by Nashoda Rose
I had to get my shit together—fast.
I saw the twitch in Deck`s jaw. “Not liking getting that call, Georgie.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t pixies and sunflowers for me, either. And Vic didn’t have to call you. And you didn’t have to come.” But of course he would. Unpredictable Deck was predictable when it came to keeping his word. And no matter how much more difficult it made my life … I loved him for it.
He frowned and approached the bed. “Shit is changing.”
I avoided his eyes, which I rarely did, but right now I felt like crap and was a little nervous about what Deck knew. A lie. I was a lot nervous. “Do you know if my parents are here?” They could be my buffer with Deck.
“Your parents aren’t coming by today. They agree with me. Shit changes.” Oh, God, he talked to my parents and they liked Deck. Respected him. My dad even laughed when Deck threw me over his shoulder and threatened to spank my ass when I was drunk at Emily and Logan’s dinner at the farm. “Today.”
“I can look after myself.” Stupid ass thing to say, but my head was fogged up something good and I was floundering.
“You’re living in pixie land if you think you can.” Yeah, this was a little more than Deck being pissed. This was Deck taking control of a situation he didn’t like—my situation.
Deck sighed and it was a strange sound coming from him. Actually, it didn’t suit him at all. “Georgie, I’ve been watching and doing nothing about this for a long time. Now, I’m doing something. Don’t have a choice here.”
My breath stopped. A part of me knew exactly what he was talking about. I pushed it too far. He warned me yesterday to find a balance. I went right off the scale. Shit. I drank so much I poisoned myself. What had I been thinking chugging it back like it was grape juice? I hadn’t been thinking. I knew I had to be drunk to fit the cover story and I’d gone overboard because … well, because after the purge I wanted to drown in darkness.
Vic was supposed to find me drunk at the cemetery, take me back to my place and then I would crash for a few days.
“You drink that entire bottle of scotch?”
Oh, fuck. I didn’t remember, but I sure as hell felt like I had. I chugged it back in the car before Tanner got to the cemetery. I remember Tanner taking it from me at some point. “Deck—”
“Jesus, Georgie.” Deck turned away and I again tried to get up, but he heard me and said, “Don’t move.”
I halted, plopping back down, which made me wince because of the cuts on my back. He noticed it and looked at me over his shoulder then scowled. “Deck, it was Connor’s—” He walked over and grabbed the doctor’s chart off the door. Shit.
“I don’t give a fuck what crap was fucking with your head. I should’ve seen this coming. I did see this coming.” He flipped the page, read, then looked up at me. “You should be dead.”
“I’m not.” It was a sass reply, and I should’ve been keeping the sass toned down right about now. What I had to do was get him away from the chart. “Hey sweetpea, can you get me some ice-cream? My throat is so friggin’ raw and I’d love—” I knew the second he read the doctor’s notes concerning the cuts on my back.
He froze. I saw the tightening of his muscles, the way his hands squeezed the clipboard. Then he tossed it on the plastic chair and without a word, strode toward the bed. I grabbed the edges of the sheet and pulled it up to my chin.
With one yank, he had it out of my grip and at the foot of the bed. “Deck—”
“Turn over or I’ll turn you over.”
I’d never seen him so mad as he leaned over, his fists pressed into the mattress on either side of me. I may live this life of lies, but Deck was real. Unlike me, every word out of his mouth was the truth. If I didn’t turn over myself, he’d make me.
The second I did, he untied the thin tie, which did a shit job of keeping my gown from showing my ass and yanked it open. Then I felt one of the bandages being lifted and it was as if I could feel his shock vibrating through the mattress into me. “Deck, it’s not what you think.” Shit, how was I supposed to explain the cuts? I had to play the part, yet all I wanted to do was scream the truth.
But I couldn’t. There were rules and severe consequences for breaking those rules.
He was quiet, and I lay completely still. There was nothing to fight or lie about or pretend. He knew it was impossible for me to put the cuts on myself. Holy fail.
“Who did it?”
