Page 51 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
And then everything went white.
Guess we're even now.
Except we're not. Because she's seen the real me and kept quiet about it. That's not something you can repay with violence in an alley. That's a debt that hangs over your head forever.
"Is he okay?" I mutter.
My hackles bristle immediately at the softening in Phoenix's expression, like he's touched I care and happy to find out I give a shit about our bandmate. Joke's on him, because I don't. I would've done the same damn thing for anyone vulnerable in that position.
The fact it was Stephen whose face I got to rearrange is just the icing on the cake.
"Yeah," Phoenix says quietly. "He's okay. Rafael took him back to the penthouse."
The penthouse. Our pack's territory. The place where we're supposed to be safe, where outsiders don't?—
"So he's in your room?" I ask pointedly.
Phoenix looks away, and that tells me everything I need to know.
"Tell me," I grit out, my fingers gripping the hospital sheets hard enough that my knuckles creak, "that you did not put Bells inNash'sroom."
The silence that follows is answer enough.
"Get him out." My voice comes out low, dangerous. The kind of quiet that makes smart people leave. Too bad Phoenix is a giant himbo. "I don't care where he goes, but get him the fuck out of Nash's room."
"It's just for now?—"
"I don't give a shit if it's for five minutes. That's Nash's space. His things. His—" The words choke off, tangled up with the IV in my arm and the bandages on my face and the fact that my brother is dead and some girl I'm blackmailing is sleeping in his bed like that's fucking normal.
"Nash would want someone to use that room," Phoenix says softly, like he's trying to coax down a wounded beast that's about to take a bite out of his jugular vein. "He'd hate that we turned his room into a shrine. Into a coffin we're too afraid to open."
"Don't." I force my eye open, glaring at Phoenix with enough venom to strip paint. "Don't you fuckingdaretell me what Nash would want. You don't get to use him to justify?—"
"To justify what?" Phoenix's voice gains an edge I rarely hear. "Letting someone stay in an empty room instead of a shitty hotel where Stephen Hughes can find him? Because that's what this is about, Rex. Bells needs to be somewhere safe right now. Somewhere Stephen won't go. He's afraid of you. We all know that."
The name brings everything rushing back. The sick satisfaction I felt with every crunch of bone beneath my knuckles.
"Did he survive?"
"Yeah." Phoenix's jaw tightens. "Multiple facial fractures, severe contusions, broken nose. But he'll live."
Shit.
I must make some sound, some indication of disappointment, because Phoenix's expression shutters.
"Rex, you can't?—"
"Can't what?" I shift in the bed, and pain shoots through my face, my ribs, everywhere. "Finish what I started? Watch. When I get out of here, I'm going to find that piece of shit and?—"
"And what? End up in prison?" Phoenix demands. "Rex, they're already asking questions. The only reason you're not in custody right now is because Bells told them Stephen attacked him first. That you were defending him."
Her.
Defendingher.
The correction sits heavy in my skull, wrong and right at the same time. I defended her because some fucked-up wiring in my brain won't let me watch women get hurt. I'm not a good person. But there are some lines I won't cross, and anyone else who crosses them in front of me is fucked.
She covered for me. Again. The debt keeps piling up, and I fucking hate it. Hate owing her anything when I'm supposed to be the one with power here.
