The Beast (The Bad Boys Series) (8 page)

According to the GPS, he was just ahead. I slowed my pace so I could sneak quietly.

Something made him stop. Had he detected me already?

I moved forward until he was in view. He leaned against a tree trunk and pulled his phone out of his pocket, flicking through the icons. I moved closer. He chuckled and then pressed the screen. His location on my phone blinked out, but I
didn’t need it anymore, I could see him clearly now. I let it slip in my bag.

I lifted the gun in the air as I advanced.

“You’ve been following me,” he said, a sly grin on those sexy lips.

“Can’t keep away from you.”

“Nice jacket.”

“You’ve got good taste.” There was no way I was giving it back to him.

“So, I guess you want the money back.” He put his phone away and looked straight at me.

Keeping the gun pointed at him, I nodded.

“What about we split it. Half, half. Seems fair to me.”

“Since I have the loaded gun, I would say that gives me the advantage. I’ll take all of it.”

“I won’t give up chasing you.”

“You will if you have a bullet through your head.” I flicked the safety off.

“Aww, I already have a dagger through my heart.”

I smirked. “I hope that isn’t because of me. We barely know each other.”

“We know each other intimately. I know what it takes to make you tremble, remember?”

“Maybe I was faking.”

“Were you?”

I smiled. “No. You’re good enough, but I need more.”

“You need someone with money, you mean.”

“Which you don’t have anymore, so hand it over.”

He reached into his shirt and pulled out the four stacks of bills. He sighed heavily. “We still have the money from your boyfriend. But will it be enough to make the boys happy? I can’t guarantee that.”

“You took the three grand from Nick?”

“He was trying to make a deal. Fool.”

“Where is he?”

He shrugged. “How should I know?”

“Is he alive?”

He shrugged again.
Damn it
. The last thing I wanted was for Nick to be hurt; although I couldn’t be sure anything had really happened to him. I didn’t trust anything Colt and his friends said.

“
Here.” I counted off an extra two thousand dollars. “The three you took from Nick and this extra for your trouble.”

“Two more.”

“One.” I handed over the three grand total. “Now you have double what you started with.”

He took the cash stuffing it back into his shirt.
“Might see you around.”

“Unlikely.”

“Pleasure,” he said as he peeled himself away from the tree. He gave me a wink and turned his back on me as he walked away. He called back over his shoulder, something about me having a sexy ass, but my heart was beating too hard to hear properly.

When he was out of
sight, I exhaled and dropped the gun to my side. I slumped down at the base of a tree, putting the safety back on the gun and put it in my pack. My shoulder had begun to pound and I winced, but focused on the piles of money in my hands. It was the most money I’d ever seen in one place. I counted it out twice; to be sure I had the correct number. Thirty four thousand dollars. Shit. This kind of cash would set Owen and I up for a few years if we continued to live at my mother’s house and didn’t have to pay rent. He could get his operation, and we could live on the rest easily. I wouldn’t have to find men and steal their cash. I could go legit, maybe get a real job. This was a game changer.

I stuffed the cash into my backpack and stood up.

The road wasn’t much further ahead. If I hurried, I could make it to the next town, catch the early morning bus and be home in time for breakfast with Owen. See him off for school and wish him luck on his test.

He’d
be so excited when he saw how much money I had, so happy that I was back safe with him.

Owen could wait. Nick couldn’t. Not if he was lying injured in the woods somewhere. Not if he was already dead.

I hiked my backpack over my shoulder and walked determinedly toward the location where
I’d heard the gunshot earlier. I didn’t know what I would find or what to expect, but something told me it wouldn’t be good. I swallowed as a rumble of motorcycle engines revved, followed by a screech of tires. Colt will have gone at least. The noise faded as they sped off into the distance. The coast should be clear now.

I hurried further. “Nick,” I called as I ran. “Nick, can you hear me?”

Silence.

Please be alive.

I picked up the pace, scanning the trees for signs of life. Why did these things always happen in the dark? It wasn’t fair. I turned on the light on my phone using that to see my way.

“Nick!”

A strangled groan ahead of me. I couldn’t see him yet but raced toward the sound.

I’d
found him and he wasn’t dead. Oh, thank god.

He lay on the ground on his side, his clothes dirty with mud. Thick dark blood stained his trousers above his knee, the tear enough to see the wound where
he’d been shot. Good. Leg wounds weren’t fatal unless you bled out, but if I didn’t hurry there was still a chance of that.

“Nick.” I hurried over to him, dropping my backpack next to me. “Nick. Can you hear me?”

His breathing was raspy. He nodded his head. Now that I was closer I could see he also had a nasty bruise on the left side of his face where someone had punched him, probably trying to knock him out.“You’ve been shot. We have to stop the bleeding and get you to hospital.”

He grabbed my arm. “No. No hospital.” He coughed and moaned again.

“If you don’t you’ll die.”

He shook his head weakly, but I
didn’t care. He was going.

“I need you to try and stand because I can’t carry you.
My shoulder. You’re too heavy.”

“I can’t. They’ll find me.”

I grabbed my knife out of the backpack and used it to cut thick strips of fabric from my old clothes. They wouldn’t make the best bandage, but it’s all I had. “You don’t have a say in this.” I folded a padded square of what used to be my t-shirt and pressed it against the wound. “I can’t see if the bullet is still inside.” I wrapped more strips of cloth around his leg to keep the bandage tight. “And it’s still too dark.” He winced as I helped him sit upright. “Not to mention unhygienic out here. Even if I could stop the bleeding, you need antiseptic.”

