This Is Love, Baby (War & Peace #2) (25 page)

A pretty brunette climbs out of the car and stalks over to us. Her scowl hardens her features but when she sees me, her face softens. The clomp of her boots on the wood porch indicate her arrival and she squats down in front of me.

“Miss Winston?”

I lift my head and regard her. Dark brows furrow together as her eyes quickly asses the blood all over me.

“Are you hurt?”

Shaking my head, I glance over as two uniformed cops and another detective in a suit walk inside the house. “I’m okay. It’s not my blood. War needs to get back to the hospital, though.” He stiffens beside me at the mention of his name but then quickly relaxes.

“Of course, hon. We’re going to secure the crime scene and then I need to ask you a few questions before you leave to get medical attention. Wait here and I’ll be back in five,” she instructs as she stands.

When she doesn’t move, I lift my gaze to hers and she frowns.

“Miss Winston,” she says softly, almost motherly in nature, “I’m sorry this happened to you. We’re going to continue to bring down every other perp who had any dealing with the White Collar Trade group. Together, with you and Mr. McPherson’s help, we’re going to catch these guys. Every last one of them.”

My mind flits back to that day I met War. Before I climbed into his car. When the monsters lurked around in their five thousand dollar suits, expensive haircuts, and dashing grins. A time when they bought and sold women as if they were nothing more than a simple business transaction. Trading in a used vehicle for a sexy, sleeker model. Their wolfish smiles were terrorizing to all the lost sheep in the flock. If I could help save even the sixteen other girls I saw walk across that stage, it would be more than I could have ever expected. Men like Edgar Finn will go to prison and rot for their crimes against those women. Women like me. Detective Stark can prevent that man from carving up women for sport.

I’ll do whatever the hell she needs as long as she makes that happen.

“Thank you,” I tell her, meeting her gaze with a firm stare of my own.

“Stark, we have a problem,” the other detective says through the doorway. “I think you need to come see this.”

She stalks off and my veins freeze. What sort of problem do they have? Will I somehow be in trouble for defending myself?

Not even thirty seconds later, Stark bursts through the door with her radio in hand. “I want a chopper in the air casing a five-mile radius of the crime scene. We need the coast guard on alert. We’re looking for a Caucasian male, forty-one years of age, and severely injured. Suspect is on foot and his blood loss trail indicates he went into the ocean. The prick is most likely dead, but I won’t sleep until I zip him up in the body bag myself.”

I stiffen.

This was supposed to be over.

“Bay,” War murmurs into my ear, “it’s going to be okay. Calm down.”

But I can’t calm down. Jerking from his grasp, I run the length of the porch and make it to the railing just in time to puke over the side. I try to ignore Stark’s voice, which only seems to make things worse, but her words still find their way inside my head.

“Contact the local news and have them make an emergency police bulletin. We’re looking for a man named Gabriel Sharpe. Suspect is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous despite his life-threatening injuries.”

Hearing his name—confirmation that it isn’t over—sends me over the edge. Black crushes in around me and I go down, submerging into the darkness.

F
OCUS.
F
OCUS.
F
OCUS.

Baylee. Baylee. Baylee.

Shit!

I’m naturally predetermined to freak the fuck out about the things I can’t control—blood, microbes, disease, toxins, her pain. My mind threatens to crack down the middle and split in half so the terrors can wreak their havoc on me. It seems imminent.

But I can control it.

I have to.

I will.

My fingers thread through her blood-caked hair as Dad drives us to the hospital and I find my calm. Baylee needs me and I won’t let her down now. I’ve been getting better, because of her, and I will be the one to help her through this. My precious Bay has been to hell and back. She’s had to be strong for so fucking long and now it’s time to reverse the roles. I will be the one to carry her to the end. The road won’t be an easy one and she’ll need a lot of counseling, but I’ll be there for her every step of the way. The demons in my own head are dead to me. They can go fuck with someone else because I’m over it. Fucking over it. I’m done fighting those bastards because I am fighting for her.

She is the most important part of me.

She’s the
only
part of me that truly matters.

“You okay back there, son?” Dad’s voice questions, the shakiness in it telling me he’s not as strong as he lets on.

“Yep,” I clip out and meet his eyes in the mirror with a firm gaze of my own. “I just want to get Baylee taken care of. That’s all that matters to me, Dad.”

He presses the accelerator and we glide around a slower car as he makes his way back to the hospital. We’d left Stark and the fucking chaos of emergency vehicles to get medical attention for both myself and Baylee with the promise they’d be by later to question us.

“Ten minutes, War. Hang in there kiddo.”

Her hot breaths as she sleeps burn through my jeans on the top of my thigh, almost scalding me. I stroke away her hair and admire her pretty, blood-stained face.

So beautiful.

So perfect.

So worth the fight.

