Because the boss is dead.
Law is gone.
Chapter 24—Milly
The annoying consistent beeping is what pushes me out of my slumber as I wake up. Or try to wake up. My eyes take longer than I want to open, and everything fucking hurts, but I refuse to give up. If I can open my eyes, then I can get my ass out of this place and find Ollie. If I’m still alive, then so is he. Or he better be.
I’ve never gone after someone for revenge, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Ivan probably assumes he won. Thinks I’ll nurse my wounds and not be willing to get up and fight, but that asshole knows nothing about me. I’ll fight for Ollie even in death. If I were a damn ghost right now, I would absolutely haunt his ass. My willpower to keep that kid alive and out of Ivan’s hands is even stronger than the Grim Reaper’s.
The lights piss me off, but then I realize it’s the damn sun that’s shining through the window, and I glare at it. How dare it be shining so brightly when life is full of shit right now. The world should weep that Ollie is in the hands of his abusive father. But no, life goes on, and no one cares.
I sit up, yelling in pain but not caring to be quiet. No reason to be silent. I swing my legs over the bed and see the amount of bandages, then say fuck it in my head as I go to stand and fall flat on my ass. I curse at my lack of strength but try to use the bed to lift myself back into it. The damn beeping seems to be getting worse, and I choose to rip the damn thing off the wall before I make a move to getup.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ruby exclaims as she bursts through the door and sees me pulling at the needles in my arms. She rushes to me, swatting my hands away easily, as just getting this far took far more energy out of me.
“Getting the fuck out of here. What does it look like?” I take an embarrassing length of time to get that out, as I have to stop and take a couple breaths between every few words. Who the hell ever thought it would be harder to talk than walk?
“Like you’re trying to kill yourself. Come on.” She easily lifts me back onto the bed and starts looking over the machines as I give her wide eyes. She glances at me from the corner of her eye, probably feeling me look at her. “What?”
“You on steroids or some superhuman?” I know I’m small, but I’m full of muscles that I’ve earned from my years on the run and at the gym with my brothers before all this mess started. I’m not lightweight, yet Ruby lifted me like I was a toddler.
She shrugs. “I’m going into physical therapy. Got to take the weight of people double and triple my size if I plan to help them. Last thing I want is some ass to fall on their face and blame me for not catching them because they took one step too many before they could walk. Saw a friend of mine get sued right out of college for that. Court even sided with the guy who fell and didn’t consider that he weighed over three hundred pounds. Most people couldn’t have held him up, especially considering he was too big for his own feet. School is already going to take forever to pay off. Don’t want any extra to go to court costs when I start banking the cash.”
The beeping stops, and I rest my head back on the pillow, closing my eyes to the world. “What happened?”
“Ivan stormed the castle,” Ruby says with a sadistic chuckle. I hear her move around the room, and then I open my eyes and find her sitting in the only chair.
“How many—” I cough, and she stands quickly and hands me water from the table beside me. I drink from the straw, then rest back against the pillow. “How many did we lose?”
I know Ivan is a sick bastard. Any asshole who rapes and kills his “wife” while his kid’s watching, keeping him locked in a hot car for God knows how long, is born sick. Some might say you learn it, and maybe some do. But not Ivan. He was born fucked up. And a man born that way finds like-minded people, or weak-ass ones, who he can mold into mini-mes. Even if I didn’t see Ivan on-site—he’s not the type to get his hands dirty unless it involved Mia—he was the mastermind behind this. His orders were probably to get Ollie. Everyone else was collateral in his eyes. Women, children—all expendable to him.
I expect the tears in her eyes. This is her family. Any loss will be hard on her. But the shutdown? The complete lack of emotion? That lets me know it’s worse than I could have ever imagined.
“Just one.”
I wait. I can’t bear to ask, afraid of which boy I’ll ask about first. The one I fell in love with when he was born, or the one who’s slowly capturing my soul.
“Law.” Her voice cracks as she says it. The only break in her emotions. The only sign that it’s affecting her at all. The fact that she calls him by his club name and not her dadspeaks more than anything about how shattered she is by this.
“Oh, Ruby.” My voice quivers for her.
The door bangs open again, and I’m all but blubbering as Ollie runs in and jumps on the bed. The beeping starts again, as does the pain as he knees me in the side. I remember getting shot a few times, but the pain of each one is worth having my kid in my arms.
“How? How did you get away?” I hug him so tightly, and he squeezes me even tighter. You’d think that this is common for us, but Ollie has so many hang-ups that he only gets close like this a few times a year. And I cherish every one of them. This one more than all the others because I really didn’t expect to have him in my arms so soon.
“Bass,” Ollie says into my neck. “He saved me. He’s my friend.”
His words pull more tears from me. Of course that man would go after my kid. He and Ollie created a bond quickly. Not sure if it was because he was the first man Ollie ever spent any real time with or if it was their love of video games. Who cares what it was—I’m just happy that they have it. If they didn’t, I doubt Bass would have gone after Ollie. My family wasn’t even willing to go to bat for my kid. They knew the risk and what he meant to me, but they still chose to keep themselves out of war.
But if Law’s dead, the president of their club, maybe they didn’t have a choice.
“Yo, kid, off the merch. Your mom is still healing,” Casper says as he enters the room.
“Don’t listen to him.” I pull Ollie tighter to emphasize my point. Not that the kid is going to listen to Casper. He listens well, but when it comes to choosing between me or someone else? I always win.
I put my head in the crook of Ollie’s neck and squeeze him enough that he grunts.Hecould have been the one I had to be stoic for, like Ruby.
I peek out at her, but she’s lost in space, looking over everyone’s head at the clock. Doubt she even knows the time. We aren’t close, but I appreciate that she’s here. She must have a ton to do with the funeral, or maybe she’s just avoiding it. God knows I would if roles were reversed.
