Torment (Carter Kids #4) Read online

  Hope was estranged from her parents.

  Jordan was estranged from his parent – singular.

  But worst of all, Kyle was estranged from Derek.

  On top of all that, Lucky had slipped back into his old ways.

  I'd always known the guy was a slut. I'd spent six months on the road with him and in that time I'd born witness to the multitudes of women he traipsed in and out of his bed.

  I had thought he had put that side of his nature to bed for a while since returning to The Hill. There had been a brief interlude in time – almost two whole months – when he hadn't woken me up with sex noises and door slamming, but he was back to his old tricks.

  I'd never had a problem with it before, but bringing girls back to our home, well, that had to stop. I had a baby on the way. I wasn't coming downstairs to nurse and find Lucky banging some random woman on my couch.

  No freaking way…

  "You could always come home?" Max offered with a hopeful glance.

  "Uncle Max…"

  "Not permanently," he added quickly. "I'm not saying that. But while Noah's away." Setting his mug down on the coffee table, he turned to me and said, "I worry for you. Up here in this big old house. What if you go into labor early, or take a fall?"

  "I'll be fine," I shot back, taken aback by his concern. Reaching over, I squeezed his hand. "And Noah will be home in two weeks." Smiling, I added, "Everything will be okay. I promise."

  ****

  Teagan

  "I was thinking," Kyle said as he marched into my kitchen on Thursday evening. "You should come over to our place the Saturday after next. Lucky too."

  "Well come on in," I shot back sarcastically. Leaning back in my seat, I continued to fold the onesies I had picked up earlier at the department store. "And make yourself at home."

  Two miniature versions of Kyle padded into the kitchen and my eyes lit up in delight.

  "Hey boys," I said as I grinned at Cash and Casey Carter. "How are you two doing?"

  "Fine, thank you," Casey, the quieter of the two, said with pink stained cheeks.

  Oh god, he was so cute I wanted to eat him.

  "Can we go check out the gym?" Cash asked, never one to hold back.

  "Of course," I replied, nodding. "Just don’t touch any of Noah's weights, okay?"

  "Pssh," Cash shot back, rolling his eyes. "They're a piece of cake to me."

  "Obviously," I agreed. "But just in case…"

  "Come on, Case," Cash said, dragging his brother off in the direction of the hallway. "We need to put some muscle on those bones."

  "Boys," Kyle called out then and both turned immediately. Dropping several paper bags full of groceries on the island, he pulled at his tie, loosening it. "Behave," he said, glaring meaningfully in Cash's direction.

  "We always do, Dad."

  "Yeah," Kyle muttered under his breath. "Sure you do."

  I watched my husband's brother flick on the kettle and open a cupboard to retrieve a mug.

  "Noah asked me to keep an eye on you," he offered as an explanation for his intrusion. "So don’t look so surprised."

  I wasn’t surprised.

  In fact, I was well used to Kyle's spontaneous visits.

  There had been enough of them lately.

  He'd even gone so far as to show up at my prenatal appointments.

  Yeah, the man I'd spent a good chunk of my life arguing with had become an unlikely ally. In the months that followed the shooting, I'd learned that my husband's older brother was a powerful person to have in my corner. Luckily for me, Kyle Carter believed Noah needed to call time on his fighting career, too. On top of that, Kyle knew things. He knew people. He had money – a lot of it – and he knew exactly what to do with that money to get his own way…

  "So why did you want us over?" I asked, eyeing the bag full of candy. I begrudgingly had to admit that I had been won over by Noah's older brother and his douchebag ways.

  Everything Kyle Carter did was for his family and it was sort of impossible to hold a grudge against a man who gave his whole heart to his wife and children – especially when he brought me candy. Lots of candy…

  "To watch the final," Kyle said, waving a hand in front of himself as if my asking that very question was the dumbest thing he'd heard all day.

  Pouring two mugs of coffee, he turned and walked over to where I was sitting. Setting one mug down, he moved to hand me the other before quickly snatching it away. "Shit, no caffeine." Stalking over to the sink, he poured my coffee out. "Sorry, Blondie."

