Total pages in book: 227
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
She’s had her freedom. She better not fight me on what she knows is coming.
I get up and go to her, wrapping an arm around her and walking her into the café.
“What’s going on?” Brad asks, appearing with Pearl tucked into his side.
“The spa just blew up,” I say, feeling Rose’s shocked eyes hit me from her place under my arm.
And when my phone rings, my recovering heart drops again. Unknown number. He’s called Pearl. James. Now me. But my phone rings off before I can answer, and another rings. Brad’s. Then that stops and another rings. I turn my eyes onto Beau as she looks down at her screen.
“Unknown number,” she says.
Rose’s phone starts ringing from her bag. “Who is that?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Otto mutters from his laptop. He’s thinking what I’m thinking. My number, James’s, Brad’s, yes. But our wives? How the fuck did he get those numbers?
Ringo’s phone starts, and Brad moves in, holding up his hands for Ringo to pass it. He throws it, and Brad catches and connects the call. “You’ve made your point,” he says in answer, holding the phone out for us all to hear.
“Have I?” King asks. “You mean the salon and the musical ringing tones worked?”
“It worked.”
“Oh, then I suppose I should have left your son alone.”
Every face swivels in various directions.
Looking for Nolan.
Where the fuck is he?
“Like I said. I want her back. Virginity intact. Then you can have your son.” He hangs up.
54
PEARL
* * *
My hands go to my mouth, my lungs burning with the sudden effort it’s taking to breathe. “Send me back,” I demand. “Send me back, send me back.” I feel the tears coming, and I look around at the people who have shown me nothing but kindness. The women, mothers, and Beau’s pregnant. I can’t allow this. “Send me back!” I turn into Brad, fisting the front of his suit jacket with my hands. He’s a statue. Blank as he looks down at me. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have stayed. I should have left sooner. I should never have accepted their shelter, their safety.
Brad blinks, his long eyelashes fluttering. And he seems to come back into his body. His soft, vacant gaze slips away, and in its place, a terrifying expression. Fearsome. Apoplectic. He blankets my fists with his hands and detaches them from his suit, and Beau moves in, taking me from him as the men fly into action. Brad takes his phone to his ear, a wrathful scowl on his face. “Nolan’s been taken. Get everyone out of the club now and take all the stock to the house. Guns and money.” He hangs up. “Where the fuck is Ella?” he yells, walking out onto the veranda. I watch him look across to the containers. “Fuck,” he curses, dashing back through the cafe, James following.
Danny goes to a stunned Rose. “Home,” he orders in a tone she’d never challenge. She nods and Danny goes after the others as Beau walks me down the steps to the cars.
“Fuck!” Brad roars, disappearing inside the green container. He appears a few seconds later with Ella draped across his arms.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, trying to break out of Beau’s hold.
“No, Pearl, we have to go,” she snaps, hauling me on, her strength far greater than mine, even pregnant. And of course, I don’t fight her because of that. “She’ll be okay.”
“She’s breathing,” Brad says, carrying her to a car. “Someone get Doc on standby.” Fury opens the back door to a Mercedes and helps Brad place Ella in the back as Rose loads Maggie into the other car. Beau gets her phone out and makes a call, walking my useless, dazed body to another car.
“Doc,” she says urgently. “We need you back at the house.” She helps me into the back of the car and closes the door, running back to James and taking his forearms, looking up at him. I don’t know what she says. But the way he’s looking at her? Anger. Love. Hate. He dips and lets her kiss his cheek before turning her around and sending her back toward me. Danny’s quiet. Observing. A face that’s frankly terrifying as he pushes bullets into the magazine of his gun, a cigarette held between his lips. All of them. Like robots. A button pressed. No longer husbands, friends, and fathers.
They’re killers.
Unlawful Men.
And I’m scared.
Brad rejoins the others, and James smacks his back lightly, talking. He looks back at me sitting in the car, stares hard. And yet it’s soft. “I love you,” he mouths, and my heart cracks, my hand taking on a mind of its own and opening the door. I get out and go to him, and he turns, giving me access to his chest, letting me walk into his body and bury my face under his chin, unconcerned by the spectators.