* * *
My knees were jammed against the dashboard in Scarlet’s Mini Cooper. “Hell, with the money you have, Scar, you need a bigger car,” I groaned, those senseless thoughts taking over my mind. I needed senseless now because the seriousness was too much to come to grips with.
“It’s eco-friendly, Arden. But you wouldn’t know anything about that from driving your gas guzzling Land Rover,” she teased back. This was Scarlet, after all. She’d do anything to take my mind off the fact that Ell was in surgery as she drove me back to the penthouse to change out of my suit and tie.
SOPHIE greeted us, announcing we were home to the empty house. With the lights on, I stopped by a table where we threw our keys when we enter the house. I’d been stubborn enough and put a picture of Ell, Daimen, and I from our day at the beach on it as a reminder she would come back. I picked it up, trailing the features of her face with my hand, stopping on the necklace we’d just given her. She was wearing it today; I noticed when I’d walked in on her parents’ impromptu visit. I made a mental note to ask for all her personal items. The second she was better, I’d be placing it back on her neck.
I set the picture back on the table, next to some other photos we had on display. After looking at the picture of Daimen and I with my family from just the year earlier, I stopped on another picture on display. Next to the photo of Daimen, me, and Scar in front of the Sydney Opera House was one more.
I picked it up; I was on the right, Daimen was in the middle, and Spencer was on the left. Ell had stopped to admire the picture of the two of us with my family every time she’d been in the penthouse. She had to have seen the picture of Spencer with us. Fuck me twice. I grabbed the frame, still in the entryway of my home, and slung it with brute force against the wall. Scarlet, who’d disappeared into the main part of the house, came running around the corner. “What in the world, Arden?” Scarlet’s eyes were locked on my fists while they made contact with the strong walls, as if it were Spencer.
“Arden, honey, stop.” Her voice brought me out of my rage just long enough that I could grab the picture out of the broken glass.
“Picture, picture, picture. That’s all she said. Ell never met Spencer but saw his picture every time she laid her purse here upon entering the house.” My body slumped against the wall, sliding down. I yelled, kicked, and cried at the epiphany that a man I’d once considered a close friend did this to the girl I loved, the girl Daimen and I loved.
55
Daimen
Could no news be good news? No, after pondering this thought for hours, good news was good news. Needing information, I wanted to storm back to the operating room and demand answers. All the good doctor had been told was that they were still looking for the cause of her internal bleeding.
My hands were strangling my phone, waiting for Arden to call me, when Andrew’s phone buzzed. “Wait, Scar, what?” He paused. “Yeah, he’s right here.” Andrew’s gaze met mine, and I understood at that moment that Arden needed me. I didn’t want to leave Ell, but I couldn’t do anything for her right this moment.
“You’re shitting me. Really? Fuck!” he continued, and with only one side of the story, my body was aching for information. “I’m on my way, Scar.” He put the phone back in his pocket and turned to leave without a fucking word to me.
“Andrew, fuck, man, what’s going on?” He turned to me, and I didn’t know him well enough to read his face, like I could Scar or Arden. But I knew him well enough and the universal “oh, shit” was written all over his face.
“Hell, this is going to get really bad, very quickly.” He paused. “Arden’s okay. He’s just had a little bit of a breakdown.”
“About what?” I mean, he was upset about Ell, we all were, but there’s gotta be more to the phone call.
“He figured out what Elliot meant when she kept saying picture over and over again.” Levi stood when he heard this little revelation too. “But you two can’t go half-cocked in the night and beat the shit out of someone.” He paused. “As soon as Ell is well enough, she’ll be able to identify him, and they’ll arrest the shit bag. That’s the best thing you two can do for her now.” He paused again. I was waiting for a name, for a reason Ell was fighting for her life. “Let me go, Daimen. You stay here. Please?”
“I’ll go get him,” I said, knowing full well that after Arden told me who hurt our girl, he’d be the next person I’d visit.