  Walking over to the fridge, he grabbed a bottle of cranberry juice before returning to the table and handing it to me.

  "Do you ever rest?" I asked.

  "I'm resting now," Kyle shot back, making a point to take a seat opposite me. "See." He gestured to himself sitting down. "Resting."

  I rolled my eyes. "Whatever."

  "So?" Rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, he thrummed his fingers against the table. "How about it? We all get together at my place to watch the big fight?"

  "I guess," I replied, forcing myself not to think too much about it. I was dreading Saturday night. I didn’t want to watch my husband fighting any more than I wanted to rip my fingernails off with a vice grips.

  But it was what it was…

  "Do you think he'll be okay?" I heard myself ask, feeling a lump in my throat. Sure, Noah had been on a winning streak since his return, but I hated this. I felt useless. I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t save him. All I could do was sit back and watch him…

  "I do," Noah said in a surprisingly tender tone of voice. "I think you're worrying unnecessarily."

  "Unnecessarily?" I squeezed out, feeling physically nauseous. "How would you feel if Lee was throwing herself into a cage every Friday or Saturday night and letting men beat the hell out of her?"

  Kyle opened his mouth to reply, but quickly shut it. Frowning, he said, "You have a point."

  "I know." Resting my elbows on the table, I dropped my head in my hands and sighed. "He was shot, Kyle!" My stomach churned at the memory of the blood soaking through Noah's shirt. "God, he's just so reckless and fearless and fucking stubborn. He doesn’t seem to get it."

  "Calm down," Kyle told me, looking at me with a worried expression. "Don’t get yourself all stressed out over something you can't change."

  "What if he doesn’t win on Saturday?" I demanded, a blubbering wreck now. Goddamn, my emotions were all over the place. "What if he loses and wants to keep fighting?" I shook my head and swallowed the bile that was threatening to overspill. "I can't live in this constant worry about him."

  "Teagan." Shoving his chair back, Kyle walked around to my side of the table and crouched down beside me. "Listen to me, okay." Taking my hand, he squeezed gently. "Everything is going to be okay." He smiled then. "Noah's going to be back in a few short days, and then you guys will be chasing after your own little hell raiser."

  "I'm scared," I admitted, confused as hell as to where all of this was coming from.

  Five minutes ago I'd been fine.

  Now I felt like throwing myself down on my bed and screaming.

  "I just want a life with him, Kyle. One where we're not running or constantly looking over our shoulders." I hiccupped and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. "One where I'm not constantly afraid that when my husband goes out to work he won't go home…"

  Ugh.

  Holding my breath, I shoved Kyle out of the way and raced through the kitchen in the direction of the bathroom. Every step I took caused the nausea inside of me to rear its ugly head. I managed to reach the bathroom and get the toilet lid up just before heaving my guts up.

  "Teegs, you alright?" Lucky's voice came from somewhere behind me then, followed by Kyle saying, "Good job, Blondie. Get it up. You'll feel better."

  How the hell could he know?

  I wanted to ask him when was the last time he'd grown a human in his uterus, but I was too busy projectile vomiting.

  ****

>   Noah

  "Twenty-eight, twenty-nine…FUCK!"

  Dropping to my feet, I forced myself to breathe through the pain as I rolled my shoulder in an effort to shake off the horrendous fucking pain throbbing inside of me.

  It didn’t work.

  Nothing fucking worked.

  Muttering a string of curse words under my breath, I shook it off and threw myself into a set of burpees, pushing my body to its limit, fighting through the pain, through the burning, past the voice in the back of my head that was telling me it was over. I was finished.

  "Stop dammit," Logan hissed from somewhere behind me. "You're going to give yourself an injury – Noah! Are you hearing me?"

  "Don’t," I snapped as a bead of sweat trickled down my forehead, landing on my bare chest. "Just shut the hell up and let me train."

