CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

SEBASTIAN

I try to carry her to the bathroom, but of course, she won't allow it, claiming that she is fine to walk. She waves her hand at me, attempting to shoo me away, but I won't allow that. Crossing her arms over her chest, her lashes flutter as her gaze reaches mine. "You don't need to watch me pee."

Rubbing my thumb softly over the bruise on her cheek, I groan like it causes me pain, because it does. "Baby don't ask me to leave you alone, because I can't. I'll turn around, but that's the best I can do."

"Sebastian," she whines.

I shake my head. "I can't, Stella. Please don't ask me for impossible things right now. The thought of not having you in the same room is too much to bear. I know what you went through was horrible, but I thought I had lost you. The thought of life without you? It's intolerable. The pain in my chest when I heard your screams was excruciating. I need you close, baby. So please do what you need to do, but don't ask me to leave."

She nods slowly. "Fine. Turn around, please."

I do as she asks and she huffs in annoyance, "Turn the water on. I can't pee with someone listening."

Chuckling, I turn the water on so she can work through her stage fright.

After she washes her hands, I wrap my arm around her, tucking her into my side as we walk back to the others.

"Pretty Boy, did you seriously go with her while she took a piss?" Mav asks as we join them again. I flip him off, because I know it was needy as hell of me, but we nearly just fucking lost our girls, so excuse me if I'm feeling a little protective right now.

The asshole who took them sits with Gage beside him, probably thinking he's somehow getting away with this attempt to take our women from us, but clearly Gage has a game plan here, so I'm happy deferring to him for now. As long as I get my chance to make this fucker hurt.

I sit Stella down in the seat they left for her, and stand behind her, my hands on her shoulders, because I need that connection to her right now.

"Stel, are you doing okay, babe?" Lucy asks, reaching over to grab her hand. She nods bravely, but I know she's fucking hurting.

"What's the plan now?" I ask, because I want to get them back home, and looked after. This trip was the worst fucking decision of our lives, and they'll have to knock me out to get me away from home with our girls again in the future.

Gage nods at his new friend. "Our buddy was just about to tell us why he took the ladies, and who the hell Abigail is." The girls both gasp and look at each other, and that's when I realize there's more to this than I knew, and somehow, they're in the loop while I'm not.

"Go ahead, frat boy, put us out of our misery, before we do the same for you," I mutter, watching the fucker look at me with wide eyes, like somehow, he thought he was going to survive this.

LUCY

The second he mentions the name Abigail, I realise who this monster is, and I finally understand why we're in this situation right now. Stella shares my look of horror at the revelation, and I know the guys are more than curious now.

"This is about Abigail?" Stella asks quietly, leaning back into Sebastian's touch, while I take comfort from Mav's hand on my thigh as he crouches beside me. Did we do this? Is this our fault? And more to the point, did he hurt her first? Are we the second act, after he took his revenge on her already? I hope to God that she's safe and well somewhere far away from him.

"Who's Abigail?" Gage asks, clearly not for the first time, and this is a level of patience I've never seen from him, I think. Where's the Gage Rage we know and love, dude?

The guy, who I now know is Andy, the guy who abused Abigail, a young woman we met at a book signing about three months ago, sighs heavily. Oh, I'm sorry, asshole, are we annoying you?

"You're Andy?"

He shoots me a glare, and I see Gage's fists clench as he fights his natural response to beat the guy. Maybe when he hears how we know about him, he'll finally do what feels right. If it feels good, do it. Making this asshole pay will feel good for all of us, I'm sure of that.

"You bitches, you ruined everything," he hisses at me, somehow missing the way all three of our men tense at his words. He really doesn't see that he's about to die in the most horrible, painful way possible, and while that kind of thing freaked me out before, this bastard hurt Stella, risked her baby, and mine, and brutalised his fucking girlfriend. He deserves all the pain.