“Daimen, please. You’re a stubborn SOB. Let me do this. Stay here and promise me you won’t do anything stupid.” He got in my face. “Ell needs you. At the end of the day, you can’t be there if you’re in jail.” I nodded; it was the first piece of advice I agreed with.
I grabbed his arm, pulling him back to me. “Fine, I promise. But tell me who did this? Who’d have a problem with Ell?”
Scrubbing his hand over his scruffy chin, he shook his head. “Fuck, Daimen. It was your business partner, Spencer Alders.”
I could have handled a ton of bricks better than the news that my childhood friend, my best friend, was the one responsible for my girl’s accident.
I’d promised Andrew, and I meant it at the time. But when the words permeated my head, my mind reached my soul, and my legs were the first to understand I’d not be keeping my promise.
Andrew, nor his brother, could catch me before I hailed a cab with only one address in mind. I commanded him to floor it. Jordan was close to catching up with me but not quite.
My phone buzzed with so many texts, but I ignored them. I had one thing on my mind. It was vengeance for what someone who I’d thought of as a brother for so long had done to Elliot. It just wasn’t for her; this was for Arden too.
* * *
It worked to my advantage that we owned, even partially, the building Spencer and Lana lived in. Like our own, they had the top floor penthouse, but the elevator didn’t open to their home like ours did.
Pounding on the door, Lana pulled it back, her eyes glassed over with tears. She’d been crying. Did she know?
“Where the fuck is he?” I demanded. “Lana, don’t mess with me. Where the fuck is Spence?”
Her eyes darted behind the door, and with Lana, I’d always been able to sniff out a lie. “Daimen, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave.” But as manipulative as she’d been, even near the end of our relationship, the fear coursing through her light eyes never was a factor, not like it was now.
“Lana, are you okay?” When my rage softened, just enough at Lana’s pleas, it was then I noticed the bruise appearing, by the second, on her cheek. I reached for her. “Lana, let’s go.” I almost had her past the threshold of the door when she was yanked back in, and Spencer appeared, holding a gun to her head.
“It looks like I have two out of three of you back. Now, all we have to do is wait for Arden.” When his grip on Lana increased, he turned the gun to me. “Now, Daimen, come in, and we can all wait together like old times.”
56
Arden
It kept going to voicemail. Every time his words, ominous and brooding to the unexpected caller, hit my ears, my better judgment was swayed. I’d sent Scarlet to retrieve a piece of paper down the hallway in the office, really a ruse to get her out of the room. I disabled SOPHIE in order to make my getaway from the prying eyes of Scar, who would’ve tried to stop me.
In a matter of minutes, I was in a cab and on my way to find Daimen. Elliot was never far from my mind. Visions of her smile, a little lopsided but adorable as hell, the infectious laughter which still played in my mind and how her fingers skipped across my skin filled me with resolve.
Ell was fighting for her life, and Daimen was MIA. Would Karma be this cruel, taking them both from me in one night?
* * *
I was not in my right mind. If I had been, I would’ve gone to the security station, having access, and pulled the tapes to track Daimen. If I’d done that, my next phone call could’ve been to the cops. And if that was the course I’d chosen, the next hour o
f my life would’ve ended entirely different. What-ifs and could-have-beens were all things I’d never be able to take back.
* * *
My fists hit the front door of a man’s house I’d once considered a close friend, even a brother. My knuckles were already bloodied, but nothing compared to what they’d do to Spencer.
The door was mysteriously pulled open with no one to greet me. Without a thought or care in the world for my own safety, I rushed in, and the door slammed behind me. Twisting around—I was face-to-face with Spencer.
“Don’t do this, man.” The distinct voice of Daimen hit my lungs with both relief and fear. “Let him go, Spence. I’ll stay. We’ll go away together. You, me, and Lana. Let him be.”
Spence could be a scary motherfucker when rage gripped him. Daimen and I had occasion to talk him down many times. This mask he had covering the Spencer we’d once known was like every villain from every movie I’d ever watched combined.
