by Susan Stoker
“I will. Especially after the notes he’s been sending me.”
“Notes?” Kenna asked, unease suddenly churning in her gut.
“Yeah. The asshole thinks he’s so sneaky. As if I wouldn’t know he’s the one leaving them.”
“I didn’t know you were getting notes from him. Have you told the police?” Kenna asked.
“What good will that do? I mean, I’ve been keeping them, just in case, but I have a feeling turning them in will just egg him on even more. I’ve been trying not to give him any attention whatsoever, in the hopes he’ll realize he’s not getting the reaction out of me that he wants—namely, me going back to him, which is never going to happen.”
“That’s not good,” Kenna said. “That he’s sending notes, that is. I think you should talk to the cops.”
Carly sighed. “If I get another one, I will.”
“Thank you. I just worry. I don’t want anything to happen to you,” Kenna said.
“I appreciate that more than you know. Trust me, I’ve been the most alert and aware woman on the island the last couple of months. I don’t trust Shawn in the least. Just because he hasn’t done anything beyond leaving cryptic notes on my car, that doesn’t mean he isn’t planning something. He’s patient. And sneaky. And scary as hell. Is it bad that I kind of want him to just make his move already? I know that protective order had to have pissed him off, and I have a feeling he’s just waiting for the perfect time to be a colossal asshole again.”
“Well, if he is, he’s gonna go to jail,” Kenna said. Then she hugged her friend tightly. “I’m proud of you, and I love you very much. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. Go home and sleep. And text me tomorrow to let me know if you feel any better.”
“I will. And I love you too. Thanks for being such a great friend. When I first started here, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it, but you made me feel right at home.”
Kenna smiled at her before Carly headed off to find their manager.
She hated that months later, Carly was still living on pins and needles, waiting for her ex to do something. She’d naively thought Shawn would have gotten the message by now that he and Carly were done.
Then, as Kenna stood there pondering her friend’s situation, something else struck her.
If Shawn was sending Carly notes…maybe the one she’d received hadn’t been from the angry Duke’s customer, after all. Maybe it was from Shawn.
Shit! She hadn’t even suspected him. But it made sense. If Shawn was pissed that he couldn’t get to Carly, it was possible he’d strike out at those who were close to her. Not to mention, Kenna had pissed him off by getting in his face the last time he was at Duke’s.
Making a mental note to be extra observant for her friend—and for herself—and to talk to Marshall about the situation as soon as possible and get his take on things, Kenna took a deep breath and got back to work.
An hour later, Vera told her that Marshall and his friends had arrived. She didn’t have a lot of time, but there was no way she wasn’t going to greet them. As if Marshall could sense her, he turned just as she approached.
Kenna walked straight into his arms, sighing in contentment. She loved how excited she always felt to see him, and how he seemed to feel the same. Pulling back, Kenna smiled at Marshall, then turned to his friends.
“Hey. It’s good to see you guys.” Kenna gave Jag a small smile. “Carly’s sad she missed you.”
He shrugged. “I would’ve been pissed if she’d stayed just to see me when she felt like shit. I’ll see her another time.”
“For the record,” Kenna continued, not able to keep her mouth shut, “she’s gonna come around. She’s just a little skittish right now.”
She swore she saw Jag’s shoulders relax a fraction at her words. “I can’t blame her. Her ex really did a number on her.”
Kenna nodded.
“As much as I want to stand here and chat, you probably need to get back to work,” Marshall said. He kissed her briefly, then said, “You’re still cool if we hang out at the bar?”
“Of course,” Kenna told him. “I’ll stop by when I can.”
“We’ll be fine,” Marshall said. “Just do your thing.”
Kenna watched the three men head off for the bar area and couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
“Shit, woman, those are three fine-looking men,” Vera said. “If I wasn’t into girls, I might give you a run for your money.”
Kenna laughed at the hostess. “For the record…only one is my boyfriend.”
“Damn, I was hoping you were into some kinky shit,” Vera said quietly with a wink before heading back to her spot at the podium near the front of the restaurant.
Shaking her head at her coworker’s antics, Kenna got back to work.
An hour later, Aleck couldn’t keep his eyes from Kenna as she moved around the restaurant. He’d spent almost every minute since his arrival thinking about what he wanted to do to her later that night, when they got back to her place.
“Glad to see things with you guys are working out so well,” Jag said from next to him.
Aleck forced his attention from Kenna to his friend. They were sitting at a table near the bar, shooting the shit, enjoying some downtime.
“She’s amazing,” Aleck said. “What’s up with you and Carly?” he couldn’t help but ask.
Jag shrugged. “Complicated.”
Pid snorted. “I think that’s the understatement of the century,” he muttered.
“I’m pissed because her ex has terrified her so much, she’s practically a recluse. The asshole even left a note on my car when I came to see if Carly was at work the other day. He’s escalating…and Carly still thinks if she ignores him, he’ll just go away.”
“Wait, what? A note?” Aleck asked, putting his glass down on the table a little too hard.
“Yeah. It just said, She’s mine. It wasn’t signed, but I know it was from him. Who else could it have been from?” Jag asked.
