That gave her just enough time to right herself and stand up, pointing the gun at him. Her hands shook, even though she tried with all her might to keep them still. Now was a good time to remind herself that she had wanted Jagger to teach her how to shoot. With everything in her, she prayed that she wouldn't accidentally kill herself as she tried to save herself.

"You're gonna hurt yourself." He motioned to her with his hand. "Give me the gun."

"If you think I'm fallin' for that bulls.h.i.t, you have got another thing coming."

She watched him with keen eyes as she reached over to where her phone sat and pressed the b.u.t.ton for Jagger. She dialed it, never taking her eyes off of Money Bags. He watched her hands so closely that she put it on speaker and set the phone between them so that she could grip the gun with both hands. It felt awkward, but she widened her stance the way she had witnessed in the movies. She figured it would help give her stability should she have to fire.

"B?" he answered.

"It's me, I've got his gun. I need help," she yelled into the phone.

"We'll be there as soon as we can, keep that gun on him," Jagger told her. She could tell by the rhythm of his voice that he was running. Reaching over to shut the phone off, she took her eyes off of Money Bags for a split second. That was long enough for him to lunge at her and knock the gun out of her hand. Bianca screamed, using the heel of her shoe and shoving it into his foot.

"You b.i.t.c.h," he growled at her, grabbing her by the hair.

Her head hurt from the earlier head b.u.t.t, and his pulling on her hair p.i.s.sed her off. She wanted this over, so with everything in her, she let out a scream. It bounced and echoed off the walls as it went on for long minutes. When finally she had nothing left in her, she yelled at him. "Let me go!"

Her voice was hoa.r.s.e and she knew she sounded weak. From a distance away, she could hear the thumps of boots, and she knew that Heaven Hill was coming to save her. She just had to make it a few more minutes.

"Think again," he told her, pulling her arms around her back.

With strength she wasn't aware he had, he lifted her onto the stool and crowded her again. Again she fought against him, using her feet and legs to pound at his body. "You're not doing this to me," she told him, reaching around with her mouth and sinking her teeth into his neck.

He howled, using his hands to push her back. "I was trying to be nice to you," he told her, his eyes crazier than she had ever seen them. It appeared that she had finally broken him. He used his hands to close around her neck and shoved her against a wall, effectively cutting off her air supply.

She gasped, trying desperately to draw a breath in, kicking with her feet.

"You're not breathing again," he promised her.

It started to get dark as she fought against him, trying to suck in a tiny bit of the air that allowed her to live. Just when she felt her body shutting down, she was able to get a breath. She slipped to the floor as Money Bags was thrown to the side.

She wasn't sure what was going on, only knew that she heard a lot of cussing, grunting, and promises of killing. Bianca's throat was on fire as she coughed and heaved. Her hands ran along the floor, trying to find the wall to pull herself up, but her vision was still blurry.

"C'mon, it's gonna be fine." She recognized the voice as that of Tyler.

"Where's Jagger?" she asked, her heart beating wildly. She needed him right now more than she had ever needed anyone in her life. Her body ached to have his arms around her. Above anything, she wanted to bury her head in his clean scent. The scent that told her she was safe.

"He's takin' care of some business. If you would come with me."

Bianca stiffened her body, refusing to budge. "I want Jagger."

"You need a d.a.m.n doctor. Can you even see?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "It's coming back," she rasped, her throat burning as she tried to push words out.

"I promise you, Jagger will be along in just a few minutes. He's not in any kind of trouble."

It was obvious by the look on her face that she didn't believe him, but something about his tone made her believe that he told the truth. "Okay, I'm trusting you."

Jagger sat in the school's kitchen, his head between his knees, his hands on his neck. He had to get his s.h.i.t under control before he saw her. The sight of her against the wall, Raymond Tucker choking the life out of her, would forever be ingrained in his memory. He literally wanted to kill this f.u.c.ker with his bare hands, but they had worked out a plan with Rooster-one that would get them everything they wanted.

"We're here to take him." He heard the voice of the Vojnik president, Dino, coming up behind them.

"I'm giving this a.s.shole to you on your word that he won't be doing this kinda s.h.i.t to anybody else," Liam told the other man.

"I know, and I'm willing to accept that and the truce we're calling for right now. I can't let the feds get their hands on that money. They can't know that he was laundering that bank robbery money with that of the school board. This is one of those 'he goes away forever' deals," Dino told the other leader.

The two presidents faced each other-both very wary of what they were working on together here. "We'll make sure that Bianca has her story straight, you make sure you get him out of here without being seen. Rooster's gonna go along with what we tell him. So your job is to make sure he's never found. Got it?"

"I think I can manage that."

When Raymond realized that Heaven Hill was turning him over to Dino, he started to beg. "Please, just send me to jail."

"I'd like to kill you," Jagger ground between his teeth. "You deserve to die a horrible, painful death for what you've done to the woman that I love. If I can't give it to you, I know that he can. He's European, they know a thing or two about torture. I hope you rot in h.e.l.l you son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"You gotta go. Now," Liam told the two of them. "Rooster's about to let his men in here."

