Page 57 of Axel (Belles & Bratva Beasts #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

AXEL

“Did he do this to you?”

I gently brush my thumb over Ruby’s busted bottom lip. I sweep the auburn tendrils off her beautiful face. I’ll be careful with her…

Before I cut that man into pieces.

“I’m fine, dickhead, and thank you for being such a stalker.” She smiles as if she’s damn happy to see me, her lips seeking mine in a kiss that confirms it.

She’s okay.

We’re okay.

But I’m not.

“Which hand?” I softly murmur over her lips.

“Hmm?” She wants more of our kiss.

“Which hand did he hit you with?”

She pulls away, her smile resigned. “You’re going to go all Axel on him, aren’t you?”

“Fuck yeah, he is,” Wilder crows over my shoulder.

I raise an eyebrow at Ruby, and she answers, “Right.”

I signal Grant and Nash, standing in the doorway of the motel room. “Cover her.”

I don’t give a shit that Wilder has this fucker, Halstead, tied to a rusty metal chair. Even though he’s been shot twice, I won’t risk my woman.

Nash and Grant enter, and Grant reaches for Ruby. As if to comfort her for this, but she pats his pecs. “I’m fine, Reacher. Just stand there, look pretty, and grunt.”

Grant laughs but the fuck if this is about to be pretty.

“Hold him down.”

Wilder knows the drill. He grabs Halstead’s right arm and pins it, holding it over the top of a decrepit table strewn with beer cans, cigarette butts, and shit I don’t want to know what it is.

“No. No.” Halstead resists, but he’s no match against Wilder. Against any of us.

I take the tactical knife from my pocket, pressing the automatic blade. When Halstead sees it, he blubbers, “What do you want?”

“Your phone and laptop,” Nash calls over my shoulder. “And passcode.”

“In my pocket. In the fucking limo. Six sixes but please,” Halstead begs, “Please, fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Not yet.” I grab his right hand and smash it with my leather-gloved one over the table. “But you will be fucking sorry. You ever heard the saying ‘Taking the law into your own hands?’”

“Yeah,” he snivels.

“Good, because I’m about to take yours for touching my woman.”

“Told ya,” Wilder snickers into Halstead’s ear.

“Then I’m going to shove it in your mouth to stifle your screams while I kill you for hitting her.”

“Fuck,” Jace mutters from the doorway. “Goddamn, I don’t want to clean up a mess in here.”

But I make it as neat as I can, though cutting through a wrist joint is a bitch. I give Halstead a long lecture on the controversial history of the term that once legalized vigilante justice in America while he screams.

Grant yawns. Jace rolls his eyes. Nash hacks into Halstead’s files. Wilder laughs, and Ruby stands there, with her chin lifted.

I keep worrying about my Wildfire. That this is too much for her, but she’s stone-faced and watching me.

Some people see red and explode when they feel rage. That’s what I’ve been told.

Not me.

I’ve been too exposed to this, seeing the woman I love hit. First, my mom. Now Ruby. I go right past rage and get ice-cold revenge.

I keep my word and take his hand. The fucker passes out but that’s why I carry salt and smelling salts in my GO bag.

When he’s startled awake, Ruby insists, “Hand me your knife.”

Because I’m a gentleman, I wipe the bloody blade clean on Halstead’s shirt before handing it to her. “Are you feeling stabby, my queen?”

She winks at me, and I’m expecting her to slice his face or arm—some simple shit.

But she sneers at Halstead, “What did I tell you I’d do to your dick?”

His dick?

What the fuck did he do to her with his dick?

I don’t have time to ask.

I watch, shocked, as Ruby stabs his junk!

Three times!

Goddamn, like a queen!

“Fuck yeah.” Wilder claps. “Y’all are like mister and missus Smith, except without the whole Brangelina ugly divorce shit. You’re fucking soulmates. ”

Yeah, I could propose right now. Hell, I’d live on bended knee for this woman, but I have a better plan.

“I’m in.” Nash leans on the wall, tapping through Halstead’s phone.

He’ll delete every video he finds. We’ll end Halstead’s life and hopefully his reign of terror, bribing innocent people after recording their most private moments.

And soon, after Ruby, Vale, Nick, and Zar enact their plan, and the athletes come out? There will be less to bribe people about.

“Take her outside,” I order Grant.

Ruby’s fists land on her waist. “I told you I’m fine.”

“Yeah, but I’m not fine, Wildfire. Why’d you stab his dick? Did he touch you anywhere else?”

Okay, now I’m starting to see that whole red thing.

“No.”

“Don’t protect him or me,” I warn. “Tell me the truth.”

She raises her chin. “If any man touches me the way you worry about, I won’t just stab his dick. I’ll cut it off and feed it to him.”

Ruby stands there like a siren of death. Flaming hair. Piercing eyes. A bloody knife in her hand and a wicked smile.

“Fuck, no wonder you’re in love,” Wilder sighs.

“Alright, Killer.” Grant reaches for her arm. “Let our killer finish up in here.”

She doesn’t resist. She hands me back my knife and pecks my cheek.

Okay, so Halstead didn’t touch her anywhere else.

Still…

Grant takes her outside while I turn to Halstead, pressing my blade to his throat. “When we meet in hell, I’ll kill you all over again. This is for her, my brother, our queens, and all the people you violated.”

“Fuck.” Jace surveys the mess when I’m done. “What do I keep telling you fuckers about plastic drop cloths? The damn things only cost five fucking dollars.”

Jace is our best cleaner. Thankfully, Wilder is here to help him.

I leave Nash with them, too, before I climb into the back seat of Grant’s Tahoe.

I pull Ruby into my arms, and now my heart starts beating. All the feelings no one else gets from me belong to her. I let every fear I have of losing her flood me, and she lets me kiss it away until she sighs, “I need to lie down.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She stretches across the back seat and rests her head in my lap. I smooth her hair as she gazes up at me. “I need to tell you something about Wilder.”

“That he’s batshit crazy?”

“Yes, and…”

But her hand goes slack along with her jaw, her eyelids drooping, her stare, blank.

“Okay, baby, I got you.” I reach for her handbag that Grant grabbed from the limo, sighing with relief when I feel her emergency meds in there. “I’m right here.”

And I count. Ten. Twenty. Fuck, thirty seconds.

“Come on, baby.” I stroke her cheek. “Wake up. Come back to me.”

“Is she okay?” Grant worries from the driver’s seat.

“She’s having a seizure. It’s the stress from today.”

I keep my voice calm, but not my heart.

“What… What does she need?” Grant almost panics for me.

“For me to be right here, waiting for her to come back.”

After forty-two long seconds, Ruby blinks and stirs. After two long minutes, she finally speaks, “I’m sorry.”

I can’t fucking hold it in.

After fearing I’d lost her. After seeing her busted lip? After knowing the terror that fucker put her through? Like she was a trapped little girl all over again? After imagining what he could’ve done to her?

I fight a tear. “Baby, it’s okay. I’m right here. I’m never going anywhere.” I smooth her hair. I smile down at her. “Besides, it’s a precious moment when you finally shut up.”

She barely smiles. “Fuck you.”

“If you’re lucky.”

I keep trying to make her laugh. She said it’s her medicine. It brings her back.

But once we’re home, and she’s safe, sleeping in my arms, and our kittens surround us, and Sparky sleeps by our feet?

I bury my nose in her hair and vow…

I will burn the world down for my Wildfire. I’ll take so many lives to have this one with her.

I will have more than Ruby sleeping in my arms.

I will have my queen. My wife.

And I’ll give every part of me to make it happen.