This Is Love, Baby (War & Peace #2) (23 page)

Dead.

The same dad who protected me and loved me.

A man who wasn’t all brute and gruffness, but also had a sweet, teddy bear side.

A man who somehow was desperate enough to sell his own daughter to save his wife.

If only he’d have asked me. I would have gone willingly. I am certain of this. If it meant saving, Mom, I’d have done it in a heartbeat.

Gabe lets out a huff of frustrated breath and glares at Brandon. “Me,” he waves to his battered body, “dig up his body like this? Hell no. I kind of figured you lost it and finally let him have it. Hell, I don’t even know if you shot him or stabbed him or what the fuck you did. But you have already proved yourself to be a damn lunatic. When I went into their backyard and saw the picnic table had been moved to the corner of the yard, I knew. You covered your tracks well but you were hiding something. That something was his body. How
did
he die anyway? You beat her old man into a bloody fucking pulp? Did you slit his throat?”

“He had it coming to him!” Brandon screams. “He deserved to pay for what he allowed to happen to her!”

Understanding begins to crush in on me.

Brandon killed my dad.

He really did it.

Gabe flashes me a regretful look before plastering on an angry scowl for Brandon. “This would have all worked out just fine if you would have just backed off, pussy boy. Now you went and fucked it all up for Baylee and I. You broke her heart when you killed her dad. And now I’m going to break you.”

I hold my hands up in the air a moment to stall him. My mind is fracturing quickly and I need all the answers I can get before I lose myself altogether. This breakdown has been a long time coming. I’m teetering on the very edge, about to plummet into my own mental hell. “How did you find us?”

Gabe takes my hand and squeezes it in an affectionate way. Hurt, fucking hurt, flashes in his eyes when I jerk it away. I’m disgusted with him—with both of them. With a small sigh, he continues. “All it took was me doing a quick internet search to learn freak boy, who’d pickled your brain into thinking you loved him, was surprisingly alive. And I know you sweet girl, once you figured out he wasn’t dead, you were still hypnotized enough to go right back to him. But when I got there to retrieve you, lo and behold,
he
was kidnapping you. Doing all my dirty work for me.” He shakes his head and smirks at Brandon. “I have to say, pussy boy, you have some balls on you. Guess they finally dropped when you turned eighteen.”

I’m no longer listening to them. I slam my eyes closed and try to drown them out. But I can’t. The darkness swarms in and suffocates me with the truth. Truth that he’s really dead. This is too much. Brandon is not a murderer. He wouldn’t murder my father.

Please be a lie.

Please.

But it’s not a lie. It’s truth and he’s a murderer. The boy I loved as a teenage girl grew into something sick and fucking twisted. He sought revenge when it wasn’t his to seek. Brandon Thompson stomped all over his own innocence when he stamped out my father’s life.

“Fuck you,” Brandon snaps, jerking me from my overwhelming grief. I pop my eyes open and swipe away the tears I hadn’t noticed were falling down my face.

Gabe’s glare becomes furious as he steps toward Brandon. “Shut up! I’ll put a bullet through your skull before you can take your next breath,” he roars. “I’m not done with story time. Tell Baylee how you lived in her house for months jacking off to pictures of her while you waited for me to find her, you sick fuck. Tell her. When I called Tony after I sold Baylee to give him the money and to update him, you were there playing fucking house in
her
house. And did Tony ever emerge from that house?
No.
Because you
killed
him. You were just waiting there so when the time came, you could swoop in and save the fucking day. Ride off into the sunset with
my girl
knowing you murdered her goddamned father.”

I shudder and reach for my panties. There’s no way I can sit here and listen to another second of this. I have to get the hell out of here and back to War. If I can manage to slip off the bed and make a run for the doo—

“Leave them off,” Gabe barks, waving his gun at me and motioning to my panties in my fist. “I’m not done looking at you, sweetheart.” He winks at me and flashes me a heated grin.

Bile rises in my throat. I’m trapped in a sick parallel universe where there’s not one devil, but two. A nightmare of insanity. Not only a battle between two evils but an epic war. Two twisted murdering men. Two men who have used my body for their benefit, manipulated me, murdered one of the men I loved in this world, and nearly destroying the other. And as collateral damage, they had a hand in killing my mother too.