“I’ll go to jail.” His breathing was ragged and he had started slurring his words
as if he was drunk.

“Very unlikely.”
The bandage was on as tight as it would go. I put Nick’s arm around my shoulder, winced, and then tried to pull him up. “There isn’t anyone looking for you anymore. The restraining order has lapsed. Everyone has moved on with their lives, you need to as well.”

He was like a lead weight. If he
didn’t help me, there was no way I’d be able to take him on my own.

I slapped him lightly on the face to get his attention, more for the sound than the touch. “Listen to me.
You’re going to have to help me here. It’s tough, but you can do it.”

“Okay.” He struggled to his feet, lifting the injured leg up and winced. He shook his head and leaned back against the tree. “You should have left me here.
It’s what I deserve. I’m too much of a burden to you. Go to your son. You’re free now, go to him.”

“Nonsense.
You’ve got to stop this self pity. It’s not in the least bit attractive, you know. You will not be put away. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a start. Come on, only a bit further to go. I’ll flag down a car and get you help. It’s nearly light, someone will be along soon.”

He nodded and used me as balance as he hopped toward the road. We
weren’t that far away and it wouldn’t take long. Before we reached it, Nick stopped walking. “Belle?” I looked up at him just as he bent down, kissing me softly on the lips. His thumb grazed along my cheek. “Thank you for believing in me.”

“Tell me that again when the bullet is out of your leg.” I urged him forward, the pain in my shoulder now almost unbearable, but that would be nothing compared to the pain he was in if the bullet really was inside his leg.

We reached the edge of the road. The first glimmer of sun was lighting the tops of the trees in a muted warm glow. I let Nick sit at the side as I looked up and down for signs of life. While there was nobody yet, usually in small towns like these, people liked to be up early and on with their business. Today, I was counting on it.

Nick began to shiver. I took off my leather jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders.

Finally, the rumbling of an old pickup truck made me look behind me and I almost cried out in relief as it came toward us. A man in his fifties wearing a worn baseball cap was behind the wheel. He slowed as he approached. I waved him down.

As the truck came to a stop, the driver rolled his window down.

I almost jumped through the window. “Please, can you help? My friend has been shot. I need to get him to the hospital.”

“You don’t look too fresh yourself.”

“Yeah. It’s been a long night.”

“Get in.”

I helped Nick into the middle seat at the front of the truck, and then climbed in beside him. As soon as the door closed, we were bounding along toward the hospital. Each bump in the road sent another jolt up my shoulder but I pushed the pain away. Nick wasn’t doing so good. He moaned, his head lolling back and his eyes closed.

“Stay with us.” I shook his arm and his attention came back. “We’re nearly there.”

The driver dropped us off at the emergency entrance to the hospital. I thanked him as we rushed inside. Before I’d even had a chance to get my bearings, a nurse came toward us with a wheelchair.

“He’s been shot. Leg.” I pointed to the deepening blood soaked bandage.

She helped him into the chair and turned him around. “We’ll look after him. You go get your shoulder looked at. Nurse Benet at the window will look after you.” She nodded to the counter behind me.

“Wait!” I went to the front of the wheelchair and bent down in front of Nick, reaching into my backpack and pulling out his money. “Colt took it. I got it back for you. Here, all of your money.”

He looked down at what I had and shook his head.

“I know it’s not all there. I had to give him some to make him leave.
I’ll try and get it back. I’m so sorry for all this mess.”

He smiled weakly. “That’s not
all
of my money. That’s not even half of it. I have far more than the petty cash I keep at the cabin.”

“Well, it’s not mine.”

He placed his hand on my arm and circled his thumb gently causing tiny goose bumps to appear. “Take it. You need it more than I do.”

“You want me to take your money? I can’t do that.”

“Belle, I insist.” He groaned.

The nurse tapped her foot impatiently. “You can finish this later. He needs surgery now.”

“Right, of course.”

She wheeled him around me and disappeared through the double doors. They swung back and forth for a few seconds before stopping at a close.

I looked down at the money still in my hands. Nick was giving it to me. Thirty four thousand dollars and he was giving it to me. Just like that. It was everything I needed. Then why hadn’t I left yet? Why wasn’t I already running back to Owen?

“Your turn,” said the nurse behind me.
She’d walked around the counter and stood in front of me. “Come this way and we’ll look under that shoulder bandage, see what we’re dealing with.”

“He gave me this money.”

“What a prince. Now come with me.” She led me away into a small room.

I placed the money into my pack. I still
couldn’t believe it. No man had ever given me money like this. I’d always had to steal it. And so much of it all at once. As the nurse unraveled the bandage and began to attend to my shoulder, I struggled with what to do next. My feelings for Nick were growing against my will, and now that I knew he had money it made things even more complicated. I needed to separate my heart from my head.

And
fast before I lost everything I was beginning to care about.

The hospital waiting room was as sterile and stark as I remembered from the last time I was here. I sat on a hard plastic chair and focused on the orange painting on the wall in front of me with
its swirls and waves. The only other decoration in this room was a large potted palm that stood in-between a water cooler and a vending machine.

Three other people were in the room with me. An elderly couple in the corner, the woman knitting and the man with his eyes closed, snoring quietly.
And a middle-aged woman reading an electronic device. None of them looked as nervous as I felt.