I pulled at the numbness, desperate to hide behind the safety of its shield, but with Deck, it was as if I was trying to pull down a steel blind that weighed a thousand pounds. My only escape was my sassy mouth. “His name is Pine and he smells delicious, but he’s a little sticky around his core.” He scowled and I quickly tried to explain. “Sexy, I jumped out of the second floor window of my bedroom onto a pine tree. You want to go chop him down for cutting me up, because I’m thinking it wasn’t his fault and the tree police will be after you.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.” I knew it was a long shot. Tyler or Josh might have let it slide, but Deck … not a chance. He didn’t skim the doc’s report; he’d have read word for word and no doubt it suggested the wounds were made with a knife. “Who the fuck did this to you?”
My best defense right now was silence. I had no choice. I hated it. The lying to him. Seeing the rage in his eyes. But I’d never risk losing him—ever. I’d do whatever it took.
“You’re getting help.” Deck’s words hit me like a punch to the stomach and my eyes widened with panic.
“What?” His expression remained still. Shit, he was serious. He was going to lock me up. “It’s illegal. I’m over eighteen and—”
“Do you think laws matter to me, Georgie? I kill for a fuckin’ living.”
Shit, there was no doubt he could lock me up and throw away the key. But this was why he’d given me this cover story when Deck came back when I was eighteen … because he couldn’t lock me up. “Deck, please. Don’t do that to me.” The webs began encasing me in their sticky substance as fear gripped me. Everything was unravelling and it was happening fast. Too fast. I was losing control here.
“You drank until that shit poisoned you.” His tone hardened. “You have fuckin’ cuts on your back. From a knife. How did you get them, Georgie?”
I’d never tell him. “I don’t know.” He knew I was lying. It was the first time I think he suspected something. Shit, I totally screwed up. “I drank too much yesterday and I was—”
“How?” he shouted.
I looked at my hands.
“Look at me.” When I didn’t, he punctuated each word. “Look. At. Me.”
I couldn’t.
“Fuck this.” Deck strode over to the window and looked out into the street. “And it’s every fuckin’ day.”
“I’ll sober up.” Damn it, I went too far.
“It’s too late.”
I yanked off the heart monitor and then the intravenous, scrambled out of the bed, and darted for the door, making it into the hallway. I had no idea where I was going except the word run kept pounding into me like I was that sixteen-year-old girl again.
I heard Deck swear and I was grabbed from behind. I kicked and struggled, but to Deck, I was a flimsy piece of foil. No chance was I going to rehab. The second that happened, he’d find out the truth and then …
I panicked at the thought and reacted by dropping my weight then jerking my elbow back to hit him in the head. He let me go as he staggered back a step, his hand going to his cheek where my elbow hit. It must have throbbed because my elbow sure hurt like hell. It was a classic defense move when someone grabbed you from behind, one of the several I’d been taught. Except he wasn’t supposed to know that.
We both froze.
I saw his face, showing the surprise at what I’d just done and then the suspicion. I shouldn’t know how to do that move. I surprised myself that I managed it with Deck, of all people. But it didn’t last long. He launched for me, and my breath hitch
ed as his arms locked me down and held my back to his chest. This time, I didn’t attempt to move.
His voice was a low whisper as he growled into my ear. “Where the fuck did you learn to do that?”
I had to calm down, get myself back in control here. Deck was my biggest challenge over the years, because he knew me. Hiding who I was took talent, and I think the only way I got away with it was because he was gone most of the time. But Deck knew damn well I’d never taken self-defense, never been a fighter and never been able to get off a punch on him.
“Answer me.”
I didn’t have an answer. For once, there was no sassy comeback.
“Answer me. Damn it.”
I was slipping. I knew how to keep my mouth shut. And this was one of those times, but feeling Deck’s pulsating fury and hearing the confusion in his voice … it made everything I was doing worthless.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you, but I’m finding out. In the meantime, you’re being locked down. Bullshit has ended.”
“Deck!”
“No, Georgie. I’m done.”
Oh, God. I need my phone. I had to call him. “Don’t do this.”
“Everything okay here?” A nurse came running over and looked from me to Deck and back again.
