by Sophie Oak
Alexei’s trials. God. Alexei had put away several major mobsters by testifying against them. She’d never dreamed his courage would bring her own monster out in the open.
“Show me Lucy.” She needed to know Lucy was still alive.
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know if I want to do that. The last time you saw that side of me, you ran. I would never have hurt you, Hope. I loved you. A man has to do what he has to do in order to protect the things he loves. Can’t you see that?”
She didn’t want to listen to his half-baked explanations. “I just want to see Lucy, Christian. I want to make sure you haven’t killed her yet.”
He gestured to the door. “Fine. See her. I find your lack of faith in me very sad, Hope.”
He was off-the-wall, butt-fuck crazy. “Christian, if you told me the sky was blue, I would still think you were lying.”
She walked through the door and gasped at the sight in front of her.
Lucy lay on the floor, her hands tied in front of her. Hope looked down at those hands. Christian had tied the rope tight, but it looked as though Lucy had fought. There was blood on the rope. Her face was swollen, bruises making an insult of what was her usually sweet expression.
“She’s alive. I just tapped her a little, and she went right out. Women are fragile creatures.” Christian stood frowning as though the entire scene was distasteful. “You’re too compassionate. She’s a little whore. She tried to kiss me after one date.”
Hope got to her knees and felt for a pulse. It was there, strong and beating. Lucy’s eye cracked open, and she whispered.
“Run, Hope. He’s going to kill us both.”
“Is she awake?” Christian asked.
“No,” Hope said quickly, standing up. “I was just telling her I’m sorry for getting her in this, and I won’t leave her here.”
He sighed, a deep movement of his chest. “Like I said, you’re too compassionate, my love. You really were the better side of me.”
She needed a distraction. Her time was running out. She needed to get him mad. If she could get him to hit her, perhaps in the chaos she could get her knife. It was too small to be threatening. She would have one shot. One shot at saving Lucy, herself, her men.
“Well, Christian, if you’re referring to the side of you that doesn’t steal, lie, and murder people, then yes, I’m your better half.”
His face hardened. “You know I don’t like sarcasm, love. I’m being indulgent. I’m offering you a chance to come back to our marriage. I’m willing to forgive you for running. I shouldn’t have killed Elaine in our home. I shouldn’t have risked it. I should have kept it far away from you. I don’t expect you to understand, love. You’re far too innocent.”
And that was what he valued. And that was where she could attack. “I’m not so innocent anymore.”
“Hope, I don’t believe that. I heard the rumor about you. It’s just gossip. Even your little friend there admitted that you don’t date. You’re a good girl. You go to work and you go home. Can’t you see why you haven’t taken a lover? Because we’re married, and it’s not in your character to break the vows we made.”
Oh, the bile was starting to build. “We aren’t married. That marriage certificate means nothing. It wasn’t legal because you knew damn well I wasn’t of age. As for the innocent part, oh, I could tell you stories, but let’s just stick to the most recent indiscretion. The gossip is true. I’m sleeping with James and Noah. Well, not sleeping with them. I’m fucking them. As often as possible and together when I can convince them.”
“Hope, I will not listen to this,” Christian barked.
This was why he’d always been so gentle. He’d never even tried to bring her a moment’s pleasure because he didn’t want her tainted by it. He was terrified of real women. He was a pitiful man who couldn’t handle a woman, so he went after little girls and tried to keep them innocent and ignorant. He was the pathetic one. She put one hand on her hips and let her right hand slip under her shirt. If she had any luck, he would think she was hooking her thumb in her jeans in a show of brattiness. “Yes, you will. You’ll listen to everything because you should know what your sweet, innocent little wife has been doing. I took it up the ass last night, Christian, and it was so good.”
“You’re lying.” His face had turned a mottled red. His fists clenched at his sides. “You’re lying, Hope. You’re trying to punish me.”
She shook her head. The freedom of finally telling him the truth was almost overwhelming, but she concentrated on the knife’s hilt. The plastic edge was just at her fingertips. “I’m not trying to punish you, Christian. I thought you were dead. And I have gone through more men than I can count trying to wipe away the stain of being your wife. And I absolutely love my men. Men, as in more than one. It’s a way of life here in Bliss. I’m not ashamed, Christian. I love James and I love Noah, and you can’t touch them.”
“I’ll kill them.”
“No.” She was sure of it now. She felt it in her soul. James was resourceful, and Noah was smart as a whip. They wouldn’t wait blindly for some call to have them killed. They would fight, and they would win.
“I will,” Christian promised. “I’ll kill any man who touches my property.”
“Then I’ll have to make you a list. Be prepared. It might be long. I found a whole new world, Christian, and I will never be your girl again.”
His face turned ugly, and he started across the room. “Then you’ve made my decision easy. I won’t have a whore in my life.”
Hope started to back up. The knife was stuck in her jeans. Christian came close, and she had a moment’s breath before his hand came out to slap her viciously. The sound cracked, and the pain bloomed.