Jagger watched as the group went out the back door, taking Raymond Tucker with them.

"You okay?" Liam asked as he saw the look in the younger man's eye.

"Not even close. I'm jealous that Dino gets a crack at him," he admitted.

"It's just how it has to be, Jagger. We can't get our hands dirty in this. Anything that happens is gonna come back to them. With the feds here, that's what we need. You understand, right?"

"I do." He rolled his neck on his shoulders. "Right now though, I would really like to see Bianca."

"Tyler's with her, and he's explaining the situation to her. That we did come and get her, but before we got here, Raymond Tucker went out the back door."

"I just don't know how they're going to believe that, but whatever you want to say."

Liam grinned. The scope of the club never failed to impress Jagger. "Rooster made sure they didn't have an agent covering the back for the amount of time it took Dino and his boys to get in here. Whatever else they had on this door...Steele's at a remote site wiping the video clean. It's just what we do sometimes."

Tyler came back into the room. "They've transported Bianca to the hospital. Meredith and Denise are meeting her over there. Whenever you get your s.h.i.t straight, you can go too."

"I need to go now."

He felt hands on his shoulders and saw that Layne had joined them. "You can't go in there looking like you're scared to death. That's not what she needs right now."

"I was! He had her up against a wall with his hands around her throat, and she was gasping for air that she couldn't get. There's nothing scarier than that!"

"But she made it," Layne reminded his friend. "You need to celebrate that, not dwell on the fact that she got herself into this situation-even though you told her not to. I know you, and those will be the first words outta your d.a.m.n mouth. Get your s.h.i.t straight," he advised again.

"Now that we know everything is good and that Rooster is 'taking our statements', I'm gonna go get my kids. They gotta be freaking out," Liam told the group. "Y'all need anything, let me know. Especially you." He pointed to Jagger. "If it turns out they're keeping Bianca or that something is really wrong with her, call me first thing."

"Will do."

Tyler clapped his hands together. "Let's get the h.e.l.l outta dodge. All these police personnel are makin' my d.a.m.n neck itch, and as far as I know-there's not even nothin' out for me. Let's head to the hospital."

"I'm all for that. I'm gonna take B's car. Could someone make sure that my bike gets back to the clubhouse?" Jagger asked.

"Sure thing. By the way," Tyler grinned, "you did a good job. You didn't freak out, you kept it together until you saw her. That was a hard thing to do and you did it."

"I'm still shaky," he admitted with a small laugh.

"You will be for a while. Nothing scares you more than knowing someone could potentially hurt the woman that you love. You made me proud today, though. You're coming along young whippersnapper."

There was the comic relief, the full belly laugh that Jagger needed. He laughed so hard tears came to the corners of his eyes. "Thanks, man."

"Not a problem," he grinned before getting serious again. "Before I forget, the secretary said she has Bianca's personal stuff for you, purse, keys, coat. They've been inventoried so you can go ahead and take off."

n.o.body had to tell him twice. He was more than ready to see the person who made his world spin around-no matter in what shape she was in-she would be a sight for sore eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Seven.

Jagger did his best to enter the hospital room quietly and not bother Bianca. As he pushed the door open, he spotted Meredith sitting in a chair at her bedside.

"You don't have to be quiet," she told him. "They had to give her a mild sedative about twenty minutes ago. So she'll be out for a few hours."

"What happened?" he asked as he sat her stuff down before walking over to kiss her forehead. As his lips touched the skin, she stirred slightly before relaxing into sleep. He could tell she was more relaxed because he didn't see her eyes moving behind the lids.

"She had a little bit of a freakout. Nothing major," Meredith a.s.sured him. "She was in shock and I think everything just crowded in on her. She really wanted you, and the on-call doctor told her that you hadn't arrived yet. Her blood pressure bottomed out, she started shaking, and her teeth started chattering. So they gave her something to calm her down. Nothing really heavy duty. Just something to make her relax."

He nodded as he had a seat in the chair opposite the other woman. "I was worried about her freaking out. I wasn't able to talk to her before Tyler took her to get looked at."

"He called me and told me how upset she was," Meredith grinned. "Apparently she cussed my big, bad husband."

A chuckled erupted from his mouth as the ends of his lips quirked up in a smile. "I don't doubt that." It went unsaid that Meredith had just referred to Tyler as her husband. He was putting that back for a future question-and-answer session. "She's tough," he whispered as he reached onto the hospital bed and took her hand in his.

"That she is...She told me a little bit about what he did to her."

Jagger wanted to know, but at the same time he didn't want to know. Seeing her hanging in the air by Raymond's hand at her neck was enough. If Raymond had done other things, he figured he might be better off not knowing. He cleared his throat, not making a comment either way.

"Be patient with her," Meredith pleaded.

