This Is Love, Baby (War & Peace #2) (21 page)

She hangs up on me and I scrub my face in frustration.

Like fuck I will.

I am stuck here until Dad shows up with clothes. I can’t exactly take to the streets barefoot. I feel like a prisoner in this fucking room. Crawling back out of the bed, I pull up the app on my phone that I’d installed awhile back. The green flashing ping gives me a false sense of security—I know it doesn’t tell me if she’s hurt—but it at least tells me where she is. I keep it open and under my watchful eye while I take a quick piss. By the time I’ve splashed water on my face, Cathy shows up with my dad and a security officer.

Everyone has somber looks on their faces and I think I might snap. “Someone please talk to me.”

“This is really against hospital protocol, but since MPE is such a generous benefactor—” the security guard stammers but is interrupted by my father.

“And we appreciate that. Can you please just tell us what was on the footage?”

“Of course,” he says, clearing his throat. “About an hour ago, a man in scrubs was seen entering this room pushing a wheelchair,” the security officer tells me, his breath heaving. “Several minutes later, he came back out with a young woman in the chair. She appeared to be awake. Didn’t look to be injured on the footage. The man’s face was covered. They’re still sorting through the parking lot footage.”

“Shit,” I hiss out and then run my fingers through my messy hair. “I’m leaving. I have to find her.”

She shakes her head. “Sir! You’ve just had surgery to repair a pneumothorax. You can barely walk without getting winded. I strongly advise against that.”

I toss my phone onto the bed so Dad can see and he nods, passing me a bag of clothes. “Cathy, will he be okay if he stays put in the car? Once we get Baylee, we’ll come back. Just tell me he’ll be okay to leave for a short while.”

She frowns and waves her head in a disproving way. “Sir, he has a chest tube in place and a wound vac. Even if he wants to leave against medical advice, I need a doctor here to D/C the tube, get prescriptions for antibiotics—because he will probably get an infection if the chest tube is discontinued early—and provide me with discharge orders. These things will take me some time.”

The mention of antibiotics makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I try to fight the black that threatens to consume me at the mention of the risks involved with leaving the hospital early. The fact that my lung, according to Cathy, will likely fill with infectious pathogens.

My breathing grows shallow. It’s an involuntary response.

But I remember the look in Baylee’s eyes last night—the one that she was trying so desperately to keep from me that spoke of pain, and humiliation, and sadness.

I remember that she needs me.

And I remember that it’s my turn to fight for her, like she fought for me. To bring my queen into the light.

“Just do what you can, please,” I beg. “My fiancée is in grave danger.”

Nurse Cathy looks between my father and I and nods. “I’ll see what I can do,” she says, making her way out of the room.

I work to take a few more calming deep breaths, but I sense my dad approaching and open my eyes to find him in front of me. One side of his mouth lifts into a small smile.

“I’m proud of you, son.”

“A
RE WE ALMOST
there?” she asks, a cold bite to her voice. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she glares straight ahead of her.

I grit my teeth and give her a one word answer. “Almost.”

Her mouth sets into a thin line and I let my anger fill me up and fuel me on. She acts like she’s the one who was put out for having to leave the hospital. Not once did she consider how I’d feel. How I’d feel when I came back ready to spoil her with flowers and dinner only to find out she’d bailed on me. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out she’d gone to see him. And sure as fuck, I found her wrapped around him. Like she belonged to
him
.

I
deserve her love.

It gutted me.

Fucking gutted me.

She’s lucky I didn’t end him right there once and for all. I craved to yank out the knife I’d bought, after returning to an empty hotel suite, and slash his throat. To watch it spray the ceiling and shower down around her. He deserved to drown in his own goddamned blood. The rage fights to consume me as I grip the steering wheel tighter, so I don’t do anything stupid like turn around. If I turned around and went back, I’d surely kill him. And if I killed him, she’d never forgive me. Her attention would be on him, not me.

I
deserve her attention.

We’re walking a fine fucking line here.

Between right and wrong.

Love and hate.

Black and white.

The lines are becoming blurred and I’m tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy.

“Here we are,” I say as I pull down a long driveway that leads to a little house by the beach. “Home sweet home.”

She huffs at me and is already wrenching the door open before I have the damned truck turned off. I watch her run toward the house. It was easy getting her here. All it took was telling her the one thing she so desperately needed to hear.
Come with me if you want to see your dad.

She’ll be so disappointed.

I’d hated the look of regret she’d shot over at that freak when she crawled out from under his heavy arm. I’d nearly gone mad with blinding rage when she pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. And I’d wanted to punish her—punish my sweet, sweet Baylee—for willingly cheating on me with that motherfucker.

I
deserve her apologies.

But instead, I’d put on a brave face and wheeled her right out of that hospital. Helped her into my truck and drove her straight here. My girl had gone without a fight because she wanted to see her precious daddy. The same daddy who didn’t give two shits whether or not she got raped by men more than twice her age. It was just one more deep cut she wounded me with.

I was the bad guy.

Even after all this. After I’d stood by
for years
as the perfect, patient boyfriend.

I
deserve to be the good guy.

As I climb out of the truck, my mind flits back to the beginning. Back when nobody believed me that she’d been taken. A satisfied smile stretches over my face.