“Deck. Please.” I resorted to begging. I’d have no access to a phone, no way to contact Tanner to get me out. Shit, would he even know where Deck was taking me? Well, he would, but the question was how long would it take and by then …
“Sir, she should be in bed—”
Deck ignored the nurse. “You drank so much you nearly died. You have cuts on you that you say came from a tree but a doctor says are likely caused by a knife. You snuck out on Vic and disappeared for hours only to be found convulsing in front of Connor’s grave. And you executed a defense move when you’ve never been to a single class. What the fuck do you want me to do, Georgie?” His voice was that of a drum, pounding through the room so loud it made my head vibrate.
Then Tyler was there. “All okay, Boss?”
The nurse touched my arm. “Miss. I’ve alerted the doctor. Come back to your room and lie down.”
I shrugged her off. “How can you throw me away like this?”
Deck held me by both shoulders. “Damn it, Georgie, I’m not throwing you away. I’m bringing you back to me.”
But there was no going back, was there?
If he put me in rehab, he’d find out damn fast I never had an addiction. There would be no withdrawals, no shakes, and no friggin’ nothing. I couldn’t fake through that. Shit. Shit. Shit. I’d played it too good. Deck thought I was a pathetic alcoholic who nearly killed herself.
Deck’s cell rang and he passed me off to Tyler. Smart, both of them knew I’d make a run for it. The nurse stood there a little stunned and then she slipped past both of us, ran to the nurses’ station and picked up the phone.
“Why are you calling, Kai?”
My breath hitched, and I quickly smothered it by pretending the wound on my back hurt as I put my hand to it and winced.
Deck locked eyes with me and then walked away a few steps. Holy shit. Panic gripped my lungs with each breath. I was still fucked up from my annual purge, waking up in the hospital and then having Deck question me about things I had no way to answer unless I told him the truth.
“You could’ve died, sweetie,” Tyler said. I yanked away from Tyler’s grip and propped myself against the wall, but he stayed within inches of me. “You didn’t see him.” He kept his voice low as he leaned into me, arms on either side, palms against the pale-blue walls. “He was scared, Georgie. Getting that call from Vic and he was ten hours away …” Tyler lowered his head, shaking it slowly back and forth. “What if we’d been on a mission? What if he couldn’t get here? Sweets, if anything ever happened to you … Jesus, I don’t know what he’d do.” I looked to the side, avoiding his eyes. He wouldn’t let me and cupped my head with both hands. “Don’t know what’s going on with you, but you need to get better.”
This was me better. I had no better. No overhaul, renovation or restoration job was going to fix me. But I learned to accept it and live with pieces of me undecipherable and stained.
I LOOKED OVER my shoulder and saw Tyler standing far closer to Georgie than I liked. “Why are you calling?”
“I heard Georgie got herself into some trouble.”
“I’m not going to ask how you know about that. But I do want to know why she cares if I’m talking to you.” I saw the look on her face when I said his name. She’d met Kai when he’d helped kill the sex trafficker. Was Georgie nervous of Kai? She must have known I’d never let him near her again.
“She okay?”
“I don’t have time for idle conversation with a guy I don’t like. So, why the fuck are you calling?”
“Ah, so Georgie is idle conversation?”
“Georgie and anything to do with Georgie is off-limits to you.” The bastard had the gall to chuckle and I clenched the phone harder. “I told you never to call unless it was an emergency.”
“It is.” I waited. “I need the girl found.”
“Jesus. Like I told you in New York, it’s not happening. I don’t have time for that shit.” London, the girl I rescued from the sex-trafficking auction a number of years ago. She’d stayed at Georgie’s place until I found out who she was and where she came from. Found out she’s from a very wealthy family. She has been a constant runaway ever since she came back. Last I heard, she’d been missing for nearly a year … longest yet. Kai was interested in finding her. Wealthy family probably was paying him a shitload to bring her home. Thing was, it didn’t fit with the type of work Kai did. According to what little I could dig up on Kai when I’d first met him, he stayed low. Meaning no high-profile shit. London was high profile.
