Bethany stood looking after Trey’s bike long after the sight and sound of it had disappeared into the early-afternoon sunshine.
Something had changed for him this morning. From the moment they’d left that hotel at the Outer Banks, he’d been preoccupied, darkly silent.
Bethany turned and walked up the stairs to her apartment.
No, he’d been quiet and thoughtful as they’d checked out of the hotel, but the tension hadn’t really tightened his shoulders until he’d gotten that text message this morning.
Bethany frowned as she flipped through her keys for the one that unlocked the door to her apartment. Who had texted him? And what had they said that made him so clearly disturbed?
Her ruminations ground to a halt the moment she opened the door to her apartment.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, and her eyes flew wide with complete surprise.
“What…what have you done?” She whispered the words through her hand to a woman who wasn’t there.
Her apartment was a shambles.
Bethany’s shoes crunched on broken glass as she walked into her living room.
She’d been robbed, but she knew exactly who the culprit had been.
Her TV and laptop were still there. But all her books had been dumped on the floor, knickknacks and houseplants scattered like a tornado had ripped through her living area.
And the bottom shelf, the one that held her photo albums…
“Damn you,” Bethany bit out as she scooped up the torn-up remnants of an album.
The vast majority of it was gone. The only things that were left were photos Bethany had taken of some school friends, some landscapes, and the trip to the zoo she and her dad had taken when they first moved to Raleigh.
Every picture that her father was in had been ripped straight from the album.
Her heart sinking, Bethany stood and half-sprinted toward her bedroom.
The framed photos of her father that had sat atop her dresser were gone.
“Why?”
The word came out half choked as she sank down on her bed. She remembered now, the way she’d run out of the apartment to get away from her grandmother—the fight over Dad’s Purple Heart.
Clearly, she’d left the door unlocked, and as Trey had whisked her away with the precious medal, her grandmother had taken her rage and revenge where she could.
“You can’t take him away from me,” Bethany whispered, reaching into her pocket for the Purple Heart. Her hand shook as she traced the engraved lines of her father’s name. “He’s my father, and no matter how jealous you are, you can’t have my memories of him.”
She let the tears fall then. For the loss of her father, which still hurt. For the violation of her home, a raw, gaping wound with the ragged edges evident all around her. For the distance between her and the man she’d just realized she loved.
And for the anxiety and uncertainty that permeated the air around her.
A few moments later, she wiped her cheeks and pulled out her cell.
As much as she’d love to press charges against her grandmother, the promise she’d made her father prevented her from going that far.
But she couldn’t stay here any longer. Not with the way her grandmother kept violating her privacy.
In order to protect herself, and her memories of her father, she had to move—and she had to do it now. She was only a few weeks from her yearly renewal, anyway. That made the decision easy.
With the call to the landlord taken care of, Bethany started packing.
She’d been at it for a couple of hours when her cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Bethany. How is the venue search going?” Mama Yelverton still sounded stressed, but there was a note of hope in her voice.
Memories took Bethany in a rush. She hadn’t heard anything about the venues from Trey, and she hadn’t done any work on it herself, too caught up in her own family drama.
“Fine! It’s totally going fine. We’ve got a couple possibilities,” Bethany said in a rush. Her phone was tucked in the hollow of her shoulder as she finished shoving clothes into her suitcase. “We were going to call you when we had some ideas finalized.”
“Oh good. I’ve just been so worried, and there’s an issue at Sam’s Place that I’ve been tied up with all day, so I haven’t been able to do any looking myself. I should have known that you and Trey would have it all taken care of.”
Bethany winced. “Sure, don’t you worry about it. I’ll call you in a little while when I’ve got some firmer details.”
“Sounds good. Want to come over for dinner? I was going to get some Chinese food, and Sarah’s hiding out upstairs studying.”
“Maybe, yeah,” Bethany said, eyeing the mound of stuff in the corner. “I actually might need a place to stay for a few days, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh really?” The note of surprise in Mama Yelverton’s voice was gone as quickly as it had come. “Say no more. Your room is always ready and waiting for you, no matter what. If I can help in any other way—”
“No, no, everything’s fine. I’ll see you in a couple hours,” Bethany said with a relieved smile. “You’re the best, Mama Y. Love you.”