“Where the fuck is she, Tony?”

He has the sense to look fucking ashamed. Leaning back in his armchair, he tilts the bottle of Jim Beam back and swallows a healthy gulp before speaking. “I don’t know.”

Fury overwhelms me and I fist my hands at my sides. I want to bash his goddamned skull in.

“She’s dead, Brandon,” he says.

The room spins as I consider his words. “No-No-No!”

“Not Baylee,” he snaps and his violent bloodshot eyes meet mine. “My wife. Lynn passed away. It was all for nothing. Now I’ve lost my baby, too.”

With a snarl, I stomp over to him and grab onto his shirt. Yanking him to his unsteady feet, I spit in his face. “What was all for nothing?”

He shrugs his shoulders—fucking shrugs them—and has the audacity to look down at me as if I’m still that pesky kid he always thought me to be. I’m no longer that shy kid who wants to date his daughter. I’m his worst fucking nightmare and I won’t stop until I have the love of my life back in my arms.

“Baylee. The sale. Gabe tried but it wasn’t enough. The money will come too late… Lynn couldn’t cope with losing Baylee. I never anticipated she’d deteriorate so quickly. That losing Baylee would cause her to give up.” A choked sob rips from him.

I curl my lip in disgust at his words and shove him away from me. “I fucking knew you were involved. You had a hand in selling your own daughter on the black goddamned market!”

He roars at me and charges. The man is bigger than me, but I’m furious. My rage is that of a hundred men. When he reaches me, I greet him with a fist to his gut. Then, I crack my elbow across his face and send him hurtling to the floor. He lands on his ass with a grunt. I waste no time and launch myself at him. Over and over again, I smash my fists against his face. His teeth cut open my knuckles on one hand and they are now dripping with blood all over the pristine living room rug.

“You’re a disgusting piece of shit,” I snarl in between labored breaths. “She’s your child.” My entire body is quaking with rage.

“G-G-Gabe,” he stutters and spits out blood along with a tooth, “said she’ll only be gone for two weeks. He p-promised he’ll get her back before anyone hurts her. He vowed to keep her safe and get me the money to save my wife.”

Tears fall out of his eyes but I have no pity for the sorry-ass motherfucker. The man who used to intimidate me now sickens me. He’s nothing but a piece of fucking trash. A piece of trash who’d negotiate his teenage daughter’s body for money.

“Where did he take her?”

Heat reddens his face. “He said it was best if I didn’t know the details. That if he went to prison for her kidnapping, I’d still be here with Lynn.”

I gape at him. “And you believed that bullshit?”

He doesn’t have to nod or speak for me to know he did.

“Did you ever think about Baylee, Tony?” I demand. “Did it ever occur to you how fucking scared she would be? Did you even once consider that Gabe was lying to you—that
he
would fuck your daughter? The man looks at her like she’s a piece of meat he wants to sink his teeth into and you sent her away with him.”

His eyes widen and realization seems to wash over him. “No…”

“Yes. He probably fucked her the moment he got her to wherever the hell it is he took her. There probably never was any money. I bet he concocted the entire thing so he could fuck your daughter like the goddamned pervert he is!”

“Get the fuck off me,” he roars. “Don’t talk about my daughter like that. Gabe is family. He loved her—”

“He loved her, all right,” I sneer. “I watched him love her from afar all the fucking time. While you were too busy trying to intimidate me away from your daughter, he was fantasizing about getting into her teenage panties. And if for some wild reason he does sell her without harming her, do you think for even one second she’ll be safe? Baylee is sweet and innocent. Those monsters will destroy her.”

He tries to shake his head, but my hands are around his neck before I can stop myself in my attempt to hold him still. My vision begins to cloud, blackness taking over the edges.

“She won’t be the same, Tony. You may as well have killed her yourself because
if
she comes back, she won’t be the same Baylee!”

His face turns an ugly shade of purple and his eyes bug out of his head as he desperately claws at my wrists. This motherfucker deserves punishment for what he did.

“I will find her,” I grunt out as I squeeze his neck harder and enjoy the hissing sounds coming from him. “And all she’ll have left is me. I’m going to marry her and give her a bunch of fucking babies. You’ll be a sad, distant memory. The man who sold her. The man who betrayed his own daughter because he was too stupid to realize he was being played by his own best friend. How does it feel, Tony? How does it feel knowing I’m going to ruin you like you ruined your own daughter?”

His eyes flutter closed and his hands slip away from my wrists. I could stop right now. The pulse in his throat is faint but still there.
I think.
Dragging my gaze away from him, my eyes find the picture of Baylee on the mantle. Her senior picture. She’s wearing a pretty denim jacket over a white lacy dress with cowboy boots. The smile she wears is bright. That girl deserves so much more than the piece of shit parent she was left with.

She deserves
me
.

With a sigh of frustration, I release my grip. “I’m doing this for you, babe,” I mutter aloud, my gaze still on her picture.

“Where the hell is he?” she screeches from the porch and stomps over to me, jerking me from my memory. “Where the hell is my dad, Brandon?”

I
deserve to slay her monsters.

Her hand is already raised, poised and ready to slap my face. As soon as she nears, I snatch her dainty wrist and twist it painfully behind her.