And I don’t mind. Some of them are too cocky for their own good and need putting in their place.
My eyes lock on the back of Landon’s head and my gaze narrows. I went to school with Lily, so he was only a kid when we first met. But at nineteen, he’s a force to be reckoned with. No one messes with him. And I can see why. He can fight—I’ve seen him. He holds back when he’s with us, unless he’s fighting me, but The Circle he’s involved in are bad news and you need to know what you are doing to stay alive. The people running them are lethal. And I don’t think he’s ever met the main boss, only the lackey who organises them.
I nudge Reid to get his attention. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to grab a beer. Could you not get into any fights?”
He grins at me. “Want us wait for you to come back?”
I roll my eyes, sighing. I’m too old for this. I run a moving company, and my mum’s farm. Getting into fights, then arrested, is something I don’t have time for.
“Just don’t cause shit while I’m gone.”
“I’ll come with ya,” he says.
I shrug, not caring. Isaac hears us and steps closer. “I need one too. I need to wash this cake down,” he says, still looking green in the face.
“I can’t believe they made you eat it,” I say, chuckling as we walk off.
He grunts, clutching his stomach. “We had to try each other’s. I swear, she was trying to kill off the competition.”
I chuckle under my breath. “Didn’t you go to school with her?”
He frowns. “Yeah. The girl is nuts. She’s happy all the goddamn time.”
My mind wanders to Lily, who is the opposite. She always holds a sadness in her eyes and in the way she holds herself.
I shake myself out of it when a skinny kid walks up to us. The other two haven’t noticed, too busy whistling at a group of girls walking past.
“Call me,” Isaac yells.
My eyes don’t leave the kid in front of me, and when the others realise I’m not walking, they stop, turning around and looking at the lad with arched eyebrows.
“Did you want something?” I growl.
He shifts, twisting his hands together nervously.
“Um, yeah, I—I—” he stutters, annoying the shit out of me.
I step forward, bending down a little so we’re eye level. “If you keep pissing me off, I’m going to remove you myself. Now, what the fuck is it you want?”
Isaac stands beside him, crossing him arms over his chest while Reid mimics his brother, staring the guy down.
If they keep on, he’s going to piss himself. I scrub a hand down my face and move around him, but I stop when he says her name.
“Paisley.”
I grab the front of his hoody and pull him against me so our faces are an inch away from each other. “Why the fuck are you talking about my sister?”
Fuck, she went to take her injections a while ago. She should have been back by now.
“Marie and her friends?”
I drop him, dread filling my bones. If they hurt her in any way, I will destroy them, girls or not. “Where are they?”
“I didn’t know. Aiden slept with my mum a few months back. He told her he was still a minor,” he says, scoffing. “Probably to get her out his bed—I’ve heard the rumours. My dad left her. I wanted payback.”
I shake him, getting further in his face. “What does this have to do with Paisley? Where is she?”
“She was with his girlfriend and the sister. I think they said her name was Lily? They’re going to do something bad. Really bad.”
I can feel the two next to me tense even more.
“Where the fuck is our sister, dickhead?” Reid growls, stepping closer.
The guy panics, looking ready to shit himself, and points behind us. “They’re by the toilet blocks.”
I drop him, and he falls to the floor. “Go and find one of the Carter’s and tell them what you just told me,” I snap, moving ahead to find my sister.
And Lily.
“I’m not fucking crazy,” he yells.
I don’t stop, but Reid does. “If you don’t, I’m going to break every bone in your fucking body, then send it to your mum,” he snaps.
“Okay, okay,” he yells, his voice trembling.
“Call the others,” I yell to Isaac, but when I look back, he’s already on his phone.
It takes us seconds to get to the toilets. A small crowd has formed outside, but then I see my sister on the floor.
“Paisley,” I yell, running up to her.
She looks up, her shoulders sagging in relief, and I can see she’s about to have an episode. “Fuck! Isaac, give Paisley her medication,” I say, just as she falls on Lily, who is unconscious, laying on the grass.
