Page 35 of Quadruplets for the Vipers (Never Just One #3)

Leah

I decide to go. God help me, maybe I’m being a fool for trusting Ashley, but if there’s even the slightest chance that she’s telling the truth, I have to take it.

When three AM rolls around I put on my best, Oscar-worthy performance.

I start to moan and groan, softly at first, then getting louder.

I stumble out of bed, clutching my stomach, and head to the bathroom.

I go to the toilet, feigning checking my underpants for blood.

I continue to wince and moan as I stumble back into the bedroom.

“Tony!” I cry out, my voice panicked and needy. “Tony! Help me!”

No answer.

I head toward the door, making a great show of it, being sure for it to seem difficult and painful, just in case I have an audience. I try the door and, unsurprisingly, find it locked. I bang on it with my fist.

“Tony! Please! I think there’s something wrong with the babies!”

Still nothing. I place my ear against the door, straining to hear. It’s quiet.

What should I do? What if no one comes? If Tony is testing me, watching the cameras, and I go back to bed, he’ll know I was faking. I’ve got no choice, I have to commit.

“Tony, please!” I scream, panicked now as I bang on the door as hard as I can. “I need a doctor!”

After continuing to cry out for help, being sure to add some moans of pain, I eventually hear footsteps down the corridor.

“What the fuck, Brute, can’t you hear her?” Ashley says.

The relief I feel to hear her voice is palpable.

“Boss said not to open the door, no matter what,” a deep, rather dim-witted-sounding man replies. Brute, I presume.

I continue my charade. “Please, is someone there? Help me! I think I’m losing the babies, it hurts!” I scream.

“I don’t think that applies, given the circumstances. What do you think Tony will say if she dies or loses his insurance policy on your watch?” Ashley says, using a bossy, commanding voice.

He hesitates. “I don’t know… the boss said…”

Jesus, we’re dealing with an idiot that only does as he’s told. Is the plan going to fail because of Brute’s stubbornness?

“Will someone fucking help me!” I scream angrily. It feels good to get it out and given the circumstances, I think it’s called for.

“At least let me go in there and check on her,” Ashley reasons.

Perhaps my demand did the trick, either that or Brute is sick of listening to me wailing. “Alright. But any sign she’s pulling a fast one and we lock her in again.”

“Of course,” Ashley replies, the ‘duh’ implied.

The door opens and I throw myself at them. “Thank god you’re here. I think there’s something wrong with the babies.”

Brute looks exactly as his name suggests. A great brute of a man with a clueless expression. He physically recoils from me, as if I’m a leper. Knowing Tony’s strong warnings over what happens to any man who touches me, I’m not surprised that he’s terrified to do so.

“Alright, calm down, let me take a look at you,” Ashley soothes, leading me toward the bed. I moan and cry out as we do so. “You’re doing great, just breathe.”

To Brute her words are harmless assurances all nurses say to panicked patients, to me, they’re words of encouragement to keep doing what I’m doing.

Ashley proceeds to check me over, asking me questions to which I reply in the affirmative to all of them.

She turns to Brute, brow furrowed. “We need to get her to a hospital, I can’t treat her here.”

“The boss said she can’t leave,” he repeats.

Exasperated, Ashley points at me. “Look at her, Brute. She needs the hospital and she needs it now. Do you want her to die? Do you want four innocent babies to die?”

I look at him pleadingly, trying to make myself look as pitiful as possible.

“No, of course not,” he replies, aghast. “I wouldn’t want no babies to die.”

“Well then, help me get her to my car. I’ll drive her to the hospital, we don’t have time to wait for an ambulance.”

He nods but doesn’t move to touch me. “I should tell the boss…”

“You can afterward. First, I need to get her out of here.”

I think we’re going to have to continue to argue but Ashley adds another sharp, “Now!” which finally jolts Brute into action.

To my surprise, he hoists me into his meaty arms, cradling me like a baby. I want to protest but, to be fair, this is the quickest option as he easily strides down the corridor carrying me as if I weigh nothing.

“It’s okay, lady, your babies will be okay,” he tries to assure me.

He might be a lumbering brute, but he seems to have a kind heart. I can only assume that Tony’s manipulated him into working for him and taken advantage of his almost childlike nature.

Thankfully, we don’t encounter anyone as we leave the building, and I realize that Tony must be out.

That must be why Ashley chose tonight as our escape.

With a limited staff and only easily manipulated Brute guarding me, it was our best chance of escape.

It’s hammering down with rain outside, but Brute doesn’t seem to mind.

The bright security lights guide our path to Ashley’s flatbed truck.