“You like that, Hope? You’re such a slut. You probably like a little pain. I’m going to kill you and your friend.” He bore down on her, his hand pulling at her hair. She felt the ache in her scalp as he forced her head back. His crystal eyes looked down at her, but she now saw that they were empty of humanity. He was nothing but a sociopath out for his own strange needs. “But I like a slut as well as the next man. Maybe you can show me what you’ve learned.”
His mouth started to come down on hers. Hope gagged. She tried to push him away with her left hand while her right desperately attempted to pull the knife free. Panic threatened to overtake her. His lips slammed against hers. Her scalp ached as he forced her into position.
And then a loud thwack filled the room. Christian screamed and let her go. Lucy stood behind him, the remnants of a chair in her hand. It had cracked across Christian’s skull, but he wasn’t out. He let Hope go, the sudden loss of balance causing her to fall back.
Christian roared and turned on Lucy. Petite, sweet little Lucy still had her hands tied and one eye had swollen shut, but she screamed as she wielded what was left of the chair. She brought it down on his head just before he drove a fist in her gut.
And it gave Hope just enough time to pull the knife free. Lucy fell back with a groan, and Christian fell on her, his fist rearing back. He would kill Lucy and then turn on Hope. Without a second’s hesitation, she got to her feet and prayed her aim was true. Christian’s neck was exposed. She could see his jugular. It stood out against the muscles of his neck, throbbing with exertion. She gripped the knife and plunged it in, forcing it through flesh. She pulled it out as Christian flailed and struck again. Christian tried to swat her away, but the blood was flowing now. He stood and tried to come at her even as his neck gushed. She kicked him away. He fell back, and she stood over the man who had been her first lover, her husband, the man who had almost ruined her life.
“That was for Elaine.”
He coughed, blood sputtering. “She was a whore.”
No. She’d been a woman who fell for the wrong man. “No. She was innocent.”
Innocence had nothing to do with the state of her virginity but with the state of her heart. A woman could screw a thousand men, and if she still was able to love, she could hold he
r innocence in her soul.
Christian’s eyes glazed over, and he was gone.
Hope turned to Lucy who was struggling to get up. Hope dropped the knife and held Lucy, balancing her. “Oh, sweetie. I am so sorry.”
Lucy shook her head. “No, Hope. I’m good. He couldn’t kill me. He couldn’t break me. He thought he could, but he couldn’t break me.”
Lucy’s words came out on a sob, and Hope held her close.
Lucy sniffled and turned her battered face up. “I want in on that club, though. It was a tag team, but it counts.”
“Club?” Hope asked.
“Rachel’s club. ‘I killed a son of a bitch.’ She was talking about making T-shirts. I want my T-shirt, Hope.”
Hope nodded. “I’ll make sure, sweetie.”
She hugged Lucy to her. They were alive. They were alive.
There was a ruckus outside. Hope could hear a vehicle pulling up. Her heart froze. Had Jay come back?
“Hope!”
“Goddamn it, Noah. Don’t you fucking let him know we’re here.”
She laughed though her tears. Her men were here, and they were fighting again.
All was right with the world.
Chapter Eighteen
“I am never working Woo Woo Fest again,” Cameron Briggs vowed. He put his head in his hands and breathed a deep sigh. “I swear to god, I am going to make sure no one impregnates Callie for the next year.”
“I will have to admit,” Rafe began, “the FBI might have been a quieter job.”
Cam frowned Hope’s way. “Goddamn it, Hope. You are not to do that again.”
Hope grinned from her perch on Noah’s lap. Since they had stormed into the cabin hours before, Noah and James had passed her between each other as though neither one was willing to let her go a single minute without one of their hands on her. Noah’s finger brushed against her cheek.
“I wish he could die again. I’d like a shot at him,” Noah said, staring at the bruises.
“Too bad,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. She couldn’t stop. She kissed them whenever she could. “Lucy and I took care of it.” Hope turned to look at Laura. “Has Doc said anything yet?”
Laura came out from behind her desk. “Caleb says all of her wounds are superficial. He’s cleaned her up and given her his best dose of Valium.” She sobered. “He’s going to watch over her. Cam will take her statement later. She needs to rest now. I think we have enough to call this self-defense.”
Cam ran a hand through his sandy hair. “I do. And I called Atlanta PD. They’re sending a rep tomorrow to see if they can close a couple of cases. And they’ll want to talk to Brad back there. We’re on the lookout for the other one.”
The cowboy who had tried to kill her men was safely in a jail cell.
Jesse McCann stepped forward. “Thank you. It would mean a lot to both me and Cade if we could get it on the record that Christian Grady was a criminal.”
Hope turned to him. The superhot mechanics had showed up with her men, guns in hand. “How did you know him?”
She felt Noah’s hands tighten around her waist, and suddenly James’s hand was on her knee, both of her men providing support as though they knew what she was thinking. If Christian had hurt Cade and Jesse, she might have inadvertently aided in some criminal acts against them.
Cade leaned against the wall, his whole body seemingly weary. “Sweetheart, nothing that man did was your fault. Jesse and I grew up in Florida.”
