The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) (13 page)

“He said it was important,” she responded. “Very important. He insisted I come to get you.”

I rubbed my temples as I felt a stress headache come on. Could’ve only been one person. One to make my shitty day worse.
 

Behind my trail to the exit, a nurse whispered to another, “I thought marriage would make him less of an asshole, not more.”

I made a mental note to make the rest of her day hell for saying that. No bad word against me ever goes unpunished.
 

Checking out the overcrowded E.R, I spotted a random woman make a beeline for me the moment she spotted the white coat. She proceeded to complain about the wait time for her son to be seen, who trailed behind her with vomit decorating his shirt.
 

Ignoring her, I walked past her and approached the exit door. Gowan was pacing around inside the vestibule.
 

I continued to wade through the crowd and met him outside. Nodding to him as I walked by, I led him to a more secluded area of the sidewalk away from the security guard station.
 

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” I muttered over my shoulder and surveyed the parking lot.

“Feds shut down Suicide Angels and came after Roy. He’s in custody right now, freaking out, and rightfully so.”

I finally gave him full eye contact. “How the hell did that happen?”

He shrugged like he didn’t know the reason, but he knew why. I told him he should shut down the site before giving it to my idiot cousin, Roy. Roy barely passed the MCAT. He never deserved the white coat. He never deserved the reins to something that should’ve been shut down months ago.
 

“Are you ready for a shit ton of I told you sos?” I asked. “Because I am.”

“Pointless now, isn’t it? We’re good as long as he doesn’t talk. Nation X is on our side and wiped fuck all from the Internet, right?”

Nation X was a network of anonymous hackers; they made sure Suicide Angels remained off the radar. They screwed up a few times, because some disgruntled fuck hacked into the site enough times to be an annoyance and shut it down. After Victor placed the fear of God into Nation X, they got their act together, and we were never hacked again.
 

To this day, it bothered me that Mrs. Givens so easily accessed the site, claiming she did so by accessing Nikki’s history. Nikki was incredibly computer smart and never would’ve done something so stupid. With many other things that required my attention, I never had a chance to look into it. Eventually, it stopped being important. “Been through this before with a client who had regrets. We’ll fix it—correction,
I’ll
fix it.”

“You’re kidding.” His jaw unhinged in disbelief. “He’s our cousin. We protect our people from the ones who want to hurt them, not the other way around. He’s family—our family. Goddamn it, Eric, you’re not in a gang anymore.” He pointed to my head. “What has my father always told you? You’re better than the way you were raised. You’re a doctor now. A good one. Don’t go back to the shit we got you out of to get you to this point.”

How little he knew. I stopped thinking and being small time; I learned to be smarter about my exploits after my family died, but I never stopped being loyal to the people who had my back when no one else did. “Your option to sit and wait on an asshole who damn near shits his pants at the sight of blood is to wait? How very pious of you.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, remembering what I wanted him to remember. He was an accomplice to Angie’s murder. Glass houses. Stones. “This is very different. I understood the situation with Angie. I supported it, because the woman was a monster who meant her niece not a damn stitch of good will. Don’t do it, Eric. At the very least, think on your decision a little more.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I have too much to lose now. I can’t afford to wait.”

“He’s not gonna screw this up. If he has to do time for all of us, that’s what he’ll do. He’s not going to go against blood. I trust him, even if you don’t.”

“If you trusted him, you never would’ve come to me with this.”

Falling silent for a while, the pavement suddenly grabbed his attention as if there was an ant circus occurring on the ground. “There’s no coming back from this. This isn’t about survival anymore.”

“You’re right. It’s preemption.”

His eyes flickered up at me. “Thought you were on the outs with the guy who gets things done, anyhow. You should’ve been on the outs. Eric, I know you’re a grown man and all, but don’t do what I think you’re going to do. Can you give me your word on that?”

“There’s no such thing as an out with Victor.” I purposely ignored his asinine attempt to make me promise something I hadn’t planned on doing. I could see the disappointment in his eyes. I’d seen it so many times, it didn’t bother me. I had also bared witness to the same exact look from my Uncle Howard more times than I have the fingers to count.

Howard Senior was a hard ass who had one requirement if you lived under his roof. The specialty didn’t matter, you had to become a doctor. I remembered the moment he sat me down after he picked me up from what they dubbed the ‘Apricot Street Massacre.’ It was such a vacuous title. Three dead people doesn’t equate to a massacre.

My Uncle Howard didn’t fault me for what I did. He asked me if I was done killing. I lied to him. I think he knew I lied, but he never questioned me about it again. Especially not after I enrolled in premed at the U of R. The man turned himself into a goddamned hypocrite when he started Suicide Angels. He argued his innocence because he only provided the tools, but he never dealt the needle. He didn’t get it; there wasn’t a difference.

A nurse peeked around the bend of the glass door with a perturbed look directed toward me. “Dr. Brenton? Are you going to be long? We really need you back on the floor. Stabbing Victim. ETA, five minutes.”
 

“Lay low for a while. Don’t contact me again until this settles,” I stated to Gowan.

He gave me a reluctant nod. “I’m not going to wait around and watch you self-destruct. I’m going back to Doctors Without Borders. This might be the last time we see each other. Remember the man my aunt—your mother—raised you to be, and not what those bastards want you to be.” He gave me a hug, and headed down the street.

AFTER A SIXTEEN-HOUR shift, all I wanted to do was get in the bed and stay there for a day with no bullshit in between.
 

But at four o’clock in the morning, Nikki was up and pacing around the kitchen.

The instant she tried to talk, I shot her down.

“Not right now, Nik.” Pulling her into my arms, I gave her kiss. “Going to crash until your appointment. Come join me in bed.” I started down the hall and was almost to the stairs.

