Page 8 of The Saviors: Part Two
I grab the broom from the corner and sweep up what I can. After grabbing a wet cloth and cleaning up the rest, I go back to the small kitchen. I open the refrigerator and just stare inside because there’s nothing in here to fix that he won’t beat me for. The cut on my breasts is deep, and when I think it’s healing, he finds a way to bust it back open. I shut the door harder than necessary and freeze, waiting for him to come at me. When I don’t hear anything for a solid two minutes, I move to the cabinet.
“Food’s ready, Lovie.”Nolan.My sweet baby Nolan. Twenty-one years old with his whole life ahead of him, and he gets killed because of me. “What’s taking so long?” I jump and whirl around to find Brady standing right behind me.
“I was trying to find something to cook.”
He grabs my chin so hard that his fingernails dig into my skin. “What is it going to take to get you to lose your fucking attitude?”I don’t have one!“Forget it. I need to run into town anyway. I’ll get something there since you’re fucking useless.” He drops his hand from my face to grab my arm, dragging me toward the bedroom.
“Brady. Please, you don’t have to do this.”
He laughs. “You think I trust you? Not fucking likely. I left for work, and you took off to fuck around on me. And with those pieces of shit from school? Really? I knew you were disgusting, but I didn’t think you’d slum that low.” He shoves me on the bed and hooks one of the cuffs to my wrist.
“Please don’t leave me like this,” I cry, tears rolling down my face.
“Holy fucking shit. Shut up.” He clips the other cuff in place. “If you have to piss, you better not do it in this bed. I’ll be back tomorrow.”Tomorrow?My bladder is already screaming because he hasn’t given me permission to go for most of the day. There’s no way I can hold it until tomorrow.
“Can I go now, please?”
“No.” He slides off the bed, looking at his phone. “You could have gone if you didn’t fuck up dinner. I have someone I need to go see.” He strides from the room, pressing the phone to his ear. “Charlie? Yeah, I’m on my way.”Charlie?That has to be a coincidence. There’s no way Brady would be seen with someone like Charlie Norris.
The front door slams, and seconds later, Brady’s car is speeding away. I let my mind drift so I don’t think about my full bladder, and it goes to the one place that it always does. My guys and Amber. She has to be so worried that she hasn’t heard from me in almost a week. She doesn’t even have anyone she can call to check on me because they’re all… I can’t even finish that sentence. I can’t imagine a life without them in it. Sean’s humor, Kai’s quiet presence, Cole’s stupid jokes, Axel’s stubbornness, and Nolan’s sweet innocence. As that last thought finishes, it hits me like a ton of bricks.
There’s no way Brady pulled this off alone. And what are the chances they were gunning for Axel and the guys? The Charlie on the phone is Axel’s dad, and that crushes my heart. If anyone can beat Axel at his own game, it’s the original founder of the Saviors. I jerk on my cuffs out of frustration and feel one of them slip down my wrist. I look at it, trying not to get my hopes up, and realize it’s loose enough to slip my arm free. I pull again and freeze. What if Brady has cameras in the house, and this is a trap? I weigh my options quickly and decide I’d rather die running from him than live like this for another day. I slide my arm free and reach for the other one.Goddamnit!I need a key. I search around frantically, looking for anything I can pick the lock with.Think, Chelsea, think!My gaze lands on something lying on the dresser, and I get even more suspicious. It’s a key that looks like the one Brady uses for the cuffs. He wants me to run, and he’s going to get his wish.
I stand from the bed and walk as close to the dresser as my chained hand will let me. Extending my arm as far as I can, I reach for the key, and my fingers graze across it. “Shit,” I hiss when the cuff digs into the skin on my wrist. I try again, only to miss it again. Taking several calming breaths, I stare at it like I’m willing it to come into my hand. I miss four more times before my fingers finally land on it. I need to get the hell out of here. I twist back around, key clutched in my fingers, and undo the cuff. When it falls from my wrist, I’m moving as fast as I can. I jerk a jacket off the coat hook and jam my feet into a pair of Brady’s shoes. They’re way too big, but I don’t have time to search for something that might belong to me. My hand closes over the doorknob, and I shut my eyes, praying with everything in me that it’s not locked from the outside. When it twists in my hand, I pull it wide open, take off down the porch, and do the one thing I wish I would have done before I married Brady.
I run.
Chapter5
Sean
“Sean, will you chill the fuck out?” Micah grouches.
“Chill out? You’ve got to be joking.”
“They’ve been gone way too long,” Van agrees with a shrug. “They should have called by now.”
Hearing that they were all okay was a temporary relief. Knowing Chelsea is still out there is almost more than I can handle. Holden stayed behind to run every camera in the area for facial recognition for Chelsea and that dead piece of shit, Brady. Just the thought of him touching the woman I love sends my heart rate spiking.
“Sean,” Evie says gently. “You need to take your meds.”
I bite my tongue to keep from snapping at her. “I don’t want to take them until we hear from them. They make me sleep.”
She sits at my feet on the couch. “Yes. To help you heal. But I get it.”
They decided to bring me to the house we used to share with Axel instead of Chelsea’s because we don’t know if it’s bugged. Ari and his team had a close call with Charlie’s crew but were able to evade them. They’ve left us alone here, which is suspicious as fuck. Cole made the call before they left on the rescue mission to leave Ari’s team with me just in case, though.
“I just need to hear from them.”
She pats my leg. “I know, Sean. And we will.”
I let my mind wander to that day and can’t stop the shudder. When that guy hit the back of Cole’s car, I knew we were fucked. I was in the hatch, and the back glass was already missing. On the first roll down the hill, I was ejected from the back of the vehicle and hit the ground so hard that I couldn’t breathe for a good twenty seconds. Then I had to listen to the car rolling the rest of the way down the hill, and I couldn’t do a damn thing. I couldn’t even move. The doctors were shocked that I wasn’t paralyzed once they ran all their tests. They said the trauma from the accident basically made my body start to shut down. I have a gnarly cut down the side of my face, two broken fingers, and numbness in my legs sometimes. They aren’t sure if that will ever fully go away, even if they can’t explain why it’s happening. Doctors were even saying that I might eventually lose complete use of my legs. But I’m alive, and right now, that’s all I can think about. I’ll deal with everything else later. I need my family back. I need Chelsea back.
Then I think about Gavin lying in intensive care, being kept alive by a fucking machine. He took a bullet, hoping Chelsea could get away, but it was all in vain. He was barely conscious when they found him about ten feet from the cabin. He described who had her and then stopped breathing. Cole and Zane were able to keep him alive until the ambulance got there, but the prognosis wasn’t good. I pull my phone from my pocket and stare at it, contemplating messaging Ghost. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t answer my call; we got Gavin into this shit. But he answers it without fail every time.
How’s Gavin?
Ghost
