The first thing I saw was a pair of boots, and they were kicking the shit out of the now unconscious Martin. Straightening, I focused on the man who had just saved me and nearly vomited again.
Liam.
With one more kick to Martin’s midsection, Liam stepped back. He turned his wild, blue eyes on me. They raked over my towel-clad body, taking in the puke on the floor before going back to where my breasts were nearly popping out of the top of the towel. He was breathing hard, his face dark with rage, and his eyes glazed with a brightness that told me that he was high.
“You okay?” he finally asked after what felt like a lifetime of standing there staring at me.
I shrugged. Was I? I didn’t know. My brain was having trouble processing everything all of a sudden. One minute I’d been about to be attacked, the next I was puking my guts out and Liam Bryant was saving me.
Liam shook out his hand and I noticed that his knuckles were bleeding. “That fucker’s got a glass jaw, that’s for sure. Dropped like the pussy he is with just one hit.” He stepped over Martin’s motionless body and held out his other hand to me. “Come on, little Brie. Let’s get you away from this ugliness.”
I blinked down at his hand. What? How? Why?
So many questions were running through my mind and I didn’t have the answers to them. Fingers trembling, I finally took his hand and he held it firm but so damn tenderly as he helped me step over my bassist—my ex-bassist. No way was I going to let him stay on this tour with us any longer. No fucking way.
Out of the bathroom now, Liam guided me down the narrow hall to the roosts. He opened the closet that we all shared and reached inside without releasing my hand. Mutely, I stood there, shivering in my damp towel. After only a few moments he pulled out a bra, panties, top, and jeans. He placed them on the first bunk he came to and only then did he release me.
The hand that had been holding mine so gently lifted and he pushed my dripping hair back from my face. “Get dressed, sweetheart.”
I stood there, stunned for long minutes after he’d closed the door behind him. I could hear him just on the other side, as if he were waiting on me, ready to protect me again if he needed to. He must have been on his phone, because all I could hear was him speaking, and he sounded pissed.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to think after what had just happened. Liam Bryant had just saved me. How had he known? Why had he saved me? Why was he still here?
From what little I’d learned about him over the last three months, I knew that he wasn’t the type of guy who usually stuck his neck out for anyone. He was normally trapped in his own little world, high off his ass. Life seemed to pass him by and I hadn’t seen even one little clue as to him actually giving a flying fuck about it.
Which only confused me that much more. Why was I attracted to someone like him? Why was I so sure that I was in love with him? It blew my mind that I was so hung up over a guy that was so damaged. I wasn’t the type of chick who wanted to be the one to fix some broken guy. Normally, I was completely turned off by a guy who didn’t have his life figured out.
Yet, here I was, still standing in the middle of the sleep quarters on my tiny tour bus in nothing more than a damp towel and falling that much more in love with a guy who was so fucked up there wasn’t even a word invented that properly described his fucked-up-ness.
Liam’s voice got louder, angrier, and I quickly started dressing. My hair was a soaking wet mess, but I didn’t care. I dried it with the wet towel as well as I could and finally opened the door that separated me from Liam.
He stood there with his phone pressed to his ear, yelling at whoever was on the other end. When those blue eyes lifted to me, he abruptly broke off and the hand holding the cellphone dropped to his side. “Okay?” I nodded, unable to find my voice just yet. “Good. Emmie is going to get this piece of shit out of here and find you someone to replace him for the remainder of the tour. Don’t worry about anything, okay? She’s better than any one of those fucking gods she swears by. Chick can move mountains with just her little finger when she sets her mind to it.”
The admiration I heard in his voice had something tightening and twisting in my chest. It was the first time I’d ever heard anything other than bored disinterest or amusement in his voice. Was Liam in love with Emmie Jameson just like half the other guys on this fucking tour were?
Clenching my jaw, I pushed down the sudden shot of jealousy that threatened to choke me and forced a small smile to my lips. “Okay,” I murmured. “Thanks, Liam. For…Well, just thanks.”
His eyes darkened even more. “I heard you screaming for him to get out. Sorry I didn’t get to you sooner, but the door was locked and I had to break the damn thing to get in.”
“I—” I broke off when my voice cracked. It was hard to imagine what might have happened if Liam hadn’t heard me. “Thank you for checking on me.”
His lips lifted at the corners in a grim smile. “Don’t thank me, Brie. I would never walk away from a chick in danger. Just thinking about it makes me mental. If something like that happened to my sister and no one helped her…” He shook his head. “I would go insane. No way am I going to let it happen to anyone else.”
From the front of the bus I could hear people coming aboard. I heard Emmie’s voice followed by Doug and then Jesse Thornton, both Stevenson brothers, Nik Armstrong, and Axton Cage. All of them were talking at once as they filled up my small living room and I knew I had to go out there and talk to them.
I just wished I could stop everything and stay there just talking to Liam for a few more minutes. The look on his face as he’d mentioned his sister, the way his voice had changed when he’d spoken of her, told me that no matter what kind of man he was, his sister was the most important person in his life.
Maybe he wasn’t as broken as I’d first thought…
CHAPTER SEVEN
LIAM
She was out of surgery and back in ICU once again.
