Page 53 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Marcus

I hated the smell of hospitals. They reminded me of sports injuries and getting my ass chewed out by Coach. Also, the few times my brother had been injured enough to require actual medical care and not a home-stitching job, as was the Harbor Hounds’ usual MO.

I entered the ward where Cole was staying, immediately assaulted by the sound of raised voices.

I got to the private room Cole was in as Gage stormed out.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

Gage shoved a hand through his hair. “That fucking doctor says they don’t have any idea when he’s going to wake up, when that’s his fucking job!”

The words sank into me like a gut punch.

“He didn’t wake up yet?” I asked.

Last night when I’d gotten to the hospital, Cole had been in surgery.

Head injuries were tricky, the surgeon had told me.

I’d filled out all the paperwork as his next of kin and then sat in the waiting room, as had all the Harbor Hounds.

Despite security’s best attempts to clear the room out, it had remained packed with cuts, sitting in silence, holding a vigil for their leader.

“The surgeon says it went well, but the swelling has to go down now,” I said woodenly.

“Yeah, and this fucker said it would have been ideal if he’d woken up today… but he hasn’t, and he has no idea when he will,” Gage growled. “What kind of update is that?”

“Look, don’t lose your shit.” Maddox stepped out of the room. He nodded to me.

“I can’t sit around and do nothing,” Gage said. “At the very least, we need to go and fix this mess with the suppliers. What kind of ‘warning’ puts the pres in surgery? Those fuckers! Give them the fucking money, or whatever. We need to make sure this never happens again.”

Maddox met my gaze. He was the only one who knew I didn’t have the money.

“Let’s not rush into anything. Cole will be awake soon, and he’ll let us know what he wants us to do. If he’s not awake in a few days, we’ll rethink it.”

Gage made a sound of disgust.

Maddox slapped a hand onto his chest. “Go and take your fucking complaints outside. I’m second when Cole is out for the count, so listen to me and stop bitching.”

Gage looked like he wanted to disagree. The three of them had been best friends going on twenty years, but that didn’t mean they didn’t argue.

They did plenty. But not like this. Gage vibrated with anger, and I knew how he felt.

It was an anger built from fear. Fear of losing Cole.

I could barely function, the fear was so heavy.

“I’m going to go and make sure that he doesn’t get arrested,” Maddox said and raised an eyebrow. “You find out any more about the missing money?”

I shook my head. What could I tell him? That I knew who had taken the money, but it was too late to get it back? That it was gone forever? That while I’d been falling in love… I tore my tortured thoughts away from Ari and tried my best to meet Maddox’s gaze.

He sighed and walked away. I turned to Cole’s room and stepped inside. My brother didn’t appear anything like himself, pale against the white sheets.

“Still lying around, lazy fucker? When are you going to get up and take responsibility for your men? Gage is losing it,” I said to Cole’s unconscious form.

I sank into the seat next to him.

Maddox’s question haunted me. No. I didn’t know more about the bag.

I didn’t need to know more. I had all the important information.

Ari had given it to her brother. She’d ended up in Hade Harbor because she’d stolen from him in the first place.

I hadn’t even known her real name. I’d thought she had no family.

I didn’t know what was lies and what was truth now, looking back at our time together.

Arianna Spencer. Professor Spencer. It felt like a different person, someone I’d never met before. I couldn’t reconcile the image I had of my birthday girl with this idea of who she apparently was.

Why hadn’t I confronted her about the bag, something Maddox was clearly waiting for me to do?

Because I was scared.

Confronting her meant I’d lose the only person who had ever worried about me.

She would just be another person who had used me.

And even if her brother’s story had been some kind of twist on reality, the stark truth was that he had taken the money…

and Cole had paid the price. And I’d let it happen, led by my dick and my weak fucking heart.

I’d put him in this position, playing games with one hundred fucking grand, and now, I had no idea how I was going to make it back to pay off the debt.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. It actually hurt. My chest felt like it was being pierced by needles. Fuck, it hurt.

And this was why you didn’t let people in. Because they disappointed you. Because they used you. Because, at the end of the day, everyone was out for themselves, keeping their secrets, guarding their hearts, and Ari had been no different.

No, it was just me who’d let her see the wretched and broken parts of me… and in return… she’d fucked over me and Cole.

I took his calloused hand. My fear and pain shifted to anger.

I wished I’d never met Ari, never fallen for her, or her secrets, never gotten Cole involved.

Getting kicked out of a game because she was letting Professor Casanova hang all over her had only been the beginning.

I hadn’t realized there was so much more damage that could be inflicted.

And I was the fool who had let it happen.

Not anymore. One thing I’d learned young: if someone hurt you, you hurt them back.

Always.

The end-of-term music theory presentations were all anyone in class had been talking about for weeks.

I’d been done early, but that morning, after sleeping rough at the hospital and dodging ten calls from Ari, I had a few extra slides to add to my presentation.

I needed her to stop calling. I needed her to stop pretending to care.

She had to leave me alone right now, and I knew just the way to do it.

