She didn’t need to see it anyway. She had it memorized. She was standing in front of Aleki, his arms around her as he grinned down at her. She was staring up at Caleb, laughing. Wolfe was the only one looking at the camera. Well, scowling at the camera was more accurate.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, closing the locket and tucking it safely away. “I love you guys.”
She took in a shuddering breath.
“Piggles, I just want to say goodbye. Piggles, I wish you could fly,” she sang.
“Come on. She has to be around here somewhere. I wish the signal was stronger.” Wow. Now her hallucinations were getting really lifelike. It sounded like Caleb was only a few feet away.
“Why would she be in this part of the city? I think Wolfe has got it wrong. Or likely she got rid of that locket a long time ago.”
Aleki sounded grouchy. Why would she dream of him as grouchy when he’d always been so happy?
“She could have. We could have flown halfway around the world to track down some vagrant. There is no way that Genevieve would be in this alleyway. She was always very aware of her personal hygiene. It was one of her best qualities.”
Oh. Wolfe. She wished they were really here.
“Jesus, Wolfe,” Caleb snapped. “She had lots of good qualities.”
“What? Like loyalty?” Wolfe asked.
She whimpered at the pain those words brought. Loyalty. She had none of that, did she? Why had she never told them the truth? Now, that moment was lost. They hated her. Or they’d simply forgotten her.
She didn’t know which was worse.
“Did you hear that?” Caleb sounded like he was getting closer.
“Could have been a cat,” Aleki replied.
“Or a rat,” Wolfe added. “Remember those rats in East Timor? Bigger than a cat. And nasty.”
“Of course I fucking remember them,” Aleki replied. “One of the fuckers bit me. I could have gotten fucking rabies.”
“It’s rare for a rat to pass on rabies to a human,” Wolfe retorted calmly.
“Oh, I feel so much better now,” Aleki replied.
“But you could have gotten rat-bite fever. It’s nasty. Fever. Vomiting. Headache. Death.”
“Will you two shut up,” Caleb snapped back.
She whimpered again.
“Oh, fuck! No! No, no, no.”
Caleb sounded so upset. She tried to move, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. A strange, pained noise hit her ears making her wince. Someone sounded hurt. Who was it? Were they okay?
“It’s you. You’re making that noise. You are the one who is hurt,” Wolfe explained in a cold, emotionless tone.
She hated that voice. He used it with everyone except Aleki and Caleb.
And her.
Until that day. The day she’d ruined it all.
“What happened to her? Is she hurt? Sick? What the fuck is going on? Why is she sitting in some filthy alleyway, half-conscious?”
“Aleki,” she murmured. Why was he so mad? Her Aleki never got angry.
Well, there was one time when she’d gone out with her friends and hadn’t replied to his texts. He’d gotten mad and threatened to spank her if she did it again. She’d been shocked at the fear-fueled anger coming from her gentle giant.
But everyone had their breaking point.
“What is she saying?” Aleki asked. “She’s mumbling and I can’t understand her.”
“Something about spankings and giants,” Wolfe replied.
Cool fingers pressed to her neck, taking her pulse.
“Fuck. She’s burning up,” Caleb snapped. “We have to get her out of here.”
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Aleki said.
“No!” she cried out. “No ambulance.”
“Oh, jelly bean, what happened to you?” Caleb crooned.
Jelly bean. She’d always secretly loved that nickname.
Fingers brushed down her face. She tried to lean into his touch. How long since someone had touched her so sweetly? Since someone had even pretended to care?
“It’s going to be okay, jelly bean,” Caleb told her.
Where was Wolfe? He was quiet. It seemed that even in her dreams, he was unforgiving.
What would it be like to have Wolfe want her? All-consuming. She’d have to be careful that he didn’t take over. Completely rule her. Hell, just one of them would be hard to take. Imagine all three at once. Caleb with his careful, but firm dominance. Aleki with his big personality but gentle nature. And Wolfe. Loyal. Unforgiving. Overprotective.