“I love you too, Bethany. See you soon.”
Bethany cut the call, a mixture of relief and guilt suffusing her limbs.
Damn it. She had to figure out something about the wedding before she showed her face at the Yelvertons’ tonight. Sarah’s board exam was coming up, and the last thing she needed was to know that her wedding plans had slid off the rails into oncoming traffic.
“Let’s see if Trey’s had any better luck,” Bethany said to herself as she swiped through her contacts to find him.
She carried some boxes to the living room as she listened to the ring on the other end of the line. Fortunately, the liquor store on the corner had been getting rid of a bunch of boxes. She’d darted down there and loaded up her car with them as soon as she’d hung up with the landlord.
On her second trip with arms loaded, Trey’s voicemail kicked in.
Bethany sighed and set her boxes down. Grabbing the phone from the crook of her shoulder, she tapped out a text.
Just talked to Mama Y. She wants to know how the venue search is going. Had any luck?
She waited a moment, but when he didn’t hit her right back, she grabbed her laptop, skirting the pile of broken glass she’d swept into the corner.
It wasn’t fair to expect Trey to do all this when he had an important job to be doing at the same time. She’d spend a little while on the phone trying to get an alternate venue and hopefully keep Trey’s cover.
But her shoulders and jaw were curiously tight as she typed into the search box.
It would have been nice to know what Trey had done so she could make sure they weren’t covering the same territory. He had promised to work on the venue today.
“Don’t be stupid, Bethany. He’s an undercover cop. He might be in the middle of something dangerous.”
Small comfort that was really no comfort at all.
Bethany bent her head down and got to work.
“Hello? Is this the Wharton Rose Gardens? I’ve got some questions about your wedding services…”
* * *
Trey’s pulse had been thundering in his ears from the moment Ginger’s story had started.
As he’d strode from Ruby’s toward his bike, his phone was in his hand, and Wolf picked up nearly instantly.
“Where?”
“Duke. ER. I’m here with him now. Dean’s got Lars and Rocco, and they’re looking for Hampton.”
“Tell them to back off,” Trey barked as he slung his leg over his bike. “Hampton’s off-limits until I figure out what the hell is going on.”
An uncharacteristic note of anger crept into Wolf’s normally even tone. “Boss, you’ve been MIA since we let Rat go. If you really wanted to know what was going on, then why’d you leave us?”
“I—I…” Wolf was right. But that only made Trey angrier—angrier at himself, at the choices he’d made, at Jameson for ignoring his orders last night and landing himself in the hospital.
“Don’t anybody move, and that’s an order.”
Trey cut the call and roared out of the lot, not even bothering with the helmet.
He needed to get to his brother, even if it had been Jameson’s fault that he’d landed in the ER.
Trey wound through the traffic in downtown Durham, a cold knot sitting in the pit of his stomach. Parking was a nightmare, but Trey didn’t give a damn. His bike fit neatly between a concrete pillar and the wall of the parking deck.
The tunnel beneath the street was unbearably long, and claustrophobia started to press in on Trey long before it opened up to a bank of elevators.
He followed the signs that led to the emergency department, urgency chasing him every step of the way.
“I’m looking for Jameson Mott’s room,” he said to the woman at the desk. As she typed into her computer, Trey looked over his shoulder.
The chairs held all manner of humanity in various states of boredom, sickness, and distress. Young, old, rich, poor, health was a great equalizer, and that was clear in the population of the lobby.
If only one of his men didn’t number among them. If only he’d been there to prevent Jameson from making such a stupid decision.
But the road to hell was paved with if-onlys, and building a thoroughfare was a job he didn’t have time for today.
“Room 22.” The receptionist handed him a visitor tag with the number scrawled on it in Sharpie. “I’ll buzz you through.”
“Thanks,” Trey said, sticking the neon tag on the dark fabric of his shirt and walking through the slow-moving double doors into the chaos of the emergency department.