Holy fuck.
Her entire body is writhing on the floor, like she’s fighting someone in her sleep. I rush over just as I hear crashing coming from inside the toilets. “What happened?” I ask Paisley, throwing her medical bag to Isaac.
“She just started screaming when the girl touched her,” she gets out shakily, reaching for me. I take her hand and lift her chin so she’s facing me.
“Who hit you?”
She points to the bathroom, tears streaming down her face. “All four of them have Bailey inside. No one is doing anything.”
I glance at the bathroom, hearing a scream followed by a scoff of disgust, and people just stand and listen, not doing one damn thing about it.
Fucking cowards.
I look up at Isaac, and his gaze meets mine. “Don’t leave her.”
I get up and grab the handle of the door, but it’s locked. I bang on it, pressing my ear against it, and hear Marie tell the others to “get it done”.
Fuck!
I push the door with my shoulder, but it doesn’t budge.
“Lily!” Maddox Carter screams, and in this moment, I’m glad they’re here.
“Where’s Bailey?” Aiden asks, his voice filled with panic and fear.
Isaac must have told him because in seconds, he’s next to me, screaming at the door.
“It won’t open,” I tell him, still trying to push it. “Move back.”
I don’t give him another warning as I step back and kick the door. He does the same, and we both attack the door until the wood splinters and hangs off.
The scene we find makes me sick to my stomach. And I don’t give a fuck that they’re girls. I charge in, ripping Marie away by her hair and dragging her off the broken woman lying on the floor.
Fucking Carter’s and their shit.
More of us file into the bathroom, Reid grabbing another girl around her waist and flinging her over to the other side of the room.
“Call the police!” a girl in the background yells. And I pray it’s for the girls and not us.
We drag the girls outside, leaving Aiden and Charlotte with Bailey. Marie bites me on the arm, and I drop her.
“Fucking bitch,” I hiss, reaching for her again. As she struggles, her hoody slides down her arms, and she shrugs the rest off. I notice something fall to the floor and go to pick it up. She takes that window to run, grabbing her friends in the process. No one tries to stop them, because after today, they won’t get far. Even if the police don’t deal with them, we will.
Clicking the menu button, I grin when I see the phone isn’t password protected. I click through files, and one has my stomach rolling.
I open it up and find the menu for pictures and videos. Thousands of them. I click on a random video, turning the sound down when it draws too much attention.
Isaac steps up beside me, Paisley in his arms. “We need to get her to the hospital. Her glucose level is really high,” he tells me, but then glances down at what I’m watching. “Did they just say what I think they said? Wait, are they really doing that?”
I look up at him, feeling my hand clench around the phone. “You mean them torching Bailey’s house and laughing at the sounds of screams? Then yeah.” I pause, run
ning a hand through my hair. “Wait, isn’t Bailey’s last name James?”
He swallows. “Holy shit. I remember that fire now. Didn’t it kill a little boy and his parents?”
I remember it too. I didn’t know it had been Aiden’s Bailey. The papers never mentioned her name, just that she was in hospital, but I do remember them talking about the rest of the James family. I’m sure my mum said she used to attend the same play group as the woman who had died in the fire.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck!”
“What are you going to do?” Paisley asks, her voice shaky.
“Let’s follow these to the hospital. They need to see this, too, before we hand it over to the police.”
I tuck the phone into my pocket and take Paisley from my brother. Before we do anything, she needs to get checked out. Her medication is working less and less lately.
“Come on; let’s go,” Reid tells us.
We walk past a devasted family, all of them weeping or cursing up a storm. We might not get along with the Carter’s, but one thing I do respect is their loyalty to family.
Because like us, they’d die for one another.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AIDEN
Bailey’s grandparents called the hospital, giving them permission to let me and my mum in her room. They were on their way back from their new cottage and should be arriving any minute.