“Missed you guys,” she muttered.
“We’ve missed you too, jelly bean,” Caleb said gently. “But we’re here now. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“I can’t,” she said in a panicked voice. “They’ll find me if I go to the hospital.”
There was a beat of silence. This was a very weird dream. Usually, in her dreams, they forgave her, and then they all ended up in bed together.
She sighed. She bet they were really good in bed. Not like William. He’d been a total dud. Jerk hadn’t worried about getting her off.
“Two-pump chump.”
“What was that?” Aleki asked.
“She said two-pump chump,” Wolfe repeated. They all sounded so close. If she could move, she might try to touch them. “Something you want to tell us, Aleki?”
“Fuck off, man,” Aleki said without heat. “I always guarantee a hundred percent satisfaction. It’s my Samoan blood. Gives me stamina.”
Someone was running their hands over her, feeling for something. She tried to move away. She didn’t want anyone touching her. As she slid to the side, her arm protested. She let out a cry of pain.
“Easy, jelly bean. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just need to check where you’re injured.”
“She’s got something wrapped around her arm,” Wolfe said and there was a tugging at her arm.
She screamed in agony.
“Fuck, what are you doing, Caleb? Stop it!” Aleki snarled.
“I barely touched her. The material is stuck to her arm with dried blood.”
“We need to call an ambulance,” Aleki insisted.
“It would seem to be the smart thing to do,” Wolfe added, his voice disinterested.
“Shit. Fuck,” Caleb swore. Things weren’t good if Caleb was unsure of what to do.
“Caleb?” she whispered.
“What is it, jelly bean? Can you tell us what happened?”
She moaned as someone examined her foot.
“Ow. Ow.”
The hand was immediately pulled away. But her ankle still throbbed mercilessly. Damn it. The numbness was preferable to this.
“Wolfe, aim the light down here. Fuck, she’s only got one shoe on. And her foot . . . damn it, it looks like it’s four times its usual size,” Aleki said.
“Fell. Twisted it.” She laughed. It sounded crazy even to her ears. “How did I get to this point? I’m sore. I smell. And I’m sitting in a puddle of dirty water.”
“Pretty sure this isn’t water,” Wolfe drawled.
“What?”
“Wolfe,” Caleb said warningly.
“What? It smells like piss. Might be hers. Maybe she peed herself. We don’t know how long she’s been sitting here.”
“Great. That’s just great. Can things get any worse?”
Aleki was about to lose it. He’d always been slow to anger. But once he lost his temper, then it was hard to rein himself back in.
And right now, he needed to let loose the fury riding him before he did something he might regret.
He couldn’t look at her. Genevieve. His Vivi. Sitting in a puddle of piss, only half-conscious, mumbling things that didn’t make sense, filthy and injured. He turned to the dumpster, and pulling back his fist, punched the metal as hard as he could with a roar of pain.
Vivi let out a startled scream. Then she started to cry.
“Jesus, fuck, man, what the fuck are you doing?” Caleb snapped.
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Fuck. Fuck.
He leaned his good hand on the dumpster then bent over, taking in deep heaving breaths. His hand hurt like a motherfucker. Christ, he hoped he hadn’t broken anything.
But at least the pain was helping clear the fury from his head. Making it easier to think.
“If you’ve fucking broken your hand, I will break you,” Caleb snarled.
“Sorry. Sorry. It’s just . . . fuck, look at her. This is Vivi.”
“Are you upset because she’s injured? Or because she’s sitting in a pool of filth in a dark alleyway?” Wolfe asked curiously.
“Both, motherfucker. All of it. I’m fucking mad that she’s been sitting here for God knows how long while I made us wait for days before coming here. We could have come looking for her last night, but I wanted to go to a hotel to sleep. I’ve gone without sleep for days! I didn’t need fucking sleep.”
“I get that you feel guilty, but you don’t get the right to that emotion,” Caleb snapped.
“What?” What the fuck did that mean?
“He means that you’re being selfish. You’re thinking of yourself and your needs instead of her.”