I
can
look at her blood smeared face without losing my fucking mind because it’s
her
. It’s not blood and disease and disgust.
It’s her
. Bay. Deserving of love and so much more. She’s mine to love and care for. And I won’t fucking let her down.

Jerking my head back up when we hit a speed bump, I let out a relieved breath to see we’re turning down the side road that’ll lead us right to the hospital. When we pull up to the front, Dad jumps out of the car and hurries to open my car door. Baylee sits up, groggy from her short nap, and her frantic eyes dart around.

She’s looking for him.

Expecting him to step out from a shadow.

To take her again to do only God knows what.

But he’s not here.

As she realizes this, she climbs out with Dad’s assistance and I all but jump out after her, eager to keep her close to me. My eyes fixate on the crusty smears on her cheek and I reach for her, the urge to touch her as necessary as my next breath. The blood doesn’t scare me anymore. The pale skin and disoriented look on her face does though. When her knees buckle, I’m there to gather her light frame into my arms. People are shouting around us but I hold my girl to me.

I won’t let you fall, Bay.

Not now, not ever.

“Son, you need to readmit yourself. You don’t look well.” Dad’s concerns roll off me and I blow them off.

Nothing matters except her.

When she fainted earlier, they rushed to admit her. I stayed by her side, clutching her small hand, while they assessed her. She was severely dehydrated and in dire need of fluids. Now that she’s being taken care of properly, the color is beginning to return to her face. Her soft, rhythmic breaths as she sleeps are music to my ears.

And yes, I count every fucking one of them.

“I’ll be fine,” I assure him as I run my thumb across the top of her hand, ignoring the searing ache in my chest. I could really use some pain meds but it’ll have to wait. The last time I closed my eyes, Brandon took her right out from under my nose. I’m not eager to leave her vulnerable again.

“Warren, she’s going to be okay. But if you don’t get back into a bed soon, you won’t be okay. She needs you to be strong for her. Besides, there’s a uniformed cop just outside her door. Nothing will happen to her.”

I process his words. If she were awake and coherent, she’d be pressuring me to get medical attention. He’s right. I do need to get better for her. She would want it that way.

“Fine, but you stay with her. Just to be safe. She only has us, Dad. Take care of her for me,” I tell him gruffly as I stand on shaky legs. “Promise me.”

“Of course,” he vows, his voice serious and it comforts me.

Leaning forward, I run my thumb along her now clean cheek and then press my lips to hers. “I love you, beautiful. Take care of yourself and our baby. We’ll go home soon and put this behind us. I swear to you I’ll make it all better.”

Her eyes flutter open and she smiles, albeit a small, quick one, before she slips back into a much needed sleep. I kiss her one more time and then stand. The room spins, my dizziness overwhelming me, and I stumble. Dad, thankfully, is there to prevent me from careening to the floor that I know for a fact is crawling with disgusting microorganisms. He ushers me over to the door and calls over a nurse.

“My son needs a room. And preferably one nearby. I need to look after both my kids.”

The nurse finds me a wheelchair and not long after, she’s wheeling me into a room three doors down from Baylee. Three is my lucky number. When she begins turning down the blankets, I shudder. All of the horrors from the day wash over me like the black fucking plague.

“Are you okay?” she questions from the bedside, alarm marring her features. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I shake my head and gesture for the bathroom with a quivering hand. “I’ll be fine,”—
and I will
—“but I will need a shower ASAP.”

The monsters in my head taunt me—images of Bay’s bloody face multiply in my head, one on top of the other, until it’s one messy blur of bloody love.

Gore.

Dripping and oozing from my Baylee.

It’s in her mouth, her eyes, her nose, and her ears.

She’s choking on it. And vomiting over and over.

I need to help her!

In the darkness of my mind, I reach for her—I reach for my light. I wade through the sea of bones and blood, the stench making me gag, and I go to her.

I’ll protect you, Bay.

“War?”

I blink my eyes open from my nightmare and slowly take in the scene around me. A new hospital room. The clock on the wall tells me it has been two hours, eighteen minutes, and six seconds since I last saw her. She was sleeping and safe.

With a sigh of relief, I scan the room and am thankful not to see Dad sitting in one of the chairs. He’s making good on his promise to look after her. My eyes do find the dark, kind ones of Dr. Daniels. The psychiatrist.

“Warren,” his deep, calm voice thunders through the foggy remnants of my bad dream. “How are you doing?”

I clench my eyes closed for a moment to drive away the bad images of Baylee and recall better ones. Her pretty blonde hair bouncing in her ponytail as she runs along the beach. The excited way she would clap her hands together when she’d beat me at chess. How musical her voice sounded when she’d giggle at something I’d said.

When I reopen my eyes, I’m smiling.

She saves me every time.

“Talk to me, man,” he says, his own grin turning his lips up on one side. He’s a light-skinned black man with eyes the color of the way Baylee likes her coffee. I don’t think he can be any older than me from my quick assessment. “Where’d you go just then?”