  "You need to stop," Logan urged me. "Unless you want to permanently put yourself out of commission." Reaching for a towel on the rack, Logan hobbled towards me, using his walking stick for balance, and tossed it at me. "You heard what the doctors said, Noah. Rest the shoulder. Not bust yourself out down here." He gestured around the gym we were standing in. "This is insanity." Turning around, Logan hobbled back to where Colton was standing and hissed, "Talk some sense into him, will you?"

  "He's right," Colt agreed, looking at me in dismay. "We need to pull the fight."

  "Pull the fight?" I sneered in disgust. "I'm no quitter."

  "Then are you sane?" Colt shot back calmly. "Because if you want to hold that little baby of yours in your arms, you'll pull the goddamn fight, Noah!" He ran a hand through his hair. "You heard the doctor, man. You're done. One more fight could cost you a helluva lot more than your career."

  "I know what I'm doing," I shot back through clenched teeth. "It's one more goddamn fight." And then it was over. Then I would be done. But it would be on my terms. Not on some prick of a doctor's orders. "I can do this." I knew I could. "Have a little faith in me. Fuck!"

  Logan sank down on the bench behind him and sighed. He looked worse than I did, and that was saying something considering I'd been in four fights in the past month.

  I watched as Logan attempted to clench his right hand into a fist.

  Nothing happened.

  Poor bastard.

  MS was a cruel disease.

  "Yeah, I hope you're watching," I heard him say. "Because you see this?" Logan stared at the right side of his body – the side that was currently refusing to work for him. "This isn’t a choice." Panting, Logan leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. "This isn’t something that just happened to me because of a shitty decision I made. I was born like this. But you? Noah, you have a choice, dipshit. And you're choosing wrong."

  "You don’t get it," I hissed, unable to look either of them in the eye.

  How could I explain it?

  How the fuck could they understand?

  This was all I had.

  All I'd ever been good for.

  And a fucking bullet had all but taken it away from me.

  What the hell was I going to do if I couldn’t fight?

  An office job?

  I scoffed at the thought.

  An illiterate ex con, washed out MFA fighter?

  Fuck that.

  Turning to my nephews, I said, "If you want to help me, then stay. If you plan on standing in my way, you can get the hell out of here."

  "You do know that there's more to life than this?" Colton shot back, cocking a brow.

  "Easy for you to say," I grunted. "When you're dressed like a fucking suit and laden down with daddy's money."

  "I'm going to let that slide," Logan told me as he got to his feet with the aid of his brother. "But do me a favor and think about this, Noah." Sighing, he added. "And if not you, then think about your wife and your daughter."

  "That's right," Colt piped up. "And while you're thinking about it, we're going to go grab a bite to eat – with daddy's money."

  I waited for the guys to leave before sinking down on the floor in a heap. With my body burning in pain, I lay flat on the concrete floor, and concentrated on breathing through the pain.

  Clenching my eyes shut, I pressed my hand against the hollowing pain in my shoulder and remained completely still.

  I wasn't ready to come back to this.

  I realized that now, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to admit it. So I lied, and I pushed myself past the point of no return. I wasn't the same person as I had been before the shooting and I couldn't figure out why.

  For fuck's sake, I'd been in worse scenarios before. Hell, I'd been stabbed, blown up in a goddamn car wreck, beaten to within an inch of my life.

  So why had a shitty little silver bullet taken me down?

  I missed my wife. Leaving Teagan behind wasn't a decision I had taken lightly.

  In the end the only thing that had swayed me was the fact that when I had asked Lucky if he would stay behind and keep an eye on things, he had agreed.

  He was there now. Back at The Hill with my wife. Watching over my life.

  I wanted to be back in that big assed house with my girl's arms around me and my body not in so much pain. But I wanted to win that damn belt first and I only had one more man to take down.

  The fact that Cole was dating Reese Tanner meant nothing to me.

  The fact that Quincy and Beau had taken up working for him was different matter.

  Those bastards had done me wrong.

  They'd wronged my wife.

  The satisfaction I knew I would feel when I lifted that belt over my head was what kept me going. But Thorn wasn't here and nothing felt right without her.