“Tallahassee. But we’re not related or anything,” Jesse admitted. “Not by blood.”
“Sometimes you don’t need blood to be brothers,” James said, his voice deep. He and Noah exchanged looks. Hope felt her heart swell.
Cade nodded, and his breath hitched slightly. “We met in foster care. I’d been in the system for a long time, but Jesse had just been placed.”
“I got lucky,” Jesse said. “So fucking lucky. I got placed with a woman named Nancy Gibbs. She was an older woman. She’d never been married. Never had kids of her own. I thought she was doing it for the money. You know it happens.”
“Not Nan.” Cade shook his head, his lips curving up in a reminiscent smile. “She believed. She really believed she could make a difference. She took care of us. She made me believe I could be something other than a criminal. She made sure we finished high school and got into college.”
Jesse frowned. “If we’d been around, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”
Hope could guess. “She was an older woman? I ask because Christian loved to talk to older people. He would take tours of retirement facilities.”
Cade nodded. “Our sophomore year she had a little series of strokes, and we put her in an assisted-living facility. Just until summer. We were going to come home and take over her rehab, but she wouldn’t let us quit school. Christian Grady got her to turn over her entire estate. He drained her dry, and when there was no money left, the state shoved her into some piece-of-crap home. We weren’t her blood so no one informed us. We had to find her.”
Jesse continued, his voice low and tortured. “She was our mother in every sense of the word but biology, and we weren’t there when she died of pneumonia. She was an amazing woman, and she died in utter poverty, alone and unloved.”
“Not unloved,” Hope said, tears filling her eyes. “You loved her.”
Noah rested his head on her shoulder. “They know. Our parents always know.”
Hope took a deep breath. “I envy all of you. My mom doesn’t care.”
Jesse stepped forward. “That’s not true. Hope, we haven’t told you everything. When we started looking for the man who bilked our foster mom, we found out about you. We didn’t believe that he was dead. We started looking for you. We went to your mother.”
She felt her eyes widen. “You talked to my mom?”
“Your mom bankrolled a lot of our search. She gave us what she could because she had been looking for you for years.” Jesse got to one knee. “Hope, your mom has regretted that one moment for ten years. She’s been alone. You’ve been the only thing on her mind, finding you. She loves you. She just wasn’t good at showing it.”
A sob tore from her chest. “My mom?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t.
“She wants you, baby,” James said, kissing her forehead. “She wants you. How could she not? Does she know where Hope is?”
“Yes. We’ve kept her updated for the last month, but she’s been afraid to call. She thinks you won’t want to talk to her. She would rather get updates from us than lose track of you again,” Cade explained. “She cried when we told her we’d found you. She cried like a baby and thanked god. She made mistakes before, Hope, but she is family.”
And family meant something. “I want to talk to her.”
“We’ll bring her to the ranch,” Noah promised.
Her mother wanted her. Years of pain slipped away. Mistakes had been made and forgiven. Family was what she made it. Noah and James were her family. Bliss was her family. And her mother was her family. Her heart was a huge, never-ending vessel capable of expanding with each new person she met.
“Thank you.” James stood up and held out a hand to Jesse and Cade. “My brother and I can’t express how much we appreciate your help. She’s everything to us.”
They both shook his hand. Cade gripped James’s and then reached for Noah’s. “We both hope you feel that way because we don’t want to leave here. We’ve only been in Bliss for a couple of weeks, but this feels like home.”
“We love it here,” Jesse said.
“And it seems like you’ll fit right in.” Cam stood up, looking the two new men over. “But you two better just be mechanics from now on. No more vigilantes.”
“Those days are over,” Cade promised. “Just life from here on out.”
Just life. It was all open in front of her. Life. In all its glories and wonders. Life with its brilliant uncertainties.
She wrapped an arm around Noah and reached out fo
r James, drawing him close. Their arms closed around her. Her future was defined by four hands, four loving arms, and two wide-open hearts.
“Take me home,” she whispered.
“Always,” Noah said.
“Forever,” James added.
They took her hands and led her home.
THE END
WWW.SOPHIEOAK.COM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prior to becoming a novelist, Sophie worked in theater and comic books. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband and three precocious children, who wonder when mom is going to write a book they will be allowed to read. Her answer: probably never. Sophie believes in happy endings for everyone, no matter how extreme the story. Her stories may feature some of the fringe elements of sexuality, but at heart they are always about love. Sophie loves to hear from readers. Please feel free to contact her at www.sophieoak.com.
Also by Sophie Oak
Ménage Amour: Nights in Bliss, Colorado 1: Three to Ride
Ménage Everlasting: Nights in Bliss, Colorado 2: Two to Love
Everlasting Classic: Nights in Bliss, Colorado 3: One to Keep
Ménage Everlasting: Nights in Bliss, Colorado 4: Lost in Bliss
Ménage Everlasting: Nights in Bliss, Colorado 5: Found in Bliss
For all other titles, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/sophie-oak
Siren Publishing, Inc.
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