The doctor and two nurses had come out to speak to us two hours ago. They had found the fragment of the .22-caliber bullet they had missed the first time. It had been hiding behind her heart. Dr. Schiller hadn’t tried to sugarcoat anything that he told us and I was still unsure if I was glad that he had given it to me straight or not.
I’d nearly vomited when he’d told me what had happened when he’d opened up Gabriella’s chest—for the second time. He’d lost her. Twice.
Two times my little Italian goddess had tried to leave this world again. Two fucking times. Schiller had been able to bring her back and the rest of the surgery had been a success with no further complications. He still wasn’t changing her odds, however. It could still go either way.
Gabriella was in critical condition. Only time and God could tell if she would make it through this.
After the doctor and his nurses had left, with the promise of letting me back to see her once she was settled in ICU, I’d fallen back into the chair I’d been sitting in since Alexis had arrived. My friends and family tried to speak to me but I couldn’t hear any of them. Not one word penetrated my mind.
All I could see was her face as I’d screamed at her to get out of my own hospital room when I’d woken up from my car wreck. Would she kick me out when she woke up from this? Would she not want to see me, speak to me, love me when she opened those beautiful brown eyes and saw me?
I decided it didn’t matter. If she yelled at me like I’d yelled at her, I wouldn’t leave. It would take all of Seller’s gorillas in suits to pull me out of this hospital.
Someone pushed a cup of coffee into my hands and I finally lifted my eyes from where I’d been staring sightlessly for the past two hours or more. When I realized it was Annabelle and that she was now sitting beside me drinking her own coffee, I frowned. “Thanks,” I muttered before taking a swallow of the hot drink. It was weak and tasted more like ass than coffee, but it warmed a small part of my insides, unthawed my body enough that I felt like I wasn’t going to freeze to death.
“You doing okay?” she asked, taking another sip of her own coffee.
“Ask me again in a few days. If Gabriella makes it through this, then I’ll be fine. If…” I shrugged, unable to finish. Unable to speak aloud my worst fears.
Annabelle nodded, understanding without me having to say the words. “You’ve changed, Liam. It’s nice to see what a good man you turned into after seeing what a fucked-up boy you were. Tawny really destroyed you.”
I gritted my teeth as thoughts of the chick who had been so many of my firsts flitted through my mind. First love. First kiss. First chick I’d ever fucked. She’d been my high school sweetheart, the girl who had initiated me into manhood.
The chick to give me my first taste of coke.
Tawny’s uncle had been a small-time drug dealer in Nashville. I hadn’t known until I was already hooked on the shit that she helped him deal coke, meth, weed, even pills. If I had been smart, I would have walked away from her then, but I’d been in love.
In love with the drugs.
It had taken me years to realize that it was the drugs I’d been in love with and not Tawny. When I’d realized it, I’d been about to break up with her when she’d told me she was pregnant. So we’d stayed together and, for the first time in my life, I’d found something other than the drugs or my sister that had touched my heart.
I thought I was going to be a father.
I saw the ultrasounds, went to almost every prenatal appointment. No one would ever claim that I wasn’t committed to being a dad. I’d loved that baby so damn much. I still did.
When Harris was laid in my arms, he’d been the most beautiful little baby I’d ever seen. When the nurse had told me his blood type, and I’d taken a closer look—saw my best friend’s face in that face that I loved so much—I’d gone a little insane.
It was because of the drugs that I’d been able to deal with Devlin being Harris’s father. They blocked out the pain as my heart had been torn from my chest every time I’d seen the little boy I’d thought was going to be my own. Over the years, as I’d watched that little boy grow—watched the small nightmare that his mother had made of his life as she’d played tug of war with Devlin, using Harris as the rope—my heart had broken a little more. And I’d escaped more and more into the drugs.
When I’d finally gotten clean, was ready to stay clean, I’d had to deal with all of that pain. That was when I’d realized that Devlin hadn’t been to blame for all that shit back then. Tawny had drugged him and tricked him into sleeping with her to get pregnant because I never had sex with her without protection. Never. The only way she’d been able to claim Harris was mine in the first place was because she’d swore up and down that one of the condoms had broken.
Not wanting to go down memory lane with Annabelle about my fucked-up past, I turned toward her. “How has life been treating you, Anna-Banana?”
Her lips twitched as if she were fighting a smile at my old nickname for her. “No one’s called me that in over seventeen years.” She took another swallow of her coffee, grimacing at the taste, and blew out a tired sigh. “Life hasn’t been too hard on me. I’ve helped Noah with his career, took over as his manager for the last six years. When he decided to retire from all of this last year, I decided to take on a few other musicians. Six months ago I ran into Gabriella. Her contract with Craig was up and she decided to give me a shot.”
My eyes narrowed on the woman, remembering the girl she’d once been. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re leaving a lot out, Anna-Banana?”
Her eyes drifted across the room and I followed her gaze to the group standing by one of the windows. Natalie, Devlin, Zander, and Kenzie were standing there talking in quiet tones. I knew which of them she was looking at, though, and reached for her hand, giving it a firm squeeze, bringing her eyes back to me.
