Page 31 of Quadruplets for the Vipers (Never Just One #3)

Axel

W hen I wake, the guys are around my bed, looking stone-faced.

“Where’s Leah?” are the first words from my mouth as I notice her absence.

‘She’s gone,” Knox says, with hurt and betrayal in his eyes.

“What do you mean she’s gone? Where?”

Panic floods me as I wonder if he means she’s dead. But that can’t be possible, she was fine when I saw her. She didn’t go near the fire. My lungs feel as if they’re burning as I try to sit up. The others share a look as they try to decide how to break the news to me.

“God damn it, tell me what’s going on!” I shout, causing heaving, racking coughs to come out of my chest.

“A nurse here performed an ultrasound to make sure the baby was okay. It…” Knox can’t finish his sentence, he can’t even bring himself to say the words. I know then that she lost the baby and my heart breaks.

“She lost the baby,” Rider says softly, taking over for Knox who’s too overwhelmed with emotion to speak. “She said she needed some air, that she wanted to be alone. She went outside to the parking lot and when we went to look for her she was gone.”

“Well, why the fuck didn’t you go after her? She must be devastated.”

Knox’s face twists in anger. “We did. Rider went back to the house to see if she was there. He didn’t find her, but he found her phone.

I stayed here and spoke with the security guards to see if anyone saw her leave, she didn’t have a car so she couldn’t have gone far.

What we found on her phone and on the hospital security cameras was evidence enough that she doesn’t want to be followed. ”

I can only assume that Jace is staying quiet because he was being treated for his injuries, same as me, while this was all happening. His arms wear similar bandages to mine.

“What did you find?” I ask, looking between Knox and Rider.

Without a word, Knox hands over his phone.

On the screen, there’s a video recording, taken from the CCTV cameras in the hospital parking lot.

I watch the footage of Leah, bent over crying, following the news of the miscarriage.

A well-dressed man I vaguely recognize approaches her, pulling her into an embrace.

Jealousy and hurt wash over me as I notice she doesn’t pull away.

She allows him to comfort her as they speak.

Her body language changes as she becomes a sweet, pliant girl in his presence.

She looks into his eyes, asking him something, I wish I knew what.

He agrees, kissing her on the lips, and my heart breaks a little to see she allows it. It’s clear they know each other well.

Who is this man? I rack my brain.

Leah nods and climbs into the SUV he arrived in. The footage ends as they drive away. She’s really gone. She’s left us for another man.

“I don’t understand. Why would she do this?”

“There are texts on her phone. She was planning to leave us for him all along. Perhaps losing the baby was a blessing in her eyes,” Knox says bitterly.

Rider hands over the phone and I read the texts.

“The bombing was him? He did it because Leah slept with us?”

“It certainly looks that way,” Rider concedes.

“He must be Leah’s ex. She didn’t tell me much, but from what she did mention, it sounded like he was controlling, maybe even abusive.”

“Can’t be that bad if she went back to him,” Jace interjects.

“I’m sorry, are you guys seriously suggesting that Leah would willingly leave with a guy she knew blew up the Steel Vipers club, injuring and killing her friends?” I ask incredulously.

How can my friends be this dense?

“You saw the video, looked pretty willing to me,” Knox stubbornly insists. His pain is making him blind.

“Guys, you know Leah, if she thought that going with him willingly would protect others she’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“No, she wouldn’t do anything to risk the baby,” Knox says without thinking.

“…The baby she just found out she lost,” Rider says quietly, realization dawning on him.

“Rider, are you fucking forgetting who this guy is? She knew him. We were sleeping with the fucking enemy, a Hellhounds spy!” Knox shouts.

“What are you talking about? Who is this guy? He’s not Hellhounds.”

“He is. He’s fucking Tony Jackson, Mafia kingpin, and the Hellhounds’ new master. He’s the reason why we haven’t been able to take them down.”

“How do you know this?”

“We did some digging into who he is after watching the video, and from there it wasn’t hard to connect the dots between him and the Hellhounds.

Don’t you recognize him? He approached Zeus a while back and tried to get the Steel Vipers on board with his fucking disgusting business trafficking people, Zeus told him to go to hell. Seems he died for it…” Jace explains.

“And Leah fucking knew him! She was his goddamn girlfriend, probably a plant to get close to the Steel Vipers and take us down from the inside, feeding them information. How else did they ambush Zeus and Donna that day? They knew exactly where we were gonna be,” Knox spits.

My mind is reeling as I try to process this information. It can’t be true. Yet all of the evidence seems to point that way. I think back over everything Leah said and did while she was with us, was it all a ruse? Was she playing us all along? I can’t believe it. But maybe I should.

The Leah I know wouldn’t be capable of such cruelty. Knox is even suggesting she may have intentionally caused the miscarriage, I can’t believe she would do something so heinous. Not when she knew how much this baby was wanted.

It can’t be true. Can it?

“Look, I agree that it looks bad, that Leah shouldn’t have hidden who her ex was from us. But I have to believe Leah isn’t capable of this, that she didn’t know.”

“Axel, the fucking guy mentions his ‘Hounds’. How can you believe that?” Knox says, clenching his fist.

“I don’t know. But Leah at least deserves the benefit of the doubt for us to look into it more.”

“She betrayed us, she doesn’t deserve a thing,” he says, storming out of the room.

“What do you suggest?” Rider asks with a sigh, turning his attention back to me, and folding his arms across his chest.

“I think it’s high time we pay the Hellhounds a visit. Either way, this ends now.”