Secrets to Hide 3: Just a Little More (10 page)

“No.” He shook his head and stepped closer, stopping when the gun wavered again. “Daryl?”

The man’s laugh jangled Brad’s nerves. “Guess you’re not such a big man now, are ya? Who’s the dickhead now, huh?” Daryl leaned over Angel’s shoulder, the one opposite the gun, his balance seeming to waver. “Come on. You’re a fucking bartender. Gonna throw me out now? You and what bouncers?”

Brad fought to hold back his need to vomit as Daryl weaved on his feet, the gun sliding back and forth against Angel’s temple as he moved. The bastard was still lit, though not as bad as he’d been at the bar, and his control of the weapon wasn’t that good. It was far too close to Angel. Too lethal. Too everything. Shit, he didn’t even have his phone.

How the hell had this happened? Why?

“What are you doing here, Daryl?”

That laugh again. “Came to finish the job, o’course. Why d’ya think?”

Brad eased a couple of steps to the right, toward the end of the couch. Yeah, he knew why Daryl was here—or thought he did—but keeping the lush talking was all he knew to do right now. “What job?”

The deadly black barrel stroked down Angel’s cheek, drawing a whimper from her. “The one I started the first time you threw me out. Didn’t realize I was right behind her, did ya?” He shrugged. “She didn’t either, not until I showed her. And I did show ya, didn’t I?” he whispered in Angel’s ear. “Such a pretty cunt. You’re gonna give it up for me this time, aren’t ya? Let your boyfriend see how much you want it.”

Brad shuddered at the rage flowing through him as he listened to Daryl talk about raping Angel. The man had always had a problem with control, got handsy sometimes when he’d had too much alcohol, but this? He had to be seriously off his rocker to think he could get away with cold-blooded rape and murder, over getting thrown out of a bar.

How had he even found them, anyway? But when Brad asked, Daryl shook his head, his eyes glittering with delight. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” And then he laughed. Brad watched Angel flinch, watched her shudder at a stroke of the gun down her cheek as Daryl kept talking. “Gettin’ in, now, that was the easy part. Power’s out. Just had to wait for security to get lazy.” He nuzzled against Angel’s ear. “Don’t worry; I had Jack to keep me company.”

And that explained the slur in his words all these hours after leaving Thrice. Jesus. Brad took the opportunity to ease closer. As he rounded the end of the couch, Daryl turned, keeping them face-to-face. “Uh-uh-uh. I’d stop if I were you.”

Angel’s whispered “No!” had him dropping his eyes. Daryl had the gun to her head, but his other arm lay high around her waist. High enough that cruel fingers could reach her breast. As Brad watched, those fingers twisted her nipple through the thin material of Brad’s T-shirt, drawing an agonized cry from Angel’s lips.

“Stop!” Brad lunged without thinking.

Staggering back, Daryl swung the gun around, stopping Brad in his tracks as the barrel centered on his chest. Angel was crying now in earnest. He wanted to hold her. He needed her in his arms with a desperation stronger than any he’d felt before, including the night Daryl had almost raped her.
My fault
. It was Brad’s fucking fault she’d been assaulted, his fault she was being held at gunpoint now, and there was only one thing Brad could think to do. No way in hell was she dying here tonight, even if it meant Brad did. He’d take the fucker out before he went, that much he knew. He just had to time it right and—

Seeming to sense what he was thinking, Angel shook her head. “No. No!” The last word rose on a scream as Daryl continued the assault Brad had interrupted. He pawed and pinched, thrust his hips against Angel’s back, all the while watching Brad with glittering pleasure. That hate-filled gaze tore through him like a knife, and for an instant Brad wished it was. Anything to make the painful knowledge that this was happening because of him go away.

Angel began to struggle, fighting Daryl’s hold, writhing against him as he bit into her shoulder. The man grunted, and the gun pointed at Brad wavered. He held his breath, waiting, watching. He needed just the right moment…

“Goddamn it!”

