Bad Biker Stepbrother 2 Page 6

  Mia’s head jerks up, “Come back?”

  Nodding, Jessica says, “I was his back up when he went to meet them. I haven’t been part of the gang for a long time now, but I owed it to Damon after everything he did for me back in the day.”

  She goes quiet, and she stares at the wall, her brow creased and it is clear that she is somewhere else. “You helped us,” Mia asks to break the silence.

  She didn’t understand why she needed to talk to Jessica. What she needed was to be with Damon and make sure he was alive, but she also knew that once she walked away, Jessica would be gone for good. She was sure of it as much as she was positive they weren’t lovers now that she met her.

  Jessica didn’t talk about him like a lover. She talked about him like she was a friend. There was just something in her tone.

  “Yes. Damon didn’t tell you?”

  Mia shakes her head and Jessica continues, “So much like him to do that. He likes to work on his own and forgets that other people need to know what is happening, especially if it affects their life.”

  Nodding, Mia feels the first spark of gratitude to this woman. As vivacious as she is, there really is nothing between her and Damon. Yet, she was willing to risk her life to help him out of the gang.

  “So what happened tonight?”

  Jessica turned and faced her. “Damon shouldn’t have gotten into a fight with Seth. He may seem like a wimp...and he is, trust me...but he has a few friends in the gang who will back him up. He should have walked away and left with you, instead of...” her voice trailed away.

  “Instead of beating him to a pulp?” Mia offered.

  “Yeah. You know, you really tempered Damon,” Jessica says, her eyes searching her face, looking for some reason why Damon wanted Mia. “Even a year ago, he would have killed Seth for that. The fact that he left him on the ground, unconscious, sure, but breathing, is amazing. You must be something amazing for him, and I am so glad he has you.”

  Mia blushes and turns away from her to hide her discomfort. She has never really thought of it like that. Damon has always just been Damon, and she thought she was the only one to change when their relationship started. Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe Damon was sharing a lot more with her than she thought.

  “Anyway, I caught wind that some things were going to happen to him. Seth was in the hospital, but he wanted Damon to pay for what he did. Deacon put the word out that he wasn’t to be touched, but Seth’s friends didn’t listen...obviously,” Jessica continued.

  “How do you know all this? I thought you were out of the gang,” Mia says.

  Smiling, Jessica leans back, “It would be stupid of me not to have a way to keep tabs on them. If they ever realized I was alive, they would come after me. I didn’t have the insurance like Damon has.”

  Shaking her head, Mia says, “So then you called him? How did they know where he was?”

  Jessica shrugged her shoulders. “They probably found out where he lives and followed him when he left the apartment building. I don’t think they saw me, but they wouldn’t know who I was even if they did. Probably just figured that he was getting a little action on the side.”

  Mia winces. “Sorry,” Jessica says. “He isn’t by the way. I have a husband and kids, I don’t want Damon, and I know he sure as hell doesn’t want me.

  “Anyway, we talked, I told him he needed to get out of the country for a few months. Let them forget about him. He said he would think about it and would let me know if he left. Then he finished his beer and left.

  “I figured I should give him a little time to go home, so I ordered another drink and called my husband to check on the kids. Then I headed out of the bar and found him behind a dumpster.”

  Jessica’s eyes hardened, and Mia felt a shiver run over her spine. It was the exact same look Damon had given her before he killed the men in her apartment. Something niggled at the back of her mind, and she stared at Jessica’s features harder. There was something about her that was so familiar.

  “There was blood everywhere, and he was unconscious with a knife sticking out of his gut. Thank God the men were amateurs; they missed his intestines and really just stuck the knife into nothing important. It was still enough to almost kill him.”

  “Oh my God,” Mia cries, her eyes filling with tears. “What did the doctors say?”

  “Right now,” Jessica’s eyes soften with sympathy, “they don’t know. They put him into a medically induced coma when the pain was too much, but he lost a lot of blood, and he was pretty beat up. Whoever did this to him took the time to beat the shit out of him. There must have been a half dozen because Damon isn’t taken down easily. When you go in there, be prepared for the worst.”