Brute carefully seats me on the passenger side, going so far as to strap me in.

“Thank you, Brute.”

He opens his mouth to say something just as Ashley plunges a needle into his neck from behind.

Confusion crosses his face as his jaw goes slack, and he crumples to the ground like a great oak tree being felled.

In the dark, stormy night it’s like something from a horror movie.

A terrifying thought crosses my mind, that it was a trap after all and Ashley is about to murder me for reasons unknown.

“What did you do to him? He was helping us!” I admonish.

“He’ll be fine, it’s just a mild sedative. I needed to buy us time. If he calls Tony straight away, which I know he’ll do, then Tony and his men could catch up to us before we reach the safehouse where we’re meeting the guys,” Ashley explains as she climbs into the driver’s side.

“We can’t leave him! He’ll catch pneumonia lying outside in the rain!”

“Pneumonia doesn’t work that way, it’s an old wives’ tale,” she mutters.

“Whatever. He’ll get soaked,” I protest.

“How am I supposed to move him? He must weigh about two hundred and fifty pounds and he’s dead weight.”

She’s got a point. But still, I’m not about to abandon the man who helped us like that.

“We have to try.”

“It will take time we can’t afford to waste.”

“Then we at least have to cover him or something. Do you have a tarp in the truck?”

With a sigh, Ashley unbuckles her belt and opens the door, bracing herself for the rain. “Stay there,” she commands as she gets out and goes around back.

A few moments later she covers Brute with a big, blue tarp before returning to the car wearing a raincoat that she must have acquired from the trunk. “Happy?”

“Yes, thank you,” I reply back, equally as snippy.

She pulls off, her muscles tight with frustration. After a moment she huffs out a big sigh through her nostrils. “Sorry. You were right, we couldn’t leave him to the elements. I just don’t think you realize how dangerous the situation was. If Tony or any of his men found us…”

“We’d be dead. I’m well aware of what Tony is capable of,” I reply bluntly.

We continue to drive in awkward silence.

I should thank her, but I can’t find it in me to do so.

She’s only getting me out of the situation she put me in.

Plus, I still don’t know that we’re actually going where she says.

It still could turn out to be some sort of trap.

Though I’m finally allowing myself to hope that I’ll be reunited with the guys soon.

Just the thought of seeing them again, of being in their arms makes my heart soar.

She watches me out of the corner of her eye as she drives. I can tell she’s thinking of the right words to say.

“Leah, I really am sorry. For all of this. I just want you to know that. I should never have told you such a horrible thing. No matter the reason. To believe you’d lost your child…

what I did was terrible and goes against everything I believe in as a nurse.

I just got so lost, so tangled up in Lucifer’s web.

I completely lost who I am. Who I was. I’m not sure I even know anymore… ”

She looks so sad and her words resonate with me, it’s exactly how I was with Tony, that I extend an olive branch.

“I understand that feeling. It’s how I was with Tony… before I got away. It took me a long time to get over him, to finally start seeing a future where I could be happy. To even believe that I deserve happiness.”

“How did you do it? Get away from him, I mean.”

“Getting away was surprisingly easy. It shouldn’t have been, Tony watched me like a hawk.

I sure as hell couldn’t simply break up with him and walk out of the door.

But then it was almost like fate, the opportunity presented itself and I took it.

One day we were in a restaurant with a restroom that had a back exit.

I didn’t really even think about it, it was as if some subconscious part of me took the wheel, I just walked out the door, hitched a ride, and left.

I left everything I owned behind. I made sure to only go to places I knew he’d never set foot in, I changed my appearance, and I barely went out at all other than to work. ”

“He didn’t look for you?”

“Oh, yeah, you can bet he did. But I knew him, I knew how to hide. Or at least I thought I did. I knew he’d find me eventually though. It’s why I decided to stay with the Steel Vipers, I thought they could protect me. But all I did was bring trouble to their door.”

“They don’t see it that way,” she says softly. “They really love you.” Her voice is wistful, longing, no doubt she sees in them what she hoped she’d get from Lucifer, the love of a deadly yet loving bad boy. Only Lucifer was a little more deadly than loving.

I smile, hoping that she’s right. “I love them too,” I say, placing a hand on my belly and picturing a future where we live together and raise these babies. Could it really be possible?

But then I remember that, while I might be escaping, Tony won’t give up.

He’ll try to find me. Am I making the same mistake again?

Am I bringing danger to the door of the people who have been nothing but good to me?

But I have no choice, I have to protect the babies.

They’re the most important thing. I know the guys will agree.

They would risk their lives to protect them. I just pray they don’t have to.