𝐕𝐄𝐗𝐄𝐃 ❷

𝟏𝟎. ✭ 𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐘 ✭

It takes me a moment to gather my thoughts, to realize where I am. I blink my eyes a few times, away from the bright light above me, the one I'd thought was heaven opening its' doors for me. Yeah fucking right. Like I'd be going to heaven. The doors of hell will be what awaits me. I am head-to-toe dripping in sin. Heaven wouldn't want a man like me.

Pain sears my middle making me let out an involuntary gasp. A flash of a memory— hands holding me upright while I was being... stabbed. I was stabbed. So many times. So so many times. I clutch my stomach tighter the puckered wounds grazing my hand even through the sheets. How the fuck am I alive? There's a tightness against my face that I hadn't originally noticed, digging into my skin. What the fuck is that? I reach up and feel the mask that's firmly secured against my nose and mouth. I rip it off and toss it to the side, taking a cleansing breath after I do. There's all kinds of shit hooked up to me. When I go to rip all of it out there's a movement off to my side has me pausing.

"I wouldn't do that until the doc has had a good look over you." I know that voice. Brooks. My eyes flicker over to him. He's standing quietly with a tense look on his face. His hair is cropped shorter than I ever remember it being, not its' shaggy usual.

"Where—" I cough around the dryness in my mouth and throat. "Where is she? Where's Dani?" His jaw ticks and he looks away from me, off to the opposite side of the room. "Where is Wolf?" His gaze finds the floor. "How long have I been in this fucking hospital bed? How fucking long has she been gone?" My voice is barely intelligible. It's so gruff. I need some goddamn water. "Brooks?!" His name was practically a growl. "Answer me!"

"Nearly two weeks."

"Two weeks? He's had them for two fucking weeks?" I go to sit up again and immediately gasp out in pain. "Fuck!" I lie back and look up at the ceiling angrily, wishing the pain away as I curse under my breath.

"Torey, you need to relax. You're still healing." I look off to the right where my mother and father are standing, their faces emotionless masks. "You were seriously injured and were put in a medically induced coma. You almost died." Fuck if I don't know it. I had felt my soul slip out of my body, felt the undeniable call of death. I close my eyes seeing Dani's face like I had in that moment right before the darkness had taken me.

"Why haven't you gotten them yet?" Quietness from all parties is my answer. "Tell me you've at least tried?" My father's eyes fill with anger and sadness as he glares at me. "What? You gave me no answer. So I asked."

"Yes, Torey, of course we've tried to find them. What kind of question is that?" I shake my head in misunderstanding because this is the kind of thing my parents were known for. My mother had been the queen of the underworld itself. How the fuck in two weeks time have they not been able to find them? How've they not been able to kill Dedaj and the asshole diplomat that had me stabbed who knows how many times?

"Stop looking at us like that, Torey." My mother reprimands me. "We have done everything that we can to try and find them. First, we had to take care of you and then we had to locate them. We had misinformation. We didn't know they had left and came to Vegas. If we'd have known that do you think we would've let you fly out here to be ambushed?" No. My mother wouldn't have let me leave. At least she would've tried to do everything in her power to get me to stay.

"Do you at least know where they are?" My mother's features tighten right along with my father's. I look over to Brooks and he's looking much the same— tense. "Do you know?"

"They're in Albania," he clips. "They're back at the family compound." Which means they might as well be in an impenetrable fortress. Their compound is lodged in the side of a mountain. There's really only one way in and one way out which makes getting them out a near impossible task.

Rage begins flowing through my veins viciously. Dani hated going to Albania. She had told me time and time again how she felt like less of a woman and more like a caged pet. Going home was a reminder of her duty to her family. I hadn't known it at the time but that was because it was a reminder that she'd be married off someday. She would be taken from me and even though it didn't exactly pan out like she had thought, it happened anyway. She left me because of her mother wanting to fulfill her familial duty.

I think back to where my brain had taken me in my unconsciousness. It took me to our very first time with one another. I had been her choice. Then there was the man beside me. After she saw the darkness in me she'd fled, fled and chose him.

"When are we going?" Brooks winces before looking away again at my question.

"Torey," my mother's voice answers, "you won't be going anywhere. You will be staying here; healing."

"The fuck I will be!" I go to sit up again, gritting my teeth at the gnawing sensation torching my middle. "I'm not staying here." I tear everything attached to me off and go to swing my legs over the bed. A whooshing sound courses through my ears as my vision begins to blur. The hospital bed sheets fall off of me when I go to stand but my legs don't seem to work.

"For fuck's sake, Torey." Firm masculine arms keep me from falling to the floor. "You haven't walked in two weeks, you idiot."

"Sexy idiot." He lets out a wry laugh as he pushes me backward, making me lie into a semi-sitting position on the bed once again. I blink a few times until my vision clears. Brooks is putting the blanket back on top of me as a doctor and nurses rush in. The fuck? Then the sound of a machine flatlining rings to my right. Whoops.

"Mr. Warner-Riley—"

"Torey. Just call me Torey."

"Right, Torey, you will need to relax or we will have to sedate you. You've sustained thirty-seven stab wounds. Which—" I zone right the fuck out as he continues to talk about everything they had to do to me to keep me alive.

I look down at my exposed abdomen and cringe at all of the angry red lines that now mar my skin. Thirty-seven? Thirty-seven stab wounds? I swallow uncomfortably as my head wraps around that. Thirty-seven scars all over my stomach... Fuck. I had abs that could've been on the cover of any magazine... and now... Fuck. I mean, they're not large stab wounds. There's just a litany of small ones— thirty-seven to be exact. I am a big guy and there was a lot of real estate to cover, which they had— smashingly. I don't understand how I'm not dead. I should be dead. Miraculously I'm not... just horribly scarred. I run my fingers along the ragged red lines as I study them longer. There's a hand on mine, squeezing it.

"They're a sign of strength, Tor." My mother's voice isn't comforting even though I know that was her intention.

"No they're not." I pull my hand out of hers. still staring at the brutal things. They're a sign of my failure to protect Dani and Wolf. A constant reminder of betrayal and quite possibly the worst day of my life. That is what they are. Strength would be the ability to get out of this bed and save them.

Ignoring the protests around me, I try and get up gain. This time managing to stand to my feet, not without extreme effort though. Effort and pain. Brooks is standing in front of me with his arms outstretched but I push past him. Now it's the doctor and a few nurses but I can't hear what they're saying to me because there's a really obnoxious ringing sound in my ear. Fucking tinnitus. I manage to stagger out of the room and have to blink a few times to make sure my vision is correct.

"Adriana?" Her eyes go wide as she looks me over. "Adri, is that you?" I'm not really sure because my vision is kind of fuzzy around the edges. That's when I notice a large figure lurking behind her. When I'm finally able to focus on him they're nearly right in front of me. He's a big motherfucker. Nearly as big as me. He's familiar. He kind of reminds me of someone. "You—" My voice sounds weird. Not that I can really hear anything aside from the sharp buzzing in my ears. "You kind of—" My world goes on a slight axis.

That's when I realize I'm falling.

The large man standing behind Adri leaps forward and catches me before I nosedive into the floor. My eyes narrow in on him. Why does he look so familiar? Before my brain can register a connection everything goes black.

A/N:
Torey is up and at 'em again!
Well, he almost is.

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