Page 6 of Beautifully Shattered (Secrets & Scars #3)

“ W ho are Satan’s Rebels?” I ask, catching the panic rolling off Jols and JD as they lock eyes.

“They’re a rival club,” JD barks, slipping his phone in his pocket and taking out his gun, checking it for something. “They’ve teamed up with Ian Allen and that cult church your olds are tangled up with.”

My eyes go wide.

A rival club?

Ian Allen is working with a different motorcycle club?

“They were the ones that hit the compound,” JD continues, “caused a distraction to pull Ringo away from you so Allen and his crew could move in and take you.”

The room tilts.

This really is all because of me. Without a doubt.

“Where’s Ringo?” Jols asks, her voice tight with panic.

“He’ ll meet us out in the hall. He was taking a piss,” JD snaps, cracking the door open and peeking out. “Fuck. We have to go. Now .”

I rush to Jols’ wheelchair, watching JD hand her a gun without hesitation.

I’m about to ask if he has a gun for me, but he’s already swinging the door open and stepping out.

Gripping the handles of the wheelchair, I push it, moving us out into the hallway in the direction he points. His eyes are panicked when they flash in the other direction, and a shiver ripples up my spine.

“What fucking room is she in?!” a male voice bellows from somewhere behind us, and I nearly let a squeal escape, fear slicing through me.

“I’ll take Jols. We have to hurry.” JD urges me aside, taking control of the wheelchair and pushing it faster. My feet scramble to keep up as the voices grow fainter behind us.

But then, something warm starts oozing down my leg, and my feet slow as I try to see what it is.

Bright red blood streaks down my calf, despite the thick pad I’m wearing beneath my underwear.

I’m bleeding.

I’m bleeding because I’m not pregnant anymore.

Because I gave birth… and my baby died.

I’m bleeding because those Satan’s Rebels pricks teamed up with Officer Allen and made sure I was left vulnerable enough to be taken.

A kidnapping that led to the fall. A fall that led to premature labour.

The labour that led to Bobbi’s death .

Suddenly, JD and Jols vanish from my sight as red rims the edges, and rage wraps around my heart like barbed wire.

I turn.

I start walking back.

Back towards the voices.

Back towards the threat.

Back towards the nurses being bullied for information.

I don’t try to hide the blood running down my leg.

Let them see what they did.

Let them see what they caused.

Let them bear witness to what they created.

“Are you looking for me?!” I yell, storming straight for them, adrenaline pulsing through my veins as I take in the four guys wearing leather vests, covered in the tackiest tattoos I’ve ever seen.

“Shit! No! Abbey!” JD’s voice comes from behind me, but it’s far away. He must not have noticed I’d stopped and changed direction until he heard my voice.

“Damn. Yeah. You’re the bitch we are here for.” The skinhead sneers, eyes lighting up as he pulls out a gun and aims it at me.

“Yeah? You here to kill me?” I ask, closing the distance quickly, my actions causing a slight pucker between his brows, which only deepens when I step right up to him. So close that I lean forward and press my forehead to the tip of his barrel. “Do it. Pull the trigger.”

His jaw ticks. “I fucking wish. Sluts like you deserve to die, but my orders are to bring you in.”

“A Sadist is coming!” one of his buddies hisses behind him, drawing his attention, and his gun dips .

I move, my eyes trained on the gun, my hand wrapping around the barrel, yanking it from his grip before he even knows what’s happening.

“What the…” he trails off as I level the barrel between his eyes.

“Angel!” Ringo’s voice booms from somewhere, but I ignore him and the nurses scurrying to hide, my focus on the gun and its heaviness as I jam it harder against the man’s forehead.

“Because of people like you, my baby died,” I deadpan, my voice flat.

There’s no pain in it. No fear. No anger.

Just cold, and dead calm.

I’ve accepted his fate, and now it’s time for him to accept it too.

“So now,” I inhale, my finger tightening. “You have to die.”

I squeeze the trigger.

The explosion is deafening, a thunderous crack that echoes up the hallway, making my ears ring. I stumble back, the kickback of the gun jolting my arms, and blood hits my face in a hot, red spray.

A shower of crimson bursts out behind him, splattering across the hallway and painting his brothers in gore.

As if in slow motion, I watch him drop to the floor, his eyes still wide, a bloody hole between his eyes as he stares up at nothing, the stark hallway now painted red.

I’m too dazed to react in time, too caught up in the silence behind the gunfire when the other three men pull their guns on me .

I don’t have time to react. Time to move. But before they can fire, a shower of bullets pelt into two of them, tearing up the hallway.

Their bodies jerk and twist as lead rips through flesh, spraying more blood as they collapse with heavy thuds, and I’m still standing in the middle of it.

Panic ripples through the last man standing, his aim faltering as he steps back.

But shit. He can’t leave. He doesn’t get to walk away.

Not after what they did.

He has to die too.

Lifting my gun, my aim locks on his chest before rough hands grip my shoulders and yank me backwards.

“Abbey, stop!” JD’s voice roars in my ear, and before I can blink, he’s wrestled the gun from my grip as the other man turns to run.

“No you fucking don’t!” Ringo growls, charging past me and into my line of sight.

Even though JD is tugging me backwards, my eyes stay trained on Ringo, a beast unleashed, fury burning through every step he takes towards the fleeing man.

Catching the guy mid-sprint, Ringo grabs him from behind and slams him to the floor.

He mutters a plea to Ringo, but he doesn’t care. He just sneers, raises his gun at the man and fires.

The shot cracks like a whip, snapping me out of the haze of bloodlust, the sounds of screaming nurses and patients filling my ears as the world rushes back in .

The smell of gunpowder and blood overpowers the usual hospital smell, and for a long moment, I just stare at the carnage.

The four dead men sprawled on the floor. The pools of blood puddling the linoleum. The patterns of blood splatter on the walls and doors.

Then my gaze finds Ringo. Tall. Muscles coiling beneath his vest, his arms weapons of their own.

He’s something else.

Something beautiful and vicious.

Something deadly.

The moment his glare snaps to me, I flinch, feeling the lethal threat behind his eyes.

He’s pissed. At me.

I realise I’m no longer being dragged backwards, and I can’t feel JD’s presence at my back. He’s left me to fend for myself with his best mate, and I get the feeling I should be terrified.

But I’m not.

Because I know that monster.

He’s mine.

Even as Ringo steps over the dead bodies and storms towards me like he wants to tear me to shreds, I don’t flinch.

“You could’ve gotten killed!” he snarls, and I huff.

“ You could have gotten killed.”

His furious eyes narrow. “The fuck is wrong with you?!”

I shrug, cold and detached. “Ohhh, I don’t know. I’m kinda feeling a bit pissy since, you know, my baby died .”

Ringo shakes his head, and for a flicker of a moment, I see it in his eyes.

Disappointment .

“ This isn’t you. You’re not this person, Angel.”

“Aren’t I?” I shrug. “Kinda feels like a good fit to me.”

A deep, menacing growl reverberates in his chest, but I ignore it and spin on my heel, walking away like the blood painting the floor means nothing.

JD and Jols are frozen, staring wide-eyed at me like I’ve grown horns.

And maybe I have.

“I assume we’re leaving now?” I snap, brushing past them and hearing JD mutter a faint, “Yeah,” like he’s not sure if he’s talking to me, or the monster I’ve become.