Page 51 of Taken By my Brothers' Best Friends

I slowly opened one eye and saw Mills lowering his gun. Confusion had me slowly twisting around to see what he was staring at. My mouth fell open as I saw that Michael’s biker guys were pointing guns at him, Morgan, and Frank. Every one of them looked slightly confused but also ready to shoot.

Seeing my chance, I turned and ran straight into Lennon’s outstretched arms. He grabbed me tight and hustled me away to his truck. “Once I can breathe normally again, I’m going to rip you a new one, Hellcat. You aged me two decades today.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but everything caught up with me and I burst into tears. Then, his grip shifted and I gasped as the pain in my shoulder made itself known again. Without the fear of dying, the pain was bad enough I gagged and then felt the world shifting under my feet. The last thought that went through my head before I passed out was that I needed to tell the guys I loved them.

CHAPTER 40

Lennon

Twenty-four hours after watching Michael Mays point a gun at Vera’s back, I still couldn’t get the elephant crushing my chest to ease off. I stood at the kitchen island, staring off into space as my fucked-up brain supplied images of shootings I’d seen while in the service, only with Vera in the place of countless other soldiers. No matter how much I tried to reassure myself she was fine, it didn’t help.

She wasn’t fine. She’d passed out in my arms, her shoulder so incredibly out of place that the shape of it was something out of a horror movie. Her face had already been swollen and bruised from being struck. I knew the bruising would be worse on day two. I knew she wouldn’t look like herself. My chest ached at the idea of how she felt, how horribly she probably hurt after what she’d gone through.

All I wanted was to be by her side. I wanted to see her chest rising and falling with my own two eyes. I wanted to know she was alive and well. What I wanted didn’t matter, though. As long as Vera was in the hospital, her brothers could easily keep us away from her.

It didn’t matter that we’d found Vera. The oldest Hellstone brothers weren’t over their bitterness. We all had various bruises and black eyes to prove it after our brawl in the street.

Reed came downstairs and stood across from me. He looked just as haunted as I felt. “Eve sent me an update. Vera’s shoulder’s been set and she’s giving everyone hell.”

I nodded. “Any news on when they’re going to release her?”

“Soon. Eve suggested the hospital is close to kicking her out.” He flashed a ghost of a smile. “She threw a bedpan at Mills.”

Dean joined us from the living room. “I hope it was full.”

I leaned against the island. “She’s going to hurt herself.”

We all shuddered, remembering the same thing. Vera running out of that barn, face bleeding from where she’d headbutted the head of the leader of a massive drug organization. She’d given them hell. We’d debriefed with the undercover agents the night before and they’d told us how she’d badgered them the entire time. She had more attitude than sense, just as we’d all suspected. She needed us. The world around her needed us. Like human bumpers, we needed to be around her to keep her safe. And happy.

“This is temporary.” Dean came around and gripped my shoulder. “I’m crawling out of my skin, too, but she’s not going to let her brothers control her for long.”

“I want to kick their asses again. I can’t believe they’re forcing us to stay away from her after we found her. They lost her and she would’ve died in that barn without us.” I slammed my hand down on the countertop and turned away from them. “I’m going crazy. I need to see her to get the image of her being shot down out of my head.”

“I wouldn’t have let that happen.” Reed’s quiet promise hung in the air for a long moment. “Michael Mays is lucky he was saved by the alphabet agencies. The only reason he’s still breathing is that I didn’t want Vera to see it if she didn’t have to.”

“Three fucking agencies undercover in the same organization without any of them knowing the other was there. I don’t know whether to congratulate the agents on being good at their jobs or shit on the agencies for stepping all over each other.” Dean sighed and tugged at his hair. “Mills has a lot of fucking nerve keeping us away from V. He was so convinced Morgan was a good old boy. He practically handed Vera over to him on a silver platter. And judging us for wanting a relationship exactly like the one their brothers are in is ridiculous.”

“It’s me they have the issue with.”

I glared at Reed. “Don’t pull that shit right now, Reed. You’re not backing away in some misguided attempt to help us get what we want. We’re a team. We don’t go separate ways and we don’t abandon each other. Even if we tried that shit, Vera would probably headbutt us next if she thought we’d left you behind. She wants all three of us. Or… She did before we blurted out her secret.”

“You don’t have to worry about me being a martyr, Lennon. When it comes to Vera, I’m all in. You’d have to leave me behind if you didn’t want her. She’s mine. I love her.” He held my gaze and then looked to Dean. “If you don’t, I suggest you figure it out. This is a momentary separation. I’m getting her back here as soon as I can.”

I paused. “You love her.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. And?”

“You’ve never said that about any of the women we got serious with over the years.” Dean let out a quiet chuckle. “Come on. Let’s go get her.”

“Now?” I straightened.

“Fuck, yeah. She needs to see us just as much as we need to see her.” He grabbed his truck keys and rattled them. “We’ll scale the hospital to get to her if we need to.”

“It’s a single floor building.” Reed looked up from his phone and smirked. “Eve is going to help us sneak in. I like her.”

“When this is all over, we’re taking a vacation.” Dean led us out to his truck. “A long one. Maybe to a private island. I want our Hellcat all to ourselves.”

“I want a few weeks to talk about verbal self-defense with her. She can clearly kick a grown man’s ass, even with a dislocated shoulder, but her self-preservation goes out the window as soon as she talks.” I looked at Reed. “You’re going to have your work cut out getting the brat out of her.”

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