It was an odd atmosphere, both still and full of movement simultaneously. The little rooms were quiet and full of noise by turns.
Trey concentrated on finding the right room, making a couple of wrong turns on the trip. But eventually he came to a small exam room with the door only halfway closed.
He knocked, then pushed it open.
Wolf was seated by the bedside, a dark expression in his eyes. He nodded at Trey, much more coldly than usual.
Wolf would have to get over it. Trey couldn’t take back the last twenty-four hours, and he probably wouldn’t even if he could. The stolen moments with Bethany had numbered among the best of his life. But they’d had such a high cost.
Trey looked at the hospital bed, and his throat started to close up.
“Damn.” The word was unnaturally rough, even considering Trey’s usually gravelly tone.
But the curse was appropriate. Jameson looked like hell.
Trey could understand Ginger’s initial panic. The fear and anxiety in her words made much more sense now than when she’d recounted how she’d come across Jameson that morning.
As Jameson lay in that hospital bed, his dark, angry bruises stood out in stark contrast to the white sheets. But his knuckles were bloody and scraped, as if he’d gotten in a few licks of his own before he’d been overcome.
But the worst thing was the way his arm was bent unnaturally in the center. Cushioned on all sides by pillows, it was clearly a break that hadn’t been fixed yet.
“Jameson.” Trey stepped to the bedside. “Can you hear me, man?”
Jameson’s eyes fluttered open, as much as they could through the swelling in his face.
“Who did this to you?”
Jameson turned his head toward Trey, clearing his throat. “Hampton had a crew with him.”
Rage flooded Trey’s chest, a low, threatening tide that wanted to overtake his senses. He kept it tightly leashed. For now.
“Did you catch him cooking?”
“No,” Jameson whispered, trying to adjust his position. He cried out as he jostled his arm, and Trey pushed him gently back into the bed.
“Stay put, my man.”
Wolf stood, moving just behind Trey. “He told me some of what happened.”
Jameson closed his eyes, a pain-filled, ragged breath leaving him as he relaxed against the pillows.
Poor bastard.
Trey turned his attention to Wolf. “What’d he say?”
Wolf crossed his arms over his broad chest. “He caught Hampton out in southern Wake County. He was meeting a bunch of dealers and doling out product. Jameson waited till they’d dispersed and then tailed Hampton. He’d gotten as far as Apex when Hampton saw him and turned on him. Got a few good licks in before Hampton’s buddies got there.”
The idea that Hampton might be hurting too was a little balm to Trey’s soul, but just a little.
“Did he get any more leads?”
Wolf nodded. “He followed Hampton to an abandoned convenience mart. Jameson said it looked like someone might have been cooking there recently, but they’d moved on.”
Shit. So close.
“So they beat the hell out of him and dropped him at Ruby’s as a warning.”
Wolf nodded at Trey’s summary. “Yeah. Pretty damn ballsy for small-time dealers. They’re too brave.”
“They know something we don’t,” Trey said, his spine locking into a cold, steel column.
He looked down at his brother.
He’d let him down. He’d let them all down.
It stopped now.
Closing his eyes, Trey brought the thought of Bethany to the forefront of his memory. The way she smiled at him. The way she’d held his hand as they walked beside the surf last night. The way her body took him in, so warm, so welcoming, so perfect.
That wasn’t the life he’d chosen. Way back then, he’d known that he couldn’t rely on anyone but the Shadows.
And they relied on him just as much. He’d let them down, and Jameson had paid the price.
Trey’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he looked at the screen.
Bethany.
Once before, he’d promised them that he’d be there for them. This time, he wouldn’t break that promise. No matter what. His decision made, he declined the call.
The text message that came next was even easier to ignore than the phone call. He’d already sat down beside Wolf at Jameson’s hospital bedside and started to lay out plans for revenge.
This had to end, and nobody but Trey could ensure that.
Even if it meant letting her down, he had to do it.
He’d made a vow, and he had to keep it. No matter how much it hurt him.
And her.