It doesn’t matter; she still hasn’t woken up.
I glance down at her bed, feeling hollow. If it wasn’t for the fact I can sense her, feel her, I wouldn’t even recognise her. Her face is one big bruise, with thousands of others on top.
Her left eyelid is cut, swollen so beyond belief that it looks like a golf ball has been tucked underneath. The doctors are unsure at this stage if any damage had been done to her sight. And it won’t be until the swelling goes down and she’s gained consciousness that we will find out.
She has bruising everywhere.
“Son, sit down,” Dad says, his voice soothing.
I pull at my hair, facing him. I know I have tears running down my face. I know I look and am acting like a mess.
“Look at her, Dad. Fucking look at her. She’s got to have surgery soon. Fucking surgery. I shouldn’t have made her come with me. My stupid ego wanted to show off in front of her. And it could have gotten her killed.”
“You saved her life,” a soft voice says.
My attention shoots to the doorway, finding Bella, Bailey’s gran. “What?”
Her eyes fill with tears as she rushes to her granddaughter’s bed. “She has been a prisoner in her own mind—her own house—for years. Since our return, we’ve seen a change in her. She glows. We’ve never seen her this happy, not even when her parents and brother were alive. She tried so hard to keep what was happening hidden, but we could see the turmoil it was having her.”
“Why didn’t you do anything?” I bite out, then grimace, instantly feeling guilty. Bailey didn’t blame them for anything—rightly so—so I shouldn’t either. “Sorry.”
She forces a smile, wiping her cheeks, but it’s Abel, her granddad, who answers. “We tried, but we didn’t have proof.”
“They can’t get away with it this time,” I declare, reaching my mum’s side, where she sits by Bailey. “Look at her.”
“We know. We’ve just been informed who the ring leader’s dad is. We didn’t know it at the time. We had no clue.”
I spin my gaze his way. “What are you talking about?”
“Marie’s dad. He ran my accounting department. We found out he was embezzling funds from our companies, so I had him fired. We got the money back—we have contingency plans in place for when things like that happen. But it wasn’t until the young lady outside in the waiting room told us that we realised who his daughter is. She told us that Marie’s mum left them after he was fired, and she took her anger about that out on Bailey.”
“We’re taking her up to surgery now,” a doctor announces as he walks in.
“Surgery?” Bella asks, panic all over her face.
“You must be her grandparents.” The doctor approaches, shaking their hands. “Your granddaughter has a ruptured spleen,” he explains, before going over the procedure one more time.
I feel sick listening to it. They’ll cut into her. She’s already hurting so much—too much.
A whimper escapes my throat, and my mum gets up from her chair and pulls me into her arms. “Oh, Aiden,” she whispers, clutching my head against her shoulder.
I cling to her, a sob bursting forth. “Mum.”
“We’re ready,” I hear said, and pull back from my mum, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt.
“Wait!” They all pause just as they’re about to wheel her out of the door. I lean over her prone, broken body and kiss her head, hating the thought that my lips on her might be causing her pain. But there’s not any skin on her that isn’t bruised. “I’ll see you in a little bit. Don’t leave me, please. I just found you. If you go, you’ll be taking me with you,” I whisper, and I hear Mum cry out as she listens to my words. I clench my eyes shut. “Come back to me. Whatever happens next, we’ll get through this. I promise. I’ll promise you the world if it means you’ll come back to me. I’ll go to war to give it to you. I love you, Bailey James. To the moon.”
I step back, nodding to the doctor. I turn to find Mum in Dad’s arms and Bella in Abel’s. It hurts. They have their other half. Mine just got wheeled out on a bed, being taken for surgery.
“I need to get some fresh air,” I tell Mum, who nods at me.
“I’ll wait here in case there’s any news.”
Numbly, I walk out and head down the hall, but come to a stop when I reach the visiting lounge. The room is filled to bursting with a majority of my family, but it’s not them who’s snagged my attention. It’s the Hayes’.