“It’s a time issue.”
I coughed on my half-laugh. “Why? The parents paying you extra if you find her before a year is up?” When he dragged my men and me to New York, I was under the impression it was something big—it wasn’t. But I owed him a favor, so we went and checked out the area London had last been seen. Then the call came in about Georgie from Matt and we flew back.
“The favor was for two days.”
“Yeah, well you got one.” I had enough problems with wondering what to do about Georgie. Vic knew a place she could go to sober up, get help, but no matter what I said two minutes ago, I was following my instinct and backing down. Something wasn’t right. It was like a tickle in the back of my throat constantly niggling me. Her cuts. Her disappearing act. That self-defense move she pulled. Shit, the bottle of Scotch she drank somewhere other than Connor’s grave, because Vic had sworn she wasn’t there all day. But suddenly she shows up there, passed out with some guy calling an ambulance.
Who the hell was the guy? A coincidence that he finds her lying unconscious and convulsing at Connor’s grave. I didn’t believe in coincidences.
I looked over the moment Tyler put his hands on either side of her head as if he was going to kiss her. I knew he wouldn’t, but still, I didn’t like it. I had to end this conversation fast. I kicked at the orange plastic chair in front of me and it toppled over. Both Georgie and Tyler looked at me, he dropped his hands from her and a nurse behind the desk scowled at me.
I felt like a fuse had been lit inside me and was slowly burning. Soon I was going to lose it, and losing it in front of strangers didn’t happen. But my thread was pulled so tight right now it was going to snap any minute. I couldn’t get out of my head the look in her eyes after she drove her elbow back into my cheek. It was an expert’s move. When the hell did she ever take a class to learn that shit? Georgie was too busy partying to take a class. It didn’t make sense.
I heard the ding of the elevator, then watched two burly men wearing security uniforms walk out, a doctor with them. Kai was saying something about the fuckin’ favor, but I was focused on what was about to go down. My eyes shot to the nurse behind the desk who was look
ing at me and talking on the phone. The men coming our way had eyes locked on Georgie and Tyler.
“Tyler.” I snapped my phone shut, hanging up on Kai.
He was instantly alert, turning and standing in front of Georgie like armour. I strode toward the doctor and the two buffoons to intercept. The nurse called out to me, but I knew enough about hospital policies to know what was going down.
The doctor stopped in front of me, cocky little bastard wearing a fuckin’ sneer on his narrow face. I was blocking him from getting anywhere near Georgie, although I suspected from his expression, and Rick and Mick at his side, that he thought differently. “Sir, only family members are allowed to visit.”
“I’m not visiting.”
He cleared his throat and shifted uneasily while adjusting his glasses, which didn’t need adjusting. “We’re going to have to ask you and your friend to leave. The nurse will help the patient back to her room.” From the corner of my eyes, I saw the nurse-—name tag, Belinda—come out from behind the desk.
“Deck,” Tyler warned. And it was a warning because I had my hand on the gun beneath my jacket. “Not here, Boss.”
“We’ll look after her. She can leave after a psych evaluation scheduled for tomorrow and after the police have been to question her about the wounds on her back. It’s mandatory after something like this. We’d also like to re-run her blood for precaution.”
I stared at him for several seconds then I glanced over at Georgie, who stood quietly behind Tyler. I didn’t like it. And I sure as hell didn’t like the doctor, but starting a fight in the hospital would cause us problems. Besides, Georgie was better off here for one more night and I did want to hear what she told the police about the fuckin’ cuts on her back.
I nodded to Tyler. Fine, one night.
“When can we pick her up?” Tyler asked.
The nurse gave instructions about discharge to Tyler and I approached Georgie. She was still up against the wall, having not said a word during the whole exchange.
“Tomorrow, you’re coming with me. We need to sort this shit out. Okay?” She nodded and I felt her tremble as I ran my hands down her arms. There it was … in her eyes. The vulnerability and softness that had been hidden for years. Fuck, I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and kiss her so fuckin’ badly. I cleared my throat. “Pass the psych exam, would you?”