“I had a visit with Preston,” she blurted out.
 

I looked over my shoulder at her, watching her buzz in place, behaving like something was crawling all over her.

Inside, I was fucking beyond the wall that the dumbfuck did something I warned him against doing. He was taunting me by coming near Nikki. He was a tricky asshole given who connected both of us. Mark my fucking words, he would pay for committing infraction number five—disobedience—very soon.
 

Turning around, I marched toward her with long, slow strides. “He just so happened to have your number and had the opportunity to meet with you?” I kept up my composure, never breaking it with her. It was the calm before I switched on the attack mode and the physical—or verbal—assault made people piss their pants in fear.

She chewed on her trembling lip. “He was a client. At least I thought he was a client.”

“And did you meet up with him before or after you found out who he was? Which”—I cracked a smirk despite being utterly fucking annoyed—“is really crazy, because I would think you would’ve caught his name, correct? So, I’m thinking you went to him willingly, and not so much that he summoned you.”

“No, I didn’t go—”

“Did he touch you?” I asked with as much tranquility as my voice would allow.

She started to trail on about everything but the answer to my question.

“Just one fucking day…” I muttered, doing what I said I wouldn’t do. I was mostly pissed at Preston, and she was receiving the brunt of it. “I’d like to walk in the house without you fucking up and doing things to piss me off. Why can’t you obey me for one fucking day?” I slipped my hand underneath her shirt, grabbing the soft skin on the curve of her waist. I dug my fingers into her flesh until she whimpered and cringed.
 

“Nikki.” The fingertips of my other hand trailed up the side of her heart-shaped face, finding the section of hair always hiding one side of her physiognomy. I pushed it back behind her ear and plastered a halfhearted smile on my face. “Here’s what you're going to do; you’re going to cancel him as a client. Then, you’re never to communicate with him again.
 

“If my instructions are too hard for you follow, let me know. That’s what I’m here for, my twisted angel, to help you. I’ll create a schedule for you, again. This time, I’ll keep the keys to all the cars in the driveway to ensure you can easily follow.” I pulled her forward, speaking against her forehead. “I want to make absolutely sure I keep things very easy for you.”

From the emotion in her eyes, I could tell I had hurt her feelings. Clearly. With bigger issues on my mind, I didn’t have the energy to pretend to be sympathetic. Roy, Preston, and now Victor Mejía were summoning me. Nope. None of it was a good thing. Besides, not every damn thing that happened to her equated to an apocalypse…even though she tended to act like it was. I was the iron wall between her and people fucking with her and her dystopia.

She needed my control like no other woman I’d ever met. She wanted it. She needed it. She got it. Not sure why she insisted on fighting me at times. It was beyond any reason I could’ve come up with.

Usually, if a vacancy was lacking, I created one to perfectly fit me, and only me. With Nikki, a gaping hole was already there. Without my guidance, she usually made rash decisions to fuck the both of us over.

“Didn’t you hear anything I said?” she asked in a tiny voice. “What is this? Are you trying to make me hate you, so I’ll file for a divorce?”

The word divorce…yeah, that cut right through me. “What the fucking hell, Nik? Do you have to go to the severe solution all the time?”
 

“You were expecting divorce when you insisted we have a prenuptial agreement.”

I pushed down the exhaustion and the escalating anger, standing up tall. I pulled her close with a hard tug. She landed against my chest with sexy as hell groan. I searched her eyes as I thumbed the tear sliding down her cheek. “No. It was about you. Protecting you and what’s yours. Reassuring you that I don’t give a shit about what your mother left you. I don’t want a damn piece of it. I have what I want.”
 

My grip on her waist firmed enough to make her whimper again. “I gifted the shares in Harvest that she gave me back to you. And for the record, Nikki, nothing has changed. You would have to be dead before I ever let you go. Even then, I’m not sure. I’m your fucking eternity and you’re mine.”

Behaving like I’d hit her, she flinched.
 

I couldn’t blame her. Even with what I said, there was enough acid in my words to dissolve several bodies.
 

“You’re hurting me.”

“When is that ever a problem?” I asked with a crooked smile. “Are you wet right now when you don’t want to be? I can definitely scratch your itch.” Leaning toward her ear, I sank my teeth into it. “Where do you want it? Your ass or your mouth?”

“No. No. No! What the fuck is your problem, Eric?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Do you really want to address me that way?” I dug my nails into her skin again, making her jerk backward. “My hand is aching to make nice with that perfect ass of yours.”

“You know what I want, Eric?” The fire came back into her eyes as her tears ducts ceased production. “I want to call you an asshole. I want to think what Preston said wasn’t true. Who for the record, came here to see me. I did not go to him.”

Infraction after infraction. And now Preston was coming to the house and telling her shit about me? I saw nothing but Preston’s blood, coating my hands. I very much looked forward to making him choke on it.
 

She grabbed my wrist, failing epically to make me remove my hands from her body. I tangled my other hand firmly in the back of her hair. Tugging it hard, I gave her no other choice than to look up at me. “I see that look in your eyes,” I said with menace. “I can tell whatever that waste of fucking air said, you believed him. I warned you, doubting me has repercussions. I warned you about disobeying me as well. Nikki, you will not pick up his calls, and you will not see him again. Because I have to tell you, unless you look for him, he will never come here again. Do what you’re told, or I’ll make it my personal duty to act out a long list of all the things I want to do to every inch of this body for disobeying me.”
 

I knew I was scaring the shit out of her. She tamed me by doing something to disarm me, slightly. She clung to the waist portion of my shirt, kneading and balling up the material in her fists. It was a habit of hers that screwed with me, her silent way of showing how much she needed me.
Fuck, that felt incredible.
The woman successfully set fire to my flammable armor.