  Burying her face in her hands, Mia bursts into sobs. “What do you think? Do you think he will live?”

  Jessica goes silent beside her, and after it stretches for several minutes, Mia finally looks up at her. She is sitting there, staring back at the wall, thinking about something from the past.

  “I think he will, but I am an optimist. I have seen people come back from worse and die from less.”

  Mia nods, despair filling her body as she thinks about everything. What will she do if he doesn’t make it? She would want to crawl up inside and die. Jessica grabs her hand, and Mia stares at the delicate fingers covering hers before she looks up into those eyes.

  “Just be there for him Mia. He doesn’t have a lot of people who are there for him. If he is meant to wake up, he will, and he will need you to be there.”

  Her face is so beautiful that Mia almost wonders if she was a guardian angel there to comfort them both, and then it hits her, “Angelique?”

  Jessica’s eyes fill with worry before they dart around the room. “But I thought...I thought...he...you...I thought you were dead.”

  “She is,” Jessica says and now there are tears in her eyes. “She was a horrible person who did horrible things and then she found something...someone to live for.”

  Her hands touch her stomach briefly, and Mia realizes that she isn’t talking about a man, she’s talking about her child who was at home with her husband.

  “She tried to leave on her own, but they sent someone to deal with her...only he couldn’t. He loved her like a sister, and he helped her die and leave that old life behind. He helped her become someone else...someone better.”

  Tears flowed down Jessica’s face openly now. “Then, when she heard that that person was trying to do the same thing...trying to leave that past behind, she came back to help him.”

  “But he said he killed you,” Mia whispers as she tries to take in all the information.

  Shaking her head, she says, “He didn’t, he just helped Jessica come to life out of the ashes of something horrible.”

  Taking a deep breath, Jessica laughs quietly, “I think I have said more than enough. I should get going, and you need to go and speak with the doctors. I told them you were his wife so they will let you in.”

  Standing up, she turns back to Mia and grasps her hands. Pulling Mia into her arms, she squeezes her tightly and says, “You take good care of him, Mia. He needs someone like you to love him.”

  Mia pulls away from her, tears filling her eyes as she looks at this beautiful woman. The same woman whose face is tattooed on Damon’s body. The same angel that looked after him when he first started with the gang and took her under her wing. Mia wasn’t sure what their bond was throughout their life together, but there was no doubt that Jessica, Angelique, was Damon’s guardian angel.

  She had saved him tonight and she saved him when Damon was breaking away from the gang. She was truly an angel and there was so many ways Mia wanted to thank her but she couldn’t find the words. Opening her mouth to say something,, Jessica shakes her head, “I know,” she says.

  Kissing her cheek before releasing her, Jessica turns towards the door and leaves. Mia stands there, speechless and completely overwhelmed by what just happened.

  Chapter Ten

&
nbsp; The hospital room was dark and quiet, and Mia sat beside it in her secret vigil. She had been here for a week and only gone home long enough to shower and change her clothes. She ate very little and slept even less. The last thing she wanted was for Damon to wake up when she was gone.

  She had never felt so alone like she did now. Angelique...no, Jessica...had left the morning after the attack. She hadn’t given Mia any way to contact her to let her know Damon’s status.

  All she had gotten was a strange text one night from a number she didn’t know that said:

  “Deacon has punished Damon’s attackers and made it clear he isn’t to be touched. Looks like you are in the clear.”

  She had replied to the text, hoping that it was Jessica, but her texts were never returned. As far as she knew, Jessica was a ghost. Damon’s words came back to her whenever she thought of Jessica.

  “What you’re seeing is a ghost. I don’t live in that world anymore.” Maybe he had learned them from Jessica.

  After that, she gave up on contacting Jessica again. It was obvious that the woman would know if Damon survived, and she didn’t need any help from Mia. It made her feel grateful in a way...that they had someone like her looking out for them. Almost like a guardian angel.

  The morning of the attack, Mia had broken down and phoned her mom. Despite everything, if something happened to Damon, she wanted to make sure that his dad could say goodbye. The official police report was that Damon had been mugged. They were still looking for the people who mugged him but there was no other warrants out for Damon.

