.
She watched as his eyes got big, but she went on before he could say anything. “I do. I know I haven’t said it, and that wasn’t fair of me, but I wanted to be sure.”
“And you’re sure now?” Nathan asked softly between coughs.
With her eyes watering from the toxic fumes coming out from under the bathroom door, Bailey nodded. “When I saw you taking those hits from Donovan to give the cops and your brothers time to get here, I knew. There’s no one I’d rather have at my back when shit goes down than you. You can outsmart anyone any day of the week, and that is sexier than anything else I can think of.”
“Let’s go,” Nathan ordered, standing up and grabbing her hand as he towed her quickly down the hall, into the living room, which looked as if a tornado had moved through it, and out the front door. He shut it firmly behind him, closing Donovan, and the deadly chlorine gas Joel had created in the bathroom, inside.
He immediately knelt and caught Joel, who had flung himself at him, and Bailey dropped down next to them as well.
They stayed huddled together for another minute or two before they finally heard sirens.
“Here they come,” Nathan murmured. Then he pulled back and took Joel’s shoulders in his hands. “You did it, buddy.”
Joel didn’t look anywhere near ready to smile or to stop being freaked out, but he did manage to nod. Nathan gathered him into his arms and stood. Joel’s legs went around his waist, and the little boy buried his face into Nathan’s neck.
“Are you okay? Should you be holding him?” Bailey asked worriedly, as her aches and pains started to make themselves known. Nathan had been hurt much worse than she had. It had to be agony holding her brother. He wasn’t exactly a lightweight.
“Honestly? I hurt like hell. My knees feel like they had spikes hammered through them, and my face is so painful it hurts to talk. But one of two things that makes me feel better is feeling Joel against me, and knowing he’s okay.”
“What’s the other?” Bailey asked, resting her hand on his forearm.
“You in my arms. Come here, pixie,” Nathan ordered, holding an arm out.
Bailey immediately snuggled in next to her brother and the man she loved.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bailey sat nervously next to Nathan at the Castle Rock police station. They weren’t under arrest, but they had to give their official statement to the cops. Blake and Logan were also in the room. Standing against the wall, their arms crossed in front of them, scowls on their faces. If she didn’t know them, Bailey would’ve been scared to death, but since their ferocious looks were because their brother had been used as a punching bag, she supposed they were entitled to their scowls.
Joel was in another room with Felicity, Grace, her babies, and Alexis. Bailey had been reassured several times that he wouldn’t be questioned without her there, but she was still worried that somehow Child Protective Services would take him away from her.
They’d been seen by the paramedics at her house and been patched up. Even though they were both hurt, Nathan and Bailey decided not to go to the hospital.
Donovan hadn’t been so lucky.
Now they had to tell their side of the story. Bailey hoped like hell either she or Nathan didn’t end up getting arrested by the time it was all said and done.
“We know you’ve been watching Donovan for a while now,” the detective said gently. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us what happened tonight.”
Nathan put his hand over hers on the table and immediately spoke, not giving Bailey a chance. She sat back in relief and listened to him recount the last couple of hours of their lives.
“We knew Donovan had Bailey in his sights. He was pissed she broke up with him when he was in prison. When he got out, you’re right, my brothers were keeping their eyes and ears on Donovan. He tried to get the Inca Boyz gang back up to what it used to be before his brothers were killed. Our connection on the gan
g task force up in Denver, Ross Peterson, told us weeks ago that he’d disappeared off their radar. He wasn’t sure where he was or what he had planned. You can verify all this with him, of course.”
Nathan took a deep breath, glanced over at Bailey, squeezed her hand, and continued. “We knew he’d be coming for Bailey, so me and my brothers made a couple of plans, just in case.”
“Why didn’t you come to the cops?” the detective interrupted to ask.
“Because all we had was a hunch. You wouldn’t have been able to do anything with just that.”
“We did warn a few SWAT members about a week ago that we thought Donovan would be in the area and out for revenge on Ms. Hampton,” Logan broke in.
The detective eyed him for a moment before nodding. “Okay. Go on.”
“Anyway, so we had plans for what we could do if he kidnapped Joel from his school and then contacted Bailey, or if he showed up at her workplace and threatened her coworkers. And we also concocted a plan in case he showed up at either of our houses,” Nathan explained.
“And what was that plan?” the cop asked, leaning forward, his eyes narrowed.
Bailey spoke up before Nathan could continue. “You have to understand what he did to my brother. He showed him porn. And forced him to smoke a joint!” she blurted. “He was trying to mold him into one of his gang members. That’s mostly why I left Denver. I didn’t want that for Joel. And it messed him up. He’s been seeing a psychologist here in Castle Rock, and he’s been doing great.”
The detective’s eyes gentled as he looked at Bailey. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Adults can make poor life choices, but they shouldn’t affect innocent kids.”
Bailey winced as if the older man had slapped her. She knew without a doubt he was talking about her being involved with the Inca Boyz and Donovan in the first place. She wanted to defend herself, but couldn’t. He was right.
“That was out of line,” Nathan growled. “You don’t get to judge Bailey, and if you’re going to continue to have this condescending attitude, this interview is over.”
