Page 106 of Wicked Deceit
“I once had a relationship like you have,” she whispers with such sadness I feel it in my tightening chest. She swallows hard, rubs at her eyes, and sighs. “Three boys. Mack, J.J., and Huxley,” she murmurs their names with a heavy tongue and side-eyes me when we come to a complete stop at the next stoplight. “My mom immigrated from Chile when she was sixteen, met my dad shortly after, and then had me. We came from a large family up north, filled with, um—interesting people. My dad got transferred for his job to Southern California, working with this guy named Franco, and um, he was dangerous. But that’s where I met them. They were his foster sons. They became my best friends, and then we became something more, and then, well… yeah,” she murmurs the last part, blushing a little.
“And then they killed you? I don’t understand?” I ask, sitting back in my seat again, readjusting my posture when the large, foreboding hospital comes into view a few blocks away.
“It’s a long story and kind of complicated. Franco was a bad guy, raising them to be bad guys. One night, he…” a tear falls down her face, and she wipes it away quickly. “They burned my house down with me inside. All of them watched. That night, I died in their eyes, so here I am now. I’m tired of criminals getting away with shitty crimes and not paying for their actions. My name may be on a gravestone—” She rolls her lips in with a heavy sigh, pulling into a vacant parking spot near the hospital. “but I fight for people who can’t fight for themselves. My Uncle Jonathan saved me after this.” She points to the raised red marks on her face and neck. “And now I’m part of the best team in the country. And—shit.” She gives a small laugh.
“I probably told you way too much information right now. Please don’t tell anyone,” she whispers, pleadingly looking at me. “I didn’t mean to spill all that, but you look so much like him with the tattoos and everything. It’s like my old best friend is sitting here again, and I kind of lost it the moment I saw you.” She swallows a lump in her throat, and for some odd reason, I nod along. She’s lived a life I can’t imagine, betrayed by people she thought loved her. And here she is, standing taller and prouder and stronger than before, part of a team—albeit a shitty fucking team who shows up ten minutes late to the main event. Despite that, she’s fucking here and standing tall, doing what she thinks is right.
“How can you even look at Zepp or me if they did that?” I ask, looking up toward the hospital’s daunting height and then back to her.
“I guess my heart never stopped loving him,” she murmurs, unbuckling her seat belt. “Come on, I’ll help you find your brother. I’ll flash my badge around.” She jumps out of the car, with me not far behind her.
Without another word, we head into the vacant hospital, devoid of life except for the nurses and doctors milling around looking after their patients. Espie does as she said she would and flashes her badge at every nurse we encounter when looking for directions to Zepp’s bed in the emergency department.
“Well,” she says, playing with the badge hanging around her neck. “It was nice to meet you. Sorry about all this. Um—between you and me, if it were up to me, I would have arrested them when Carter told us about them a few months ago.” My spine stiffens when she mentions Carter, but she keeps her big brown eyes pointed at the floor. I make a note to talk to Carter later because I will fucking speak to him later. There’s no way he’ll fucking die. He’s too hard-headed to do something stupid like that.
“Um, well, good luck with everything,” I say, running a hand across the back of my neck. What do you say to someone like this? I fucking hated her and the organization she works for thirty minutes ago, and now I feel bad for her and everything she’s gone through.
“You, too,” she says with a soft smile. “We’ll be investigating more. So, I’ll probably see you around. But here’s my number if you ever have any questions,” she says, handing me a slip of paper, and with that, Espie turns on her heel, muttering insults at herself, and marches out of the hospital.
I raise my eyebrows as she retreats, and my shoulders sag. More exhaustion fights its way into my brain, but I have a few more missions to complete. I try to imagine I’m my Angel Warrior character battling through the last level against the Devil on a low life and forge on.
I close my eyes, standing outside my brother’s room. It’s the only damn room the nurses would let me go to since he’s my family. I tried to explain to them that the others were my family, too, but they wouldn’t fucking listen. I whip the curtain open, getting my first eyeful of Zepp and his room. He lies in the hospital bed, hooked up to several machines with his eyes closed, and a peaceful slumber has taken him over. He doesn’t even twitch when I walk into the room and shut the loud curtain behind me. Darkness settles over the room, and finally, every inch of stress unfurls from my clenched muscles, and I sigh. My eyelids feel like cement is dragging them down, and I know a fitful sleep is right around the corner. I need to find Kaycee and Carter and Chase to find out something, but I literally can’t move another inch without falling over.
I drag my feet across the dark room, looming over my other half. Kaycee may be my soul mate, but this man here was my womb mate. We've shared everything together—the darkest parts of our history. Suffering under our father’s neglectful eye, losing our mom, and all the childhood shit we went through. We may fight and bicker, and sometimes I may want to bury him six feet deep in the backyard, but looming over him like this and letting my fingertips brush against his warm arm—it fucking kills me.