"I think any man who uses his girlfriend as a punching bag is the one who ruined things," I say quietly, holding back the things I want to yell at him. Gage clearly has a plan, and I don't want to derail that, so I try to keep calm, while inside I want to kick him in the nuts until he bleeds. Yikes, I've been with these guys way too long, if that's the kind of thought I have now.

"Abigail was your girlfriend?" Mav asks, squeezing my thigh gently. Is he telling me to stay quiet, to keep out of it? I'm not sure if I can. Every time I think of Stella beside me, with her bruised face, and the visible pain in her eyes, I want to kill him myself.

"She went to one of their book signings, and never came back. I had one text message from her. ONE. ‘You're a psycho, and you don't deserve me'. One fucking visit to meet them. I didn't even figure it out at first, didn't make that connection, until I saw your video feed, and saw her with the two of you. Huddled in a fucking corner, while you talked at her. You told her to leave me. You TOLD her." Damn right we did, nutjob!

"Woah, okay, so you're saying your girlfriend, who you abused, took some good advice and got the fuck out, and that makes them the bad guys?" Gage's temper is close to exploding, oh yeah, the Gage Rage is coming, and this pathetic loser is about to feel the burn.

"It wasn't abuse. She needed to be corrected now and then. She needed to do things the right way. There's nothing wrong with enforcing a few rules, and she got that. She understood. Until she met THEM."

Please kill him, please hurt him. Please make him pay for everything he's ever done in his life. Am I chanting those words over and over in my head, why yes I am… wouldn't you be?

"So you figured you'd just kidnap two pregnant women, and beat on them?" Gage asks, his voice so low and threatening that this guy must finally get how much danger he's in. He side-eyes Gage, edging away from him a touch, like he's finally figured it out. That's hardly going to save him though. Nothing will now.

"There's nowhere to run to, Andy. You're so fucking dead, do you get that yet?" I taunt, although I actually miss calling him every name under the sun, because it really wound him up before.

Gage lifts his eyes and nods at Mav, who squeezes my leg one last time, and leaves the room. In the words of Beetlejuice… It's showtime .

GAGE

The whole time this little shit is talking, I can feel a countdown in my head, like a ticking clock, taking us closer and closer to his brutal death. Guess what, fucker? That clock just ran out, you're out of time. Out of life. Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for.

Mav leaves to fetch any weapons or tools he can find for us to kill this fucker with, because the sad fact is that we didn't exactly come prepared. There's a fucking town car waiting a few miles away at a diner for us, and when we call it back, we're going to be bloody, and that shit's hard to cover up. All in all, the situation really isn't ideal, but I'll kill for these ladies every fucking day if that's what it takes.

"Is it time, Gage?" Stella asks, with a savage look on her face. Oh yeah, my avenging fucking angels want in this time, and I can't wait to watch them cause pain, and spill blood. How much fucking sexier will it be when they're wearing his blood too?

Pretty Boy must be on the same track as me, because he casts his eyes around us, and sighs.

"We should all get naked," he suggests, and everyone stares at him in shock.

"What the fuck?" Stella gasps, a hand over her chest, like somehow that'll undo what he just suggested, but he's right. Bloodstains on skin under our clothes is much easier to hide than clothes soaked in the lifeblood of a dead man.

"He's right, baby. Let's get naked."

I think there's something about the fact that I'm the one saying it that makes it really sink in. They know it's not so we can all fuck, although that's definitely a likelihood after this fucker is dead, or maybe while he's still bleeding out, so he can see our pleasure as he dies. So he can see what he'll never have as his fucking life expires.

"What's going on? We're gonna have an orgy?" Mav asks as he walks back into the room. Our Andy realizes, at last, that he's gonna die, because he lurches up from the dusty sofa, even as we start stripping off.

"I don't… I don't want an orgy," he blusters, frantically looking around the room, and it occurs to me that the asshole will see our girls naked.

"Mav, blind him for me."

Mav stares at me for a moment. "Do what? Like a blindfold?"

I grin widely at him as I start undoing my pants. "No… like dig his fucking eyes out, so he can't see our ladies naked."