I don’t know what comes over me. My mind registers that Jaxon helped me back at the park, but the anger I feel inside me needs to lash out, and when my eyes land on him, he’s the target.
“What the fuck are you doing here? Did you come to gloat?”
His eyes widen with surprise before he stands up. “I get that you’re fucking hurting but watch how you speak to me. I’m the one who helped get her out of there.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, not bothering to apologise—he’d only laugh at me anyway.
“We’re actually waiting for the police. They said they’d be along to take our statement.”
“The police have been here?” I ask, just as Faith and Beau step up next to me.
“Yeah, Aiden. They’ve taken a few statements, but Jaxon was with his sister downstairs.”
“Paisley?” Landon asks, stepping to the right of me. His gaze sweeps straight over me and finds her. “Are you ok?”
Jaxon narrows his eyes at Landon. “Fuck off, Landon.”
Landon steps forward, his fist ready to swing, but Beau walks in front of him, blocking his way. “Go outside and cool the fuck off. You’ve been a raging mess since they brought Lily in.”
“Lily?” I ask, my eyes widening in horror. What happened to Lily?
“I’m fine,” Lily says, and I spin around, finding her sitting next to Maddox, who’s half asleep on her shoulder.
When my gaze flicks to Maddox, he shakes his head in warning.
Right. The Hayes brothers. There’s no way we’re spilling Lily’s problems in front of them. Message clear, I turn back to Jaxon.
“I’m going. I’ll be back in a bit,” Landon snaps, pushing Beau off him.
Liam stands up, but Hayden’s hand on his chest stops him. “Leave him. He needs to cool off.”
He nods and sits back down. Jaxon sighs, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“I don’t want your number. Just because you helped save my woman doesn’t mean we’re best friends,” I snap.
A guttural growl escapes his throat. “I swear to God… Could your ego get any bigger? This isn’t my phone, wank
er. It’s Marie’s. And there’s shit on here the police need to see—if they hurry the fuck up,” he snaps, directing the last bit at Beau.
Beau nods, reading the message clear, and pulls out his own phone, leaving the room for privacy.
“What’s on it?”
Paisley steps forward. “I’m going to get a taxi and head home. I can’t watch or hear that again,” she says softly.
“I’ll come with you,” Reid says, looking just as pale as his sister.
My stomach coils and I clutch it, knowing it’s going to be bad. Nothing bothers these brothers—I’ve seen the shit they’ve done to guys who’ve tried to mess with them.
She places a hand on Reid’s arm. “No. I’ll be fine. I promise. Mum is waiting for me and you need to give your statement. I can do mine another day.”
“We can’t leave you alone,” Reid says, giving her a pointed look.
She sighs. “Please. I just need to get out of here. I hate this place and you know it.”
I watch in amazement as his eyes soften in understanding. “All right but call us when the taxi gets here—and when you get home.”
“I will. I think Wyatt is downstairs still getting treated, anyway. I’ll see how he is and check if he’s ready before I go.”
“What happened to Wyatt?” Maddox asks with keen interest.
It doesn’t look like anyone’s going to answer, but then Ashton speaks up, sounding bored. “His watermelon burst and bits of it got into his eye.”
“He’s had to have it flushed out,” Paisley explains.
I’d laugh, but I feel dead inside. And I will until I know Bailey is okay and out of surgery.
Paisley leaves and Jaxon takes a seat. I frown, looking at Beau, who walks back in before turning to Jaxon. “Are you going to show us?”
He looks up, his eyes haunted. “No!”
My hands tighten into fists. “What the fuck do you mean, no?”
“I’m not doing this to be a dickhead, Aiden. I’m really fucking not. But there’s shit on here you shouldn’t see. Not just for your sake, but for your girl’s. It will haunt the both of you.”
“What the fuck is on it, Jaxon?”
Aiden (A Next Generation Carter Brother Novel Book 2) Page 25