Annabelle shook her head as if to clear it. “That was a long time ago.”
“Maybe.” I didn’t say what I really wanted to say, though. That it might have been a long time ago, but sometimes time doesn’t mean shit when your heart was involved.
Her phone buzzed and she took one look at the screen before jumping up like the room was on fire and rushing out the door without another word to me. Alone again, I scrubbed my hands over my face, realizing that they were still trembling, and balled them into fists.
Where was that fucking nurse? When could I see Gabriella again? Fucking hell, all I wanted was to tell her I loved her one more goddamn time. See her eyes. Have her heat chase away the cold that was numbing every part of my body. I was going out of my mind and nothing and no one could fix it but her.
My eyes closed and I tried to think positive thoughts. She was going to be okay. She had to be okay. Fuck what her grandfather said. I didn’t give a shit anymore. Gabriella was what I wanted, what I needed. And if she still wanted me, still loved me even a little, I would take that. I’d hold on and never let that girl go again.
Cold, soft fingers touched my arm. Slowly I opened my eyes to find Alexis standing over me with Jordan in her arms. When had her son arrived? Behind her stood her husband and her brother, Vince Sheppard. He was a doctor, the best spinal surgeon in the country. Even though Gabriella wasn’t his cousin, since he and Alexis were only half siblings, I knew that he cared about her.
“The nurse just said we could go back. They are going to let me take Vince with me since he’s a doctor, but I don’t want to go back without you.” She kissed her son’s cheek before handing him over to his father, and then reached for my hand. Together our hands made a block of ice, but her touch comforted me more than any of my friends and family could. This was the only person Gabriella would kill for. Having her there with me made it the tiniest bit better.
Standing, I walked with her toward the door but couldn’t help but look back to find Dallas. Would they let me take her back there too? She would know what was going on in there. Be able to read the machines and tell me just how bad things still were. Her tired blue eyes were watching me and as if she could read the silent plea in my own eyes, she stood and followed after us.
Inside the ICU, a nurse was standing by the door, waiting on us. Vince spoke quietly to her and she nodded, leading the four of us back to the room Gabriella had been in hours before. Everything looked the same to me. She was still lying in that damn bed, looking so small and pale. Machines were making all kinds of racket, but I would never find them annoying ever again. Those noises meant that she was alive, that she was still fighting to stay with me.
Alexis still held onto my hand, but she was starting to shake as she gazed down at her cousin. Her brother wrapped his arm around her waist to help steady her and we eased her into the only chair beside the bed. Tears were running down her face as she whispered something brokenly in Italian that I didn’t understand.
Dallas moved around to the other side of the bed where all the machines were hooked up. She frowned as she looked from one machine to another. I was scared to ask her what she thought, what her professional opinion was.
“Well?” Alexis whispered
Dallas shrugged before letting her shoulders droop tiredly again. “Her heart rate is low and her O2 isn’t much better. Her chest tube looks good. I’m just wondering how much blood they’ve given her already.”
Vince nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go talk to the nurses.”
As Dallas passed me, she gave my shoulder a squeeze before following him out to the nurses’ station. I swallowed hard and crouched down next to Alexis, not giving a damn that sitting like that was agony on my leg.
“Even like this, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” I murmured.
“Yes,” Alexis breathed out on a broken sob.
Neither of us spoke after that. Just sat there, both of us silently crying unashamedly as we watched Gabriella’s chest rise and fall slowly. Time passed, I wasn’t even sure how much. Vince returned, without Dallas, and whispered something in his sister’s ear that had her shaking her head adamantly. H
e muttered a curse and left again, but we didn’t move.
Vince didn’t come back, but a nurse came in carrying another chair, shocking me enough that I straightened. My leg was one big throb, but I didn’t give a shit.
She set the chair in front of me with a grim smile. “As long as the two of you don’t get in our way or cause trouble, you can stay. Dr. Sheppard arranged it with Dr. Schiller.” I eased myself down into the chair she had brought and grasped Alexis’s hand once more. “It’s okay, you know. You can talk to her. Let her know that the two of you are here. It might help.”
I nodded and the nurse left. Once again the room was silent except for the noises coming from the machines Gabriella was hooked to. We could have sat there for minutes, hours, even days. I wouldn’t have noticed the passing of time. My eyes were glued to my girl, silently willing her to live.
A different nurse came in, changed out the bag of blood and the fluids that were attached to the IV. She didn’t speak to us as she did her job and then left.
My eyes were starting to feel heavy and I finally glanced over at Alexis to check on her. As if my movement pulled her out of a funny memory, she let out a soft laugh. “You know, I was always curious as to why Gabs hates Emmie. She never would tell me, and I always assumed it was over Axton, but after he married Dallas, I wasn’t so sure.”
I blew out a breath that was full of self-loathing. “It wasn’t because of Axton,” I admitted. “It wasn’t even Emmie’s fault, actually. That was all on me. I asked Em to do it.”
Alexis’s eyes widened. “Really? But you two weren’t even together back then.”
“Yeah, but that was because I figured I wasn’t good enough for her. Then later on, I decided I didn’t care if I was good enough or not. I wanted her, loved her.”