Okay, something was seriously wrong if Wolfe was explaining this stuff to him. Wolfe, who didn’t even smile at cute kitten videos.
And the fuck of it all was he was right.
“Fuck. Okay. What do we do? I should call for an ambulance, right? She needs a hospital.”
Wolfe was running a light over her body. Her cheeks were flushed. She was dirty, sweaty. Her arm was wrapped with what looked like a T-shirt. And her ankle was swollen.
“No. No hospital. Please. They’ll find me,” she protested weakly. She sounded so weak. She looked terrible. Her hair was matted, her clothes dirty and damp with sweat.
“Who?” Caleb asked her. “Who will find you?”
“Please. Please. No hospital. Please.”
The way her voice broke tore at him. He wanted to do whatever he could to ensure she never sounded so broken and scared again. But they had to do what was in her best interests. Even if that wasn’t what she wanted. He waited for Caleb to explain that to her. Caleb always did what he had to, even if he didn’t want to. He and Wolfe were far more selfish.
“Okay, jelly bean. Shh. Don’t get upset.” Caleb ran his hand over her hair, which was a mess of tangles around her head. Aleki winced at the thought of getting those tangles out.
“No hospital, please.”
“All right. We won’t go to the hospital, I promise,” Caleb soothed.
Aleki stopped his pacing and turned to gape at Caleb. Wolfe also stared down at him from where he stood by her feet. Aleki noticed he hadn’t once touched her.
“Caleb, she needs the hospital,” Aleki said. What did he mean, she didn’t have to go? It was their duty to take care of her. And Caleb never shied away from doing his duty.
“I know that,” Caleb snapped. “But she’s obviously afraid and I’m not going to force her to do something that scares her.”
“Caleb, if we don’t take her to a hospital, she may get sicker. She may die.” Wolfe spoke in a monotone voice, as though he didn’t care either way.
“Fuck. Fuck. Okay. There’s got to be a way to get her a doctor but keep her safe.”
“I have an idea,” Wolfe said. “It’s going to cost us, though. And it would be better not to use her name. Just in case someone really is after her and that’s not just a delusion.”
“Okay, good. Go set it up,” Caleb told him.
Wolfe turned away, already on his phone.
“Aleki, go get the car and bring it to the entrance of the alley. We’ll claim she’s my wife.” Leaning down, he reached under her to pick her up. “I have you, jelly bean. I won’t let you go. Not again.”
4
I have you, jelly bean. I won’t let you go.
She sighed dreamily. Caleb. When things were bad, she could always count on them coming to her in her dreams. Three white knights.
Well, okay. Two knights. And Wolfe.
She snorted.
“How come I don’t get to be a knight?” Wolfe complained.
Whoops. What was that beeping noise? Why could she smell disinfectant?
“You’re at a private clinic. You’re also speaking out loud,” Wolfe replied dryly.
She was?
“Yep. I don’t lie, Genevieve.”
She sighed. She knew he didn’t lie. He also didn’t forgive. Even in her dreams, he was as hard and unyielding as ever.
“You’re not dreaming. Although perhaps you might wish you were.”
Not dreaming? What was he talking about?
She had to be dreaming. Because there was no way Wolfe would actually be anywhere near her. He hated her.
“I do.”
See? So she had to be dreaming. She’d missed them all so much.
Her only family.
“Funny way of treating family,” he said coldly. “You walked away from us. Tore out Aleki’s heart. Didn’t I tell you that if you left then you couldn’t come back? That there would be no forgiveness.”
He had. He’d chased her down after she’d broken up with Aleki. Tears dripped down her face as she remembered the way he’d looked at her. As though she was dirt. Nothing.
A sob escaped.
“What’s going on?” Caleb demanded suddenly. Was he going to tell her that he hated her as well?
“Of course I’m not. Damn it, Wolfe, what have you been saying to her? Why is she crying? Did she wake up? Did you do this to her?”
“I was just talking to her. She thinks she’s dreaming. She believes that we all hate her.”
