Page 76 of Endure the Pain
Jamie and Louie squeezed through the door and around Stefan. I stared them down, hard, and they smartly didn’t approach further.
“If anything were to happen to any of you, I would have dropped what I was doing and broken every traffic law to get to you. Why the hell do I not deserve the same? Am I not as important to you as you are to me? Because if so, I need to know right now.”
“I knew you were unharmed. Will kept me updated as to how you were doing, and I called and spoke to your doctor here at the hospital,” Stefan said.
“We weren’t in a position to up and leave, baby,” Jamie added.
I went over to my purse sitting at the foot of my hospital bed and pulled out my phone. “Oh my gosh, look at this.” I mocked shock as I wiggled it in front of me. “Did you guys know I had one of these? You could have fucking called me, instead of my doctor and security.” I grabbed my purse because I was blowing this popsicle stand. “I’m pregnant, hungry, and you all are on my shit list. So someone better get me the hell out of here, get me a Southwestern burger with extra onion rings and a peanut butter milkshake, and explain to me what the hell is going on.”
I didn’t give them a chance to respond and weaved around them to leave the room.
Stefan got Brenna and I discharged from the hospital at record speed, and on the drive home, Louie and Jamie got me my burger and milkshake. I asked Finn and Will to take Brenna back to Vincent’s. I didn’t trust any of Stefan’s goons to take her and not have it get back to Dylan where I was hiding her. Stefan had brought four Escalades to transport us all home. Will, Finn, andBrenna left in one car. Stefan and a few of his goons took another. Jamie, Louie, Dean, Asher, and I took one. Another four goons took the last Escalade.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that Stefan had increased the number of goons around him. I held my questions at bay while I ate on the way home. I finished the last of my burger as we drove up the long driveway and Asher parked the Escalade in front of the house. I told Dean and Asher to go home and that we would talk tomorrow. Dean looked somber, but Asher dragged him away.
“What do you need to talk to them about?” Jamie asked as we walked inside the house. I gave him a hard glare and walked away toward Stefan’s study. Jamie sighed, “Right, I’m still on the shit list.”
“I told you we should call her,” I heard Louie whisper to Jamie.
“I thought you were implying thatyouwere going to call her,” Jamie whispered back.
When I made it to Stefan’s study, the door was open. I walked right in, ready to get some answers, but I stopped dead in my tracks just a few steps into the room.
What in the actual fuck?
My mouth fell open as I took in the entire room. Photos had been thrown and taped up everywhere. The walls, Stefan’s desk, the floor. They were all covered, and not with just any photos, but photos of me—of my entire life shot from afar, like someone had been watching me. There were pictures of Stefan carrying me when I'd been eight months old at my grandfather’s funeral and of me at school from elementary to high school. There were some of me shopping with Brody for clothes, going to the movies with Jamie and Louie, and getting ice cream with Stefan. The floor seemed to hold a lot of the most recent photos of me at college with Tom and Tina. Then there were ones from after I had returned home, of me and Jamie kissing outside of Anarchy, Stefan and I at the park the night he had tested me and I had stabbed one of Sasha’s men.
I looked to Stefan, who for once wasn’t sitting at his desk, but was sitting on his leather couch with a drink in his hand. He had taken his suit jacket off and tossed it onto the arm of the couch. He was leaning forward, head downcast with his elbows resting on his knees. He ran his fingers through his hair, tiredly.
“I debated whether or not I should let you see this,” he said without looking at me. “But I don’t think I can keep this hidden from you anymore.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. What is all of this?” I demanded.
He finally looked up to meet my eyes and my breath hitched. He was unveiled, revealing his anger, sadness, and what I could have sworn was worry. “Go look on my desk.”
Cautiously, I did as he asked. Like the rest of the room, the top of his desk was covered with photos. These photos, however, had something written in a dark brownish red on them. The smell of pennies filled my nose, telling me that it was blood. As I rounded Stefan’s desk, I got a better look at what the photos were and what the writing said.
Taking in each photo, my heart began pounding harder and harder in my chest, to the point it hurt. My lungs constricted, making it difficult to breathe. It was as if I’d forgotten how to inhale. There were more photos of me, but there were also a few I wasn’t in and that was because I’d been in the bathroom. The night I had been raped was laid before me. They started with me dancing at the party, then of me heading upstairs to look for an unoccupied bathroom. Then there were photos of Zack and Tyson standing outside the bathroom I had been using with their heads bent together. The person who had taken the photos looked like they had been hiding in the room the bathroom connected to. The closet, maybe? Wherever they had been hiding, they had shot the moment I had opened the door and Zack and Tyson had barreled in, pinning me down to the ground, just before they had kicked the door closed. There was a shot of when they'd left after they had raped me and I'd been lying on the floor with my skirt shoved up around my stomach. The last two photos were of me leaving the bathroom and getting into Jamie’s car, looking beaten and pale as a ghost. Written across the photos was, “You couldn’t protect her, like you couldn’t protect me.”
“Baby?” Jamie said softly from where he and Louie stood on the other side of Stefan’s desk, watching me. I turned away from the photos, fighting desperately with my mind to not drift back to that night.
A hand touched my shoulder and I jerked away from it. “Please, don’t touch me right now,” I said breathlessly because getting air was still a struggle. I was determined to work through my panic on my own.I can do this. I’m stronger than the pain that night caused—the haunting memories that still loom in the back of my mind even after seven years.I can’t let it cripple me anymore.
The tightness around my lungs eased and I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. The thundering in my heart calmed and I regained control of myself. With my head held high, I turned to face everyone. Both Jamie and Louie were standing close, patient and ready to be there for me. “Someone better start explaining what the hell is going on.”
CHAPTER 24
The four of us moved to the chamber with Jamie’s laptop. I took a seat in Rourke’s spot with Jamie and Louie sitting on either side of me so I could see whatever it was they wanted to show me on the computer. Stefan sat in his usual spot, currently drinking his second glass of whiskey.
Louie opened multiple videos from different areas recorded around the house and property for me to watch. The first videos were of the front gate. I watched as Blake, one of the grounds security, drove through the gate. Blake was good friends with Josh and Dean and I had met them all at the same time right after I'd returned from Hartford. I remembered during our first encounter Blake had flirted with me, while Josh had acted respectfully and Dean had glared at me.
“Blake showed up late for his shift this morning. We think he purposefully waited until we were all away from the house and only staff were here. Not even Brody was here,” Jamie said.
“How do you know Blake did this?” I asked.
Louie pulled up another video on the computer and the control room appeared. Josh was sitting, leaned back in a desk chair watching the CCTVs. Then, in came Blake. He had something in his hand and I couldn’t make out what it was until he leapt onto Josh, who had greeted him with a friendly smile. The hypodermic needle became clear as day when he stabbed Josh in the neck with it. Josh collapsed to the floor, unconscious within seconds. Blake took a portable radio and a gun from the cage before leaving the control room. Louie hit some keys again and video from the camera outside the control room started. Blake closed the control room and broke his key off in the lock. Louie switched over to another video from the camera outside Stefan’s study. Blake passed Stefan’s study and went to the room right next door, which was Brody’s office. Blake opened the door and two masked men walked out carrying two large suitcases, followed by the woman who had approached me at the baby store today.
“Oh, fuck,” I blurted as I watched the three strangers make their way to Stefan’s study and disappear inside while Blake stood guard in the hall.