“What’s the plan, Spence? What are you planning to do with that?” I asked, trying to find an upper hand in this fucked-up situation with the gun pointed at my face.
Blowing out a breath between rattled lips, he pointed the gun toward the living room. “Let’s go find the others. It’s about fucking time we put the band back together.” Trailing behind me, his next comments told me how far-gone he really was. “We’re like the Beatles, and your little plaything I took care of tonight was Yoko Ono,” he continued. “I begged you, Arden, to come back. This is your fault—remember this.”
Rounding the corner to the living room, my first sight was Daimen tied to a kitchen chair, and Lana stiff, next to him. In her wide eyes, fully dilated, her fear was screaming at me. This was not her idea. Lana was a lot of things, but she was not crazy to this level.
I ran to Daimen, my hands reaching out for the bruise on his face. My head whipped around to Spencer. “You want us back so much, and you fucking hit him? Let me guess, it was after he was tied up.” That was the only way Spence would’ve ever gotten the drop on Daimen. “You pansy ass motherfucker!” I roared.
“You better watch it. I still have this.” His finger was near the trigger, and the safety was off. This batshit crazy son of a bitch was not messing around. He meant business, and with Spence in this state, the outcome would not be pretty.
I turned to Daimen, inspecting every part of him. I reached for his waist, and with a large groan, it wasn’t hard to figure out Spence had probably broken a rib or two. Lifting my head to Lana, I swept my gaze over her face. A large bruise cascaded down her high cheekbone.
“Lana, you okay?” This was Lana, the vulnerable girl I’d cared about. In that second, I wanted to kill Spence not only for the beating he’d given my man but also for the brokenness I was just now seeing in Lana.
“Yeah, he only backhanded me this time. I’ll be all right.” It was her tone, the indifference, that broke my heart. As though being backhanded only once was a blessing compared to what he’d probably done for years.
My eyes reached Daimen’s. “This time?” She only nodded, confirming my suspicions.
I stood, seeing Spencer in my path. “So you hit women and you beat men who are tied up? Who the hell are you, Spence?” I asked, my body shielding both Lana and Daimen behind me. “We grew up together. You saw the shit Daimen went through in life. You were our person, Spence, the guy we chose to go into business with. Where the fuck is that man?”
The hand holding the pistol flew through the air, his sporadic motions scaring me—for Daimen and Lana only. “I’m the man who’ll put you six feet under if you don’t sit the fuck down and let Lana tie you up.” His eyes darted from mine to Lana’s and then to Daimen’s. “Did Arden tell you? Did he tell you I let you go because I wanted you both? That I felt left out? I want you both back so much. I want it to be the four of us again. That’s why I had to get rid of your new flavor of the month. I need you. I need you all.”
I lifted my hands in defeat. “Okay, Spence, you love us. I get that. We lost you, and we were hurt.” My one hand reached behind me, pushing Lana closer to Daimen. I needed to shield them both with my body. “But, Spence, this is not the way to make it happen. You can’t hurt those you love.”
“You’re lying! It’s lies. The second I let you go, you’ll go back to that bitch and leave me alone. Lana will leave me. I won’t have anything.”
His finger was still on the trigger, and with as erratic as his mood and motions were, my voice lowered, “Okay, Spence, what do you want, bro? Tell me and I will do it. Just put the safety back on the gun, please.”
The second I asked him to secure the trigger, his eyes became larger. “I don’t fucking believe you.” Leaning around me, his words roared through my ears. “You fucking bitch, get a chair for our new guest, why don’t you?”
Lana had been programmed—it was obvious—to be at Spencer’s beck and call. She stood and immediately fell. Had he kicked her in the legs too before I got there? “What the fuck? What’s wrong with you?” Spence yelled.
“I won’t sit in that chair to watch you beat the shit out of all of us. You’ll have to kill me first.” Lana had not walked over to grab an extra chair from their dining room. Instead, she was right next to me, a plea on her face when Daimen started to beg.