“Well, did you tell her that’s not fucking true?”
She whimpered.
“Easy, jelly bean, I’m not mad at you.”
“No,” Wolfe said dryly. “He’s mad at me for telling you the truth.”
“We don’t hate her, Wolfe,” Caleb insisted.
“Maybe you don’t,” Wolfe drawled.
“What’s going on?” Aleki asked. “Why is she crying? Is she having a nightmare?”
“Wolfe has been talking to her,” Caleb said darkly.
“What? She woke up? What did she say? Vivi?” Aleki asked.
“You all hate me,” she said in a small, childlike voice.
“No, we don’t, jelly bean,” Caleb soothed. “Would we be here if we hated you?”
“I’m here because you insisted on coming here to find her,” Wolfe told him.
She winced. Wolfe wouldn’t spit on her if she was on fire.
A large hand wrapped around her small one. Warm. Rough with callouses. She didn’t care. Just having someone touch her with love rather than indifference or hate . . .
It meant everything.
“Open your mouth, Vivi,” Aleki told her.
“Heard that one before,” she muttered.
There was a beat of silence then someone snorted in laughter.
“I bet,” Caleb said, amusement in his voice. “But this time, he just has some water for you.”
“Don’t want it.” Her tummy didn’t feel good. And she was so tired. She felt like she could just sleep forever.
“You need to drink,” Aleki coaxed.
“Nuh-uh. No water. Not thirsty.”
Aleki sighed.
“Jelly bean, drink your water then you can have a treat,” Caleb coaxed.
Hmm. A treat. “What treat?”
“How about some jello?” Caleb suggested.
She loved jello. “What kind?”
“Umm, lime?” Caleb asked.
“Ick. No. Lime. Gross.”
“Raspberry,” Aleki said quickly. “You can have raspberry jello if you take a few sips of water.”
“Why are you trying to bribe her with jello? Just tell her that she needs the water and has to drink it. I doubt jello is all that good for her right now anyway.”
She stiffened. Damn Wolfe. Was he trying to take away her raspberry jello?
“I’m going down?” Wolfe asked. “I’d like to see you try. You couldn’t swat a fly right now.”
She could too. God, why was it so hot in here? She pushed at the covers, whimpering as she hurt her arm. Why was her arm sore? What was going on?
“Jesus, Wolfe. We’re trying to stop her from getting upset,” Caleb snapped. “Ordering her around when she’s this unwell isn’t helpful.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Wolfe replied.
“Lord, give me strength,” Aleki muttered. “Here’s a straw, Vivi. Just take a few sips and next time you wake up you can have all the jello you want.”
“Raspberry,” she qualified. “And don’t let Wolfe take it away.”
“Raspberry,” he agreed. “And I won’t.”
“Promise?” she asked.
“Promise,” Aleki told her.
And he never went against his promises.
Unlike her.
Aleki sighed in relief as she took a couple of sips of water. Then she drifted back off to sleep. God, she looked so tiny. At five foot eight, she wasn’t petite. She’d always had a curvy build.
Eight years ago, she’d glowed with health and vitality.
Now, she looked like a ghost of herself. Her skin was pale. Her cheeks sunken. Gaunt.
What had happened to her? Why did she look like this? How had she come to be in that alleyway?
And why did she keep talking about someone finding her? Who was she talking about? Where was her father? Was he looking for her?
Caleb reached up and brushed a lock of hair off her face. He set her stuffed pig down next to her.
“How long have you wanted her?” he asked Caleb suddenly.
Caleb stiffened. Then he looked over her at Aleki. Wolfe stood at the end of the bed, leaning against the wall. He appeared relaxed, but Aleki knew better. Wolfe never relaxed. He was always on alert.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Caleb prevaricated.
Wolfe snorted. “He means how long have you had feelings for her? He’s wondering if you felt this way back when he was dating her.”
Aleki glanced up at Wolfe. “Thanks for explaining that, man. I’d never have managed it myself.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ruled by her Daddies Page 3