  That had been a relief, and it was a bigger relief that she had a story for her parents when they arrived. They flew in two days after the attack, and she was able to say he was mugged outside a bar. Her mom had been standoffish, unsure of what to do, but Frank had hugged her and told her he was happy for her...for him.

  Tears had been shed by both of them, but her mom had remained dry eye and aloof. “She still needs time to process this,” Frank offered and hugged her tighter.

  “I know we had our fights, especially when I first married your mother, but I’m glad he has you,” Frank said. “It may not be the ideal relationship, but I’ve always known how much he loved you. I was just too afraid of what that would mean.”

  Mia had cried harder, and they had stayed until visiting hours were over. She had offered to go home with her mom, but Frank had declined, saying that Damon needed her more than he needed his dad.

  They came every day to sit with her while they all waited for Damon to wake up. The medical coma had been removed, and now it was just a matter of when Damon chose to wake up. Mia refused to think of it as if he woke up. She talked to him every day and took shifts with Frank. Her mother sat in her chair, stiff and unyielding as she knitted to pass the time. She barely said hello to Mia, but Mia didn’t care. If that was the price she paid to have Damon back, then she would gladly pay it.

  Shifting in her chair, the same one she has been sleeping in for a week, Mia casts a glance to Damon. His eyes still shut, the bruising on his face is starting to fade a bit. That is a relief, at least. When she had first come into the room, she had collapsed in tears. His body had been beaten almost beyond recognition. It was terrifying and horrifying all at once, and she wasn’t sure if she could stand it.

  But she had, she had endured, and she had waited patiently for Damon to come back to her. Shutting her book, Mia moves to the chair beside the bed. Her eyes fill with tears as she strokes his hair back from his forehead. He looks so fragile, something that she has never seen him look before.

  “I’m sorry Damon,” she cries. Despite having talked to him every day, she had never really shared her feelings. She had talked about the weather, about everyday things, but she never told him how she felt.

  Now, when she felt like he was slipping away, she needed to let him know everything. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I should have trusted you.”

  Running her hand down his face, she cups the grizzled cheek and stands up to kiss his lips. No life was there to meet her kiss. No desire between them. All that was there was her longing as he slept below her. Come back to me Damon, she silently pleads.

  “I met Jessica, you know,” she continues as she sits down. Wrapping her hand around his, she says, “She was the one who found you, and she phoned me to let me know what happened to you.

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize who she was until she told me. I don’t know why you lied about her, maybe it was just easier to continue the lie, but I think you did something amazing for her. You saved her life.

  “Just like you saved mine,” Mia sobs. “I didn’t realize how little I truly lived without you. I mean, I always knew that something was missing, but I didn’t realize how much was missing.”

  Bringing his hand to her lips, she kisses the skin as her tears trickle down her face to drop onto his hand. “Please come back to me,” she says, this time aloud. “I can’t live without you. I can’t live with that hole missing inside of me. You fill it completely and fully.”

  She sobs as his limp hand hangs in her smaller one. “I love you,” she whispers before she allows the tears to fall freely.

  His fingers twitch in her hand, and Mia stops, her tears slowing on her face as she looks up at his face. His eyes are open, and he is staring down at her, tears in his own eyes. Crying out in joy, she jumps up and buries her face in his chest. “Oh God, Damon. I thought I had lost you.”

  Damon’s free hand reaches out, and he places it on her hair. “Mia...” he says, his voice weak.

  “Don’t talk, not yet. You need to reserve your strength,” she says as she looks up into his eyes. “I will go and get the doctor.”

  As she pulls free of him, he traps her hand with his, “Mia, wait,” he says, and his voice sounds stronger than it had a few minutes before.

  “I...” he begins, “I’m sorry...for everything.”

  Crying, she kisses his lips and this time, she feels his response. “You don’t have to be sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Shaking his head weakly, he says, “That’s not all...”

  “What? What’s not all?”

  Looking deeply into her eyes, Damon smiles weakly, and her heart fills with so much love. This is the man she wants to marry, the man she plans to have children with, and she feels so blessed that he is here, smiling at her, even if it is a little one.

  “Mia?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  To Be Continued…

  Part 3 will be released in March!

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