I felt numb by the time I arrived at school. The shock of seeing Cole laid out and hurt, fresh out of surgery, had transformed into an icy cold that seemed to permeate my chest, right down to my heart.

Ari’s classroom was busy when I arrived, everyone taking their seats, clutching their notes and slide printouts. I sat at the back and watched her. She was messing with her laptop, checking the time. At one point her eyes met mine, and she gave me a warm smile.

A few days ago, that would have melted me on the spot. Today, it barely made a dent in the ice inside my chest. I looked away and focused on the trees swaying in the breeze outside the window. The world felt washed of color, like Cole’s pale cheeks.

The presentations started, and I zoned out, uninterested in any of this shit.

“Marcus Bailey,” Ari called from the front.

She smiled at me as I walked down the aisle to the front, and my heart twinged with regret before I forced it away. No. I needed to cut off the source of my weakness, and this was the only way. After this, she’d never smile at me like that again.

I clicked my presentation up on the screen, queued up the first slide, and started to talk.

I didn’t care about my grade in this class anymore.

I didn’t care about anything. Seeing Cole hurt and being betrayed by Ari had broken something inside me.

Cold indifference surrounded my thoughts. I barely felt anything inside.

Ari was watching from the side of the room. I clicked to the next slide, the one I’d added this morning, and gasps ripped through the lecture hall.

It was a photo. In it, Ari was nearly naked, but not quite, sprawled in bed, the covers drawn up enough to hide her, and my tattooed hand gripping her ass.

Her face was hidden, so people wouldn’t necessarily know it was her.

It was one of the photos I’d taken that night I’d climbed into her friend’s house after following her home from the diner.

“Oops, wrong slide,” I said coolly and flicked to the next.

This one was her face, beautiful and serene, eyes closed peacefully and my hand, gripping her chin, my thumb between her lips. No one would know that she’d been asleep when I’d taken the photo. No one but me.

“Mr. Bailey!” Ari shot up and stormed toward me and the laptop.

I looked her dead in the eye. “Sorry, baby; wrong files, I guess.”

The whispers in the room raged like wildfire, igniting and spreading. I met Ari’s shocked gaze, taking the flash drive out of the laptop and tucking it into my pocket. Then I left. I couldn’t take her look of betrayal for one more second. Not when she was the one who’d started it.

I got as far as the hallway before she reached me.

“Marcus! What the hell was that? Was it supposed to be funny?” Ari strode after me, somehow a tornado of wrath, despite her diminutive size.

“Yeah, wasn’t it?” I paused for only a second before continuing.

She tugged my arm, trying to make me stop, but I resisted. I didn’t want to see her hurt expression. I couldn’t stand it.

“Are you worried your breakfast buddy will hear about it?” I asked.

“What? I don’t understand. Make me understand, please,” she said, quieter now.

That coldness around my heart threatened to crack in half.

“It means we’re done. All of this between us is over. Got it?”

“What? Why?” she wondered, and then she laughed, a bitter, twisted thing. It sounded so wrong coming from her mouth. “I knew this would happen. I knew if I asked you to wait until being together didn’t fuck up my life, you wouldn’t last a month. And here you are… barely lasting a week.”

I turned around at that, anger breaking through my deliberate calm.

“I fucked your life up?” I demanded and closed in on her. “Say that again, I dare you.”

I grabbed her shoulders; I couldn’t help myself. The urge to touch her was too strong.

“I would have waited for you as long as you asked… gladly,” I murmured.

A tear ran down her cheek, and I wiped it away.

“But I don’t know you, Arianna Spencer, and clearly, I never did.”

Her face paled at the sound of her real name.

“What? How did you know…?” She blinked quickly, her clever mind trying hard to work out what the fuck had happened.

“Did you use me, birthday girl? Did you use me like everyone else in my fucking life has?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ari said softly. She was panicked, afraid. She was exposed. “Marcus?—”

“Cole hasn’t woken up,” I cut in, the words that wouldn’t stop repeating in my head finding their way free. “He hasn’t woken up, and it’s your fault… but it’s also mine. It’s mostly mine. Loving you could cost me everything.”

She opened her mouth to speak, and I shook my head.

“I never want to see you again,” I told her, feeling like a liar in my traitorous heart.

“You should leave town before my brother finds out about the money—you might not survive it.”

“Something happened to Cole because of the money in the bag?” Ari asked.

I pushed her away gently, not able to stand being so close for one more second. Touching her was my addiction, and if I stayed too close for too long, I’d never be able to drag myself away.

“Don’t pretend to worry about me or him, don’t pretend to care, or those photos go to the dean. I’m not joking, Ari. Don’t test me.”

I wrenched away, feeling like I was hacking off a limb and leaving it there in the hall.

“Consider what I said seriously. When Cole wakes up, if you’re still here, I can’t guarantee your safety.”

Then I turned and walked away, leaving behind my bleeding heart.

A call came through as I was heading to my bike in the lot.

“Marcus. He’s awake,” Maddox said in my ear.

“I’m on my way.”