The look in her eyes made him wonder if Raymond hadn't raped this woman that he loved. He had to know. "Did he rape her?" he choked out, his voice hoa.r.s.e with emotion.

Meredith shook her head. "No. They did a rape kit on her when she first came in, just to be sure. She even told the doctor that he didn't, but I think he touched her in ways that were inappropriate-or at least threatened to. You have to remember she was in that kitchen with him alone for all that time. n.o.body knows what he said or did."

"I know," he ground out, his teeth clenched. "That's what is bothering me more than anything right now. The fact that I don't know."

The two of them sat in silence for long minutes. Meredith with a faraway look on her face, Jagger with his eyes glued to Bianca, looking for a sign that she was still in there, that she wasn't going to give up after they had come this far. Around her neck, bruises marred her otherwise white skin-purple and black, they stood out-making him angrier by the minute.

"Don't do that," Meredith cautioned him. "Don't get angry about what you weren't able to prevent. If you want to be angry, then get angry at the man that did this, not at the situation. You'll never be able to change it and you'll never get closure. Especially since you turned Raymond over to Dino, you're just setting yourself up for failure. You've got to get your head on straight to help her move past this."

"Is that what Tyler did?" he asked, his tone low.

She thought for a long time about what she wanted to tell Jagger about her life with the man she loved. They were usually private people, but she had come to think of Bianca as a younger sister and Jagger a younger brother in all the time they had hung out together recently. She really liked this couple and she wanted them to make it, but she didn't know how they would react to this. At some point in her own recovery she had made the decision that if she could help just one person with what she had been through then maybe it was worth it. Telling him what she and Tyler had gone through now served that purpose rather than keeping a secret. What she and Bianca had been through was not shameful, and there was no reason to treat it that way.

"Tyler decided to seek therapy with me," she told him plainly, her voice clear. There was no hesitation in her words. She was as honest with him as she would be with herself.

"Therapy?"

"Yeah. As in, I see someone and talk to them once every couple of weeks. Before, it was a couple of times a week. Now though, I'm to the point where sometimes I go a few weeks without seeing her. Tyler decided that in order to help me, he would do the same." She crossed her legs and turned to face him in her chair. "That's not to say that he goes with me every time, because he doesn't. He only goes when he feels that there's something he needs to discuss. There was a point in time when he needed to discuss some pretty big issues that had to deal with me. Now it's a little bit different. Sometimes we have things as a couple that we can't agree on together. When we get to that point, we take it to our sessions. The doctor helps us discuss things on even ground and helps us so that we don't hurt each other in the process of getting our feelings out."

That made sense to Jagger. "He is pretty set in his ways," he grinned.

"You don't live with the man."

"So, it doesn't make you look at Tyler any differently for going to see this doctor?" he asked.

The concern was genuinely there, and that surprised her. Maybe there were other issues in Jagger's life that he wanted to seek guidance on, but that wasn't for her to find out. "Not at all. Just like he doesn't look at me any different."

Jagger took a deep breath and then let it out. It obviously weighed heavily on his mind.

She reached over and gently touched his hand. "It's an investment in the rest of our lives, Jagger. We know that we want to be together and things can't be perfect all the time. Those first few moments of being newly in love and thinking that your partner is always going to be what you need them to be aren't realistic. Tyler and I learned that pretty early on. If you have issues, it's good to try and work those out. n.o.body is going to think that you're weak or wrong for wanting to do that."

He bit his lip. "Do you think you could give me the number of the person that you see?"

She smiled softly at him. "I'll do you one better-here's her card." She fished around in her purse until she pulled out a well-worn card. "I have the number committed to memory now, but you call her if you need her. She's an amazing woman. It will only make your relationship with Bianca stronger if the two of you are honest with each other from the start. Don't be scared of it."

What she said was true, and he knew without a doubt that there would be some backlash from the things that had taken place in the kitchen. For once in his life he wanted to be proactive about what could happen with the two of them. Protecting her hadn't worked, but he could help her heal. There was nothing he wouldn't do for her and helping her heal would be small in the grand scheme of things.

"Since you're here, I'm gonna head out. Call us if you need anything?"

He nodded as she bent down to hug him. "Thanks for everything."

"You're family," she grinned. "And there's nothing I wouldn't do for family."

Bianca's head hurt, even before she opened her eyes to see that it was blessedly dark-wherever she was. Her neck was stiff as she tried to work the tension out of it and her throat felt as if she had swallowed gla.s.s. Forcing her eyes open, she realized she was in a hospital room and Jagger sat at her side, doing something with his phone. She was so thirsty.

"Jagger?" she whispered, her voice sounding distorted even to her own ears.

"You're awake? Oh thank G.o.d!" He rushed over to her side and put his hands on her, making sure that every part of her was there and accounted for.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

Tears p.r.i.c.ked his eyes and his throat was uncharacteristically tight as he nodded. "I'm fine, I'm more worried about you." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Do you need something?"

"Thirsty," she managed to press past her lips.