  Feeling miserable, I managed to drag myself to my feet and walked over to the bench that held my gym bag. Sinking down on the wooden bench, I pulled out my cell and dialed Teagan's number.

  She answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

  "Hey baby, it's me."

  "Noah," she squealed. "Are you okay? How are you feeling? How's your shoulder? Where are you?"

  Resting my head against the wall behind me, I exhaled a heavy sigh. "God, it's so good to hear your voice."

  "You sound like you're in pain," she said in a worried tone. "Are you in pain? Oh god, Noah, maybe you should just come home now?"

  "Thorn, I'm good," I told her. Reaching up, I cupped my neck with my hand and squeezed, working out a kink. "I'm missing you like crazy though."

  "I miss you too," she whispered. "I love you."

  "I know," I replied gruffly. "Love you, too."

  "So, how's it going?" she asked brightly. "Where are you guys now?"

  "Phoenix," I told her with a smile. "And it's going good." Terrible. It's fucking awful. I miss you so hard I can hardly breathe. "How's my baby?"

  "She's wonderful," Teagan gushed with pride before rambling on happily about our daughter.

  I closed my eyes and listened to her voice. I imagined myself sitting on the couch beside my wife, rubbing her belly and feeling my daughter kick and move.

  "…So Einín kicked me like five times during an episode of The Walking Dead. I think she's a massive fan already –"

  "Hold up," I said, opening my eyes. "Ein…what?"

  "Einín," Teagan repeated. "You pronounce it like this; A-neeen."

  "Einín." I shook my head and smirked. "What happened to Samantha?"

  "Yeah…about that," my wife said, chuckling. "I figured that since I'm the one doing all the work here then I should get to name her."

  "Thorn…"

  "It means little bird in Irish and I think that's just perfect for her, and before you say no, I promise you can name the next one."

  "The next one?" My brows shot up in surprise. "You want more than one?"

  "I'm an only child," I heard Teagan say. "I don't want that for her."

  "Yeah." My tone was gruff as I nodded in agreement. "Me too. I want our kids to have what Kyle's have."

  "What? A team of bodyguards?" my wife teased. "I actually agree. But…uh, maybe
not so many multiples."

  I smirked to myself.

  I had no idea if that particular skill of Kyle's was a genetic one he'd got from the sperm donor we shared or not. Either way, I wasn't making any promises I couldn't absolutely guarantee. "I'll try?"

  "I'm afraid of breaking in half," she blurted out all of a sudden. "During the labor," she explained.

  I was afraid of that, too, but I wasn't about to verbalize it. "You won't break, Thorn."

  "Are you sure?"

  Fuck no. "I'm sure."

  ****

  Chapter Ten

  Hope

  I knew there had been a damn good reason I'd stayed away from The Hill for all those years. I was barely home and my world had, quite literally turned to crap.

  Jordan was back. Noah was on his own personal self-destructive mission – aka, the MFA tour. Cam was missing in action with the spawn of Rachel Grayson – or as good as.

  Logan's MS had relapsed. Dad wasn’t speaking to me. Mom was disappointed in me.

  Lucky was avoiding me like the plague and Teagan was steadily doubling her body weight with the help of her daughter and Derek's cooking.

  Yeah, the little turncoat was taking baked goods and trays of treats from Derek of all people. I couldn’t be too mad at her, though. She was, after all, weeks away from giving birth and Derek cooked like a god. He fathered like a thirteen-year-old boy at best, but the man had some mad skills in the kitchen.

  On top of all of this drama, I'd missed my latest book deadline – and the extension my lovely editor had given me. Why she stuck in there with me was beyond me.

  I was a hot mess and she was in hot demand. She'd taken up where Teagan left off when she skulked off with Noah back in March, and it didn’t make sense to me why she hadn't fired my unorganized ass by now.

  Either way, I stayed in my room for four days straight, forcing myself to tap out a somewhat presentable draft for her. I sent it off this evening. It wasn’t my best work, not by far, but it was words, and all words counted, right?