Tears fill my tired eyes, and I swear whenever I blink, sandpaper grits against my eyeballs. I look at the uncomfortable chair in the corner of the room and cringe. Right now, after everything I've witnessed tonight, I need to feel something real. He may kill me whenever he wakes up and discovers I'm spooning him, but he can suck it.
His warmth soaks into my side, and every ounce of tension leaves my body in an instant. I snuggle into the bed next to my brother, who doesn't even stir. A buzz encases every inch of my body, and my mind whirls through everything that has transpired in the past forty-eight hours. Every scene plays in my mind, and I groan, begging sleep to take me so I can make sure everyone is okay. I snuggle into the side of Zepp's neck and fucking breathe for the first time tonight. Sleep tries taking me under its spell, but the wicked nightmares hold me captive and consume me, pulling me into the darkness of the Apocalypse and their merry band of fucking psychos.
Sometime later, I’m roused out of my sleep when measured footsteps walk into the room, peeling back the curtain separating us from the hallway. Peeking an eye open, a nurse stands before me with a glass of water.
“Here,” she says with a small smile. “You’ve been here for a few hours, and I thought you might want this.” I gulp down the glass of water with a muttered thanks and slump back into the bed.
“Is my brother going to be okay?” I watch him sleep out of the corner of my eye, steadily watching the rise and fall of his inhales and exhales.
“Oh, he’s going to be fine. We were able to stitch up his wound without surgery. The bullet, thankfully, missed the important bits, including the bone. Everything is still intact, and his muscles and tendons should repair themselves on their own without us. He’ll be on antibiotics for a while, but that’s the extent of his injuries. He’s just worn out now from the pain medicine we’ve given him, but we should release him in the next twelve hours.” She smiles down at me as I nod my head at her words.
Okay, that’s good. Zepp will be fine. My heart rate picks up, and I climb to my feet in front of the nurse, towering over her petite form.
“My girlfriend, Kaycee Cole,” I start in a desperate voice, basically pleading with this nurse to give me some answers. “She came in here a few hours ago. I need to know if she’s okay. I need to see her, please. And… and…. Chase Benoit and Carter Cunningham are my damn brothers, too,” I plead with the biggest puppy dog eyes I can muster, folding my hands together in a pleading gesture. “Can you, please, please, give me some answers? Are they okay? Did they…?” I trail off when she shakes her head and bites into her bottom lip. Sympathy weighs heavily in her eyes, and I can tell she knows something but can’t say anything. My shoulders deflate.
She looks behind her for a brief second and then sighs. “I’m so sorry. I can’t give you that information. I was able to tell you about him because he’s your family. But they aren’t. It’s for patient privacy—I can’t give out their information.”
Before I can think about it, I’m on my knees, begging for a bread crumb of information. “Please. Please, give me something. She’s the love of my life. If I lose her or my brothers, I won’t be able to live with myself. Please, give me something,” I whisper through quivering lips, holding back the tears threatening to spill from my aching eyes.
She sighs, checking behind her again. “I can’t give you their information. But I can tell you the three you are looking for are on the eighth floor and their parents are here. If they feel like it, they can give you the information you need.” My arms wrap around her with an oomph, squeezing her into an enormous hug. She stiffens and lightly pats my arm and peels herself away from me.
“Sorry,” I mutter, rubbing a hand along my neck. “I just…”
“Go,” she says with a nod. “I’ll let your brother know you were here. He’ll probably sleep for another few hours, anyway. I’ll page you if he needs you, okay? Now go be with them too,” she says, waving a wrist.
“Thank you,” I whisper, taking off in a full-on sprint. My muscles protest with every move, but I grit my teeth. Desperation soars through me when I jog down the hall, looking left and right for the elevators I need. Finally, I get on them and rub a hand down my chest—shit—my bare chest. No wonder everyone looked at me so damn funny. Not only was I running down their sacred halls, but I was also fucking shirtless. Shit, I bet they called security on my half-naked ass, but I don’t give a shit. I’m on a fucking mission to get to the eighth floor. If only this elevator weren’t so damn slow.
Finally, I get to the correct floor and take off down the hallways that twist and turn. Who knew a hospital could be so confusing? But I finally make it to my destination. Out of breath and exhausted, I rest my hands on my knees, sucking in breath after breath. Jesus. After that quick jog through the hospital, why was I so out of breath? Fuck. I ran like three miles with Kace in my arms last night, and here I am, hacking and sputtering.
Once I get my erratic breathing under control, I round the corner of a small waiting room and stop dead. The tension in the air is so thick that I’m choking on it. Kaycee’s parents sit with long faces with their heads in their hands, muttering.
My heart leaps at the sight of Mr. Benoit sitting beside them, holding Ainsley as her head rests in his lap. His fingers brush through her hair, soothing her as she sleeps.