At a particularly hard pinch, Angel had pulled her knees up, curling instinctively to protect her vulnerable torso. The force of her weight against only one hand dropped her like a rock, straight out of Daryl’s grip. Brad took the opening, leaping several feet to tackle Daryl to the ground. He was vaguely aware of the gun going off, something striking his bare foot, and then they were down, wrestling for control of the gun, grunting and punching and kicking. Brad’s heavier body worked to his advantage. He straddled his opponent, grabbed the man’s head, lifted and smashed down, striking Daryl’s skull against the hardwood floor. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, but he bucked, nearly unseating Brad as he repeated the move. Daryl brought the gun around, but his grip was weak and Brad managed to keep it back one-handed while he used a fistful of Daryl’s hair to bang his head again. That time Daryl went limp. Brad hit the man’s head on the floor one more time for good measure—and because he fucking wanted to. The bastard.

“Angel, you okay?”

Angel was silent, but Brad didn’t dare go to her. First he went to the kitchen and scrambled through the utility drawer in the half-light to find something, anything to tie Daryl up. A length of thin cord lay in a tangled mess in the very back. Brad grabbed it, rushed back to Daryl’s limp body, and secured the man. Tightly. Then he threw a desperate look over at Angel.

Her eyes were closed. She lay sprawled on the living room floor, and her eyes were closed. “No! No no no n—” The last word was choked off as he reached her. All he could think about was hearing the gun go off. The sheer overwhelming terror of losing her. But as he knelt next to her limp body, he realized Angel was breathing. A frantic search didn’t produce any blood, any wounds. He turned her carefully to her side, afraid of hurting her, and found a small patch of bloody hair on the side of her head. Not a gunshot, a knick. How…?

The impact of something against his foot came back to him, and he realized it must’ve been Angel’s head. Holding his breath, he laid her back down carefully, checked her breathing once more, and ran for the phone. He didn’t give a damn if Daryl bled to death on the kitchen floor, but Angel needed help immediately, and he was making sure she got it.

Chapter Seven

“Don’t make fun of my man cave,” Brad warned her. The words were gruff, but the laughter in his eyes told her he enjoyed her teasing.

“It’s a cave, all right.” She pointed at the navy-blue curtains Brad was threading onto curtain rods above their living room windows. The apartment was almost complete; they just had to finish the living room and unpack all the boxes in the kitchen, and they’d be done. But first… “We might not see the sun for days with curtains like that. You’ll become a hermit. A recluse. A—”

“I work nights, beautiful. I’m all those things already, at least during the day.”

“The neighbors will be calling you Dracula before you know it. The neighborhood Dracula who lives in a cave.”

Her heart gave a little thump as Brad jumped down from the top of the stepladder. With an exaggerated leer, he stalked across the room. “I vant to suck your blood!”

Angel was laughing so hard her legs tangled under her when she tried to run. Brad caught her easily, tugging her against his muscular body, burrowing between her shoulder and neck with a truly heinous villain’s cackle that tickled her sensitive skin. “Give it to me,” he growled. Shock weakened her knees as the sharp nip of his teeth registered. “Give me your blood!”

Angel palmed his forehead and pushed him away, a move that would’ve been much more effective if she wasn’t still howling with laughter. Brad grinned, his beautiful gray eyes still narrowed playfully. It was her only warning. The next thing she knew, he was lifting her, spinning her, the walls of their new apartment whirring by as the sound of their laughter rang in her ears.

Noise rang in her ears, yelling and banging and cursing, pounding in her head like a bass drum played by the devil, but she couldn’t tell the noise to stop. She got the words to her lips, but they stuck there, adding to the cacophony until she wished with every fiber of her being that she could scream,
Would you
please
shut the hell up?

The abrupt shift from joy to pain made her sick. Prying her eyes open didn’t help; the light hurt. Everything hurt, even with her eyes closed again. She wasn’t laughing. She was crying, and everything hurt. She wanted it to stop. It needed to stop. Why wouldn’t everything just stop?

“Brad?”

She wasn’t even sure she was making sounds, but she called for him anyway. Or tried to. Where was he? What had happened? Why weren’t they in bed, warm, making love to each other instead of here—wherever here was—now, with all this damn noise?

“She’s coming around.”

The voice was female. Not Brad. Angel tried calling his name again, but all that came out was a muffled groan.

“Angel? Angel!”

There he was. One moment she was cold, confused, alone; the next his big hands cradled her face, his familiar scent cutting through the chaos. She tried to open her eyes, blink away the blackness, but only managed a brief flash of his pain-filled face before her lids dropped again, too heavy to keep up.