Anger surges through me, chasing away the betrayal and grief threatening to swallow me whole. These two men think they have a right to me and my body. But only one person truly owns me, and it’s my heart he owns. That man is honest and pure and wholesome. Deserving. He’s an angel—the father of my child who has earned his peace. Peace I vow to give him.

It’s time to end this war, for my War.

My mind stops considering ways to escape but instead how to outsmart them both.

I need a plan to get rid of them. And quick.

Time to show them I’m not a pawn. I’m the motherfucking queen.

This is war, baby. And I will win.

With a deep breath, I inhale the strength of what needs to be done. Yesterday I was worried that murdering Gabe would somehow taint me as a mother. That it would make me unfit. But now, as I feel the hate and jealousy throbbing between these two men, I know it’s the only way. They’ll never stop.

Prison doesn’t stop people like Gabe or Brandon—not when they’re this far gone.

Death is the only probable sentence.

The battle lines are drawn, my strategy in this war is in place.

“Gabe.” I let out a sob. Brandon’s brows knit together in suspicion, as if he’s already figured out my plan. Gabe is clueless though as his dark eyes dart along my body, probing and assessing, before they land on my quivering bottom lip. “He killed
my
daddy. He killed
your
best friend. What if he kills
me
too? He was about to rape me if you hadn’t intervened when you did. I don’t think it would have ended there either.” My words are honest and I know he senses that—I
need
for him to sense that for this to work. Brandon
is
unstable. There’s no telling what he would have done once he’d had his way. Would the guilt have consumed him? Would he have ended both our lives?

Gabe’s smug stare is wiped off his face as he snaps his angry gaze to Brandon. My heart rate speeds up as I realize this could work.

“What the fuck, Baylee?” Brandon bites out. “Like the motherfucker would even care what the hell I did with you. He was chasing your half-naked ass down the street when I showed up! The man’s a goddamned monster! I’m the fucking hero here, babe!”

I stare at him for what feels like eternity as I search for the boy I once knew. My heart pleads for one sliver of the kind soul who I loved. I wish his green eyes would light up with the familiar happy spark I remember. But instead, I’m met with an empty, soulless glare. With fury and hate.

That boy is gone.

He’s been long gone for a while now.

Not only did I lose both parents, but I lost him.

I lost Brandon too.
Lost him to the darkness. Lost him to the evil. Lost the boy who grew up being my only real friend, my first love. His physical form may remain, but the Brandon I once knew is gone.

I inhale a deep breath and prepare myself to finish this. I’m not battling with Brandon, I’m fighting this
thing
he’s become. It should make what I have to do a little less painful, but it doesn’t. My heart is ripping in half with each passing second but my mind is already making its lethal move.

“But he wouldn’t ever truly hurt me. Not like you were going to do,” I argue and send Gabe a terrified look. One that says Brandon is scarier than he is. “Gabe loves me. He always brings me pleasure after the pain. You will only bring me pain!”

Gabe growls and his chest heaves. He’s always been jealous of Brandon. Now, it works to my advantage.

“I did everything for you!” Brandon roars. His face reddening. His forehead creasing. His neck bursting with thick pulsing veins. “I gave up my life, school, baseball, my fucking parents for you!” He launches at me, his giant frame tackling me to the mattress.

I attempt to shove him away but he’s too strong. “I didn’t ask you to and I certainly didn’t ask for you to kill my dad!”

Brandon’s hand wraps around my throat and he squeezes. “This is how I killed him,” he spits out, his hand crushing my windpipe. “Just like this.” His gorgeous features have contorted into something vengeful and wrong. He doesn’t want us to be together. He wants me as his prize. His possession. His reward for having given up so much for me. I’m nothing more than a trophy to add to his shelf back home. And now he wants me dead.

“Take your goddamned hands off her,” Gabe hisses from behind him, “or I’ll paint the headboard with your blood.”

Tears stream down my face and I reach for Gabe, as if he is my savior. The devil has been my savior on more than one occasion. And I’m counting on him now.