“Arden, baby, do as he says, please.”
A tap at my foot had me looking down at Lana. In her hands, underneath the ottoman she was near, I saw my one hope. Walking toward Spence, I continued to pull his focus from his wife.
“Then you’ll have to shoot me, you sadistic fucker.”
“Fucking hell, Arden, baby—shut the fuck up.” Daimen was screaming, but he had no idea what was about to go down.
It happened so fast, the pull of his trigger, the leap of Lana in front of me, and the rival bullet she’d fired in return. In a matter of seconds, Lana and Spence were in a heap on the floor.
57
Elliot
My eyelids were so heavy. Why wouldn’t they open? And that smell, what sort of putrid scent was invading my nose? I itched as though I had a fucking wool sweater on. And what was that incessant beep overtaking my ears?
But in all my discomfort, I heard two familiar sounds. I still couldn’t place it, but it brought back something that at one time gave me happiness. What the hell was wrong with me? What was going on?
It was only then that I heard my name. “Ell, hot stuff, can you hear me?”
Hot stuff? That sounded familiar. I wiggled my hands, and in return, something gently squeezed them.
“Beautiful, you hear us?” There was a pause in that deep and controlled tone. “Babe, she’s squeezing our hands, you feel it?”
I was determined to open my eyes and see these two distinctive masculine voices. I needed to see them. Something told me these men were special.
Gathering all the strength I had, I pushed opened both eyelids. It took a second for them to adjust to the light in the room, but when I did, two faces came into view. It all came back. The lunch with my parents. The flowers outside my loft, the necklace I’d been wearing. The text I sent them and the shove. Someone shoved me in front of a moving car. And after pushing these men away, they were here, by my side. My guys. My future.
* * *
Was there a word that could express an apology more than sorry? Because if so, there wasn’t any way I could share it with the men who looked like they had lived in my hospital room for days—how much I regretted pushing them away.
“I never want to be without you again,” I said the first day I’d woken up, over and over again. I had so many questions for them, the first being the bruise that covered my caveman’s handsome face or why he grimaced whenever he moved.
“That’s all we need to hear from you, hot stuff. And just so you know, we’re never letting you walk away, even if Daimen has to throw you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes again,” my funny guy claimed, taking residence on one side of me, and the strong dark and handsome man inhabited the othe
r side.
* * *
I’d woken the next day to shouting in the hallway after most of the accident had come back to me. My eyes focused on Arden who was holding my hand when two familiar voices stood out in my mind. Then more people were talking—no yelling. Daimen and Levi were having words with just not my mom and dad, but Keith was in the mix too.
“Sorry, hot stuff, your parents are not taking the news well that we’re here caring for you. Now, even if they are shitty parents, they are your parents, so we had no problem letting them in, but Keith will never be allowed to even look at you again. He took a swing at Daimen, and your parents got involved.” He was stroking my face, but in all of what he’d just shared, I could only laugh.
“That’s my family—a shitshow and all,” I stated. “Tell them I’m awake, and I want to see them.” Arden started to argue, and I put my hand out, stopping him. “It’s time to set the record straight.”
He did as I asked, and though Daimen could be heard telling him he didn’t like it, they all shuffled into my room. But for a woman who had almost died, as I was told, they let me have this.
“Oh, Elliot, honey, I was so worried.” My mom flung herself to my side, manhandling me. Fucking shit, didn’t she know I’d been hit by a car. And of course, as with most things with my parents, most of it was for show.
Keith tried to approach me, but my voice thundered through the room. “I was fucking thrown in front of a car, and you three”—I pointed at my parents and Keith—“come in here starting all this fucking drama. Well, I’ll tell you, this stops fucking now.” I turned to Keith. I was very weak, but this had to be said. “I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but stay the fuck away from me. Now leave.” He stood as though his feet were stuck, but Levi grabbed him by the arm, and somehow, he went willingly.
Foundations: The Power of Three Love Series Page 22