What was that look? What had happened?

She could feel herself floating away again. She welcomed it, welcomed the oblivion. That place in her memory that held Brad and laughter and hope drew her back. She sighed, surrendered. So much better to…

The bite of pain radiated out from her shoulder. Angel jerked, the hard surface beneath her making retreat impossible. Instinct shoved her hands up to make contact, to push away the heavy weight over her chest, against that painful spot near her neck. She whimpered.

“Angel?”

Why did she hurt? Why did—

Panic forced her fully back to consciousness, to too many hands and too much noise and too much pain. Angel scrambled, desperate to get away. Brad shouted. Cries rang out, but all Angel knew was the desperation that overwhelmed her, to get away, to find safety, to not be vulnerable to the man who had come for her again.

Her attacker.
Daryl.

The hard grip of hands sent her fear into overdrive.

“Do something!” Brad yelled.

A feminine voice, breathless with exertion, answered. “I can’t. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Until I get vitals, I can’t risk giving her anything to calm her down.” And then to her, “Angel! Angel, stop. No one’s going to hurt you here. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Angel, can you hear me?”

The last thing she remembered was Daryl’s hands on her, the vicious pain as he hurt her just for the joy of seeing Brad’s agony. Landing hard on her hip from three feet above the ground…

“No!”

Big, heavy hands settled on her shoulders, forcing her back down onto the hard surface beneath her. She fought, God knew she fought, but the effort only burned out her energy and left her growing horror behind.

“Stop! No, don’t touch me!”

Her words finally seemed to register, because all the hands disappeared. Angel told herself to calm down, to stop, to listen, but her body wasn’t having it. She skittered back until her spine hit something hard—the couch, love seat?—and balled herself up into a quivering mass of
back the hell off!
It took several minutes of heavy breathing and woozy uprightness before reality took a firm hold. Before she could get a firm hold on herself.

Brad’s low voice, vibrating with concern, reached out to her from several feet away. “Angel, it’s all right; you’re safe. Everything will be okay. Let the lady check you out. Please, Angel.” Then, in a shaky whisper, “God, you scared me.”

He was worried. Again. She needed to fix it, reassure him that she was okay, but her body was at the wheel right now, and it wasn’t allowing visitors. Or clear thoughts. Her mind could go to hell as far as her adrenaline-saturated body was concerned.

She heard rustling, felt herself tense, but relaxed when the noise quieted.

“Ms. Gilliam,” a voice said. Not Brad; a woman. “Ma’am, I’m Rachel. Can you look over here at me?”

It took a minute, but Angel finally managed to comply. A woman sat near Brad, her white shirt bearing a thick black badge with blurry words Angel didn’t bother trying to read. It was the caduceus carved starkly into the badge that reassured her—Rachel was an EMT. Who looked too young to even drive, much less deal with medical emergencies. She was tiny, short, with spiky black hair and concerned blue eyes rimmed in thick black eyeliner. Their suede couch rose behind her. Angel was still in their apartment, then. She couldn’t have been out that long.

Angel forced herself to relax against the love seat; that had to be what was behind her. Her eyelids felt too heavy to stay open. She wanted to let them close, to shut this all away, but she couldn’t. Had to get control. Had to ask—

Brad came into view. The haggard look on his face squeezed her heart, and when he reached for her, his hand was shaking.

She flinched.

Stop! He’s not the one who hurt you
. “Where’s…Daryl?”

The oddness of that name hit her suddenly. For weeks she’d worried and wondered, panicking every time she thought about the man who’d attacked her, every time she thought about walking the street and not knowing if the next stranger to cross her path would be him. He wasn’t a stranger anymore; he was Daryl. He stank of booze and sweat and sickness, and his voice slurred like he was perpetually drunk—he might have been, for all she knew. She still didn’t have a clear idea of what he looked like, but she knew his touch, his voice, his cruelty. Knew without a doubt that he’d have raped her that night in the alley just to get back at Brad, and for what? Throwing him out of Thrice? The man was certifiable. She needed to know he wasn’t walking the streets, jumping out of dark alleyways, terrorizing women just because he could, because alcohol let his crazy out.

Brad’s gaze was dark, tormented, and for a moment she held her breath, afraid Daryl had somehow escaped. “He’s being treated before they take him to jail.”