“Baylee,” Brandon says, his voice a desperate plea, ignoring Gabe’s threat. He smashes his lips to mine, causing me to cry out when his teeth split open my bottom lip. His grip is gone and he cradles my throat reverently. “Jesus, I’m so sorry. I love you.”

And in that moment, I believe him. His bright green eyes shimmer with emotion revealing the tenderhearted boy I once knew. I hate that it all came to this. Absolutely hate it.

Pop!

Time freezes as Brandon’s wide eyes regard me before something blinds me. My eyes close and I try to drive away what I just saw. The horror is overwhelming and I feel myself losing hold on the present as I hurtle to the past. A past where green eyes used to make me shiver with delight and my heart would patter right out of my chest when a certain smiling, spikey-haired boy would walk me to my locker.

“Why is the marching band playing in the hallway?” Audrey questions, a dark eyebrow arched. “It’s so noisy!”

I laugh as I hurry and yank my history book from my locker. Shoving it into my backpack, I stand on my tiptoes to try and see around the crowd in the hallway. Something’s going on. It’s not a pep rally day, so I’m confused about the chaos. Even though Audrey seems agitated, she’s sporting a goofy grin that matches my own.

Kids all around us are giggling and so are we until I recognize the song. As soon as the tune of ‘Keep on Loving You’ by REO Speedwagon becomes recognizable, I can feel the familiar burn on my cheeks. This same song was playing at the skating rink where he first told me he loved me. My smile grows larger when my boyfriend rounds the corner and beams at me. He’s carrying a single red rose but it may as well be a thousand. The boy makes me feel like I’m the only girl on the planet.

When his gorgeous gaze meets mine, I hear the collective gasps of all the girls in my grade. Brandon is the good-looking boy who doesn’t even realize how beautiful he is. He’s sweet and caring. A tenderhearted guy who loves his girl hard.

God, I’m so freaking lucky.

“Hey, babe,” he says with a wink as he approaches and the band grows silent. When he falls on his knee, several girls squeal, including Audrey. “Will you go to the homecoming dance with me, Baylee Marie Winston?”

My knees buckle and my jaw hurts from the smile that stretches across my face revealing my teeth which are now finally free of braces. With a shaky hand, I accept his rose and nod.

“Yes, of course I will go with you!”

He launches from the floor at me and tackle hugs me against the locker, his strong arms enveloping me in a heated embrace. Warm lips meet mine and he kisses me as if I’m the only girl he could ever want.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against my lips.

I lean my head back against the locker to better look into his expressive jade-colored orbs. “For what?”

“For letting me love you,” he says, his brows furrowing together in a serious manner. “I’ll never stop. No matter what. Always know that, babe.”

They are earnest words and weave themselves into my heart. Is this the all-encompassing love Mom always gushes about when she talks about Dad? Because I feel it. From the ends of my hair, all the way down to the tips of my toes.

Brandon is my best friend and I love him.

“Promise me you’ll always be mine,” he says sternly, his eyes darkening slightly. “Promise me, Baylee.”

My heart stops for a moment in my chest.

His declaration terrifies and thrills me at the same time.

“Always, Brandon.”

A choked sound jerks me from my memory and my eyes fly open. I shriek when I realize Brandon’s heavy body has collapsed on me. He’s still—too still. Something warm trickles down my cheek toward my ear and I start gagging upon the realization that it’s his blood. All over me.

I start screaming and squirming to get him off me. Gabe hobbles over to the bedside and pushes Brandon onto the floor, the heavy thud echoing in my heart. My eyes remain fixated on his unmoving form. The only thing moving is the blood as it continues to pour from his forehead.

He’s dead.

Gabe killed him.

The devil slayed the dragon but he took my sweet boy away in the process.

Despite my horror over having seen it actually play out, this went as planned. In our war, my strategy was to use one opponent to take out the other. And it worked. I need to move on to my next move. If I lose my focus now, I’ll completely break down and I can’t. I have to be strong.

For the baby.

For War.

For me.

“Gabe,” I sob, my entire body shuddering, “you’re the only person I have left.”

He leans down over me and strokes my hair in a loving way. “I told you that you were all mine, baby. I love you.”