Aleck’s mind spun with the implications of Jag’s revelation. He couldn’t help but think about the note that had been left on his car. He’d assumed it had been from Kylo Braun. But what if it wasn’t? What if Shawn had left that one too?
He opened his mouth to tell Jag and Pid that he’d received a note as well, but just then, a strong gust of wind surged in from the beach, knocking over a mostly empty glass on a nearby table, and making the woman sitting there squeal in surprise.
The storm had moved in with a vengeance—and a shiver rolled through Aleck as the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He felt exactly as he did right before the shit hit the fan during a mission.
His gaze swept the restaurant, searching for Kenna. He needed eyes on her. To see for himself that she was all right. It wasn’t a feeling he could explain, but he knew without a doubt that danger was near. Way too fucking near.
The predicted storm had moved in and the staff at Duke’s was kept busy unfolding the plastic barriers around the perimeter of the restaurant. They closed them at night, but they were almost always kept unzipped while Duke’s was open. They’d waited a little too long, however, and currently the wind was whipping through the bar and restaurant, sending napkins flying and glasses crashing. Luckily, the dinner rush had come and gone, and the patrons sitting nearest the beach moved toward the interior of the dining area as the staff did their best to zip the barriers as quickly as possible.
Kenna had just zipped up the last plastic window when she heard a commotion behind her. The first thing she did was look toward the bar, where the guys were still sitting. Marshall was staring at her with an intense look on his face that she couldn’t interpret.
She had no time to wonder about it before a woman’s screech registered.
She turned toward the sound—and froze in shock at the scene that greeted her.
Striding quickly through the restaurant, straight for her, was Shawn. Carly’s ex.
And he did not look h
appy.
He was wearing a vest that looked a lot like the one she’d seen in Marshall’s picture from when he was deployed. It had just as many pockets—but what caught her attention was the large box strapped to the front.
There was a red light in the center that blinked on and off.
Even as he approached, Shawn reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a pistol. He stopped four feet from Kenna, pointed the gun straight at her face and growled, “Where’s Carly?”
For a split second, as cliché as it sounded, Kenna’s life flashed before her eyes.
As she looked down the barrel of that gun, she realized how much she wanted to live. She suddenly longed to call her parents; it had been too long since she’d talked to them. She wanted to spend another night with Marshall. A lifetime of nights. She wanted to travel. Get married. Have children.
“Where’s Carly?” Shawn barked again, stepping closer. Before she could even think of moving, he grabbed her upper arm, shoved the pistol against her temple, and began dragging her toward the bar.
Exactly where she wanted to go. Toward Marshall and his friends, who could hopefully take this asshole out just as they’d done before.
Kenna heard people screaming around her, almost falling over each other trying to get to the beach and away from the crazy man with a gun.
“She got off early,” Kenna told Shawn without hesitation, and she’d never been so glad in her entire life that her friend wasn’t there.
The string of curse words that came out of Shawn’s mouth at her answer was surprising. Not that Kenna was offended by cursing. She’d been known to spew the occasional bad word herself. But she hadn’t even heard some of the words Shawn was muttering.
She jerked on her arm, trying to get away from him, but Shawn’s fingers dug into her flesh, forcing her to continue toward the bar.
As she figured, Marshall, Jag, and Pid hadn’t run in the opposite direction at the first sound of trouble. All three were standing near their chairs, taking in the scene with narrowed eyes. Paulo and Kaleen were frozen behind the bar.
Shawn turned the weapon in their general direction and without warning, shot off a round, shattering a bottle of booze on a high shelf behind the bar.
It was Kenna’s turn to screech. For a split second, she’d thought he’d been aiming for Marshall.
Jag and Pid cleared the bar in one jump, landing behind it and grabbing the two bartenders, hauling them down behind the dubious safety of the wood.
But Marshall, the crazy man, simply straightened from where he’d hunched slightly, and glared at Shawn. She wanted to tell him not to do anything stupid, that he needed to live, but she didn’t get the chance.
“Of course the big bad SEAL doesn’t flinch,” Shawn sneered.
“I’m not scared of bullies,” Marshall said in a deep, hard, chilling tone of voice that Kenna had never heard before. She’d gotten to know Marshall as a man. He was funny, sarcastic, and had never spoken to her in anything other than a respectful, or sexy, or loving tone. This was an entirely different facet of him. A different man.
This was the no-nonsense, deadly Navy SEAL.
“Put down the weapon before this gets even worse,” he ordered.
“Don’t think so. See this?” Shawn asked, gesturing toward the box with the blinking red light. “It’s a bomb. A big fucking bomb. With enough ANFO to blow up not only this restaurant, but the entire fucking building. I can take it all down just like that.”
Kenna didn’t know exactly what ANFO was, but she’d watched enough episodes of Mythbusters to know the situation wasn’t good.
“And even better, it’s got a mercury tilt switch as a detonator.”
Kenna wasn’t sure what that meant either, but at the look on Marshall’s face, knew it was bad. Very bad.
“That’s right, asshole. If you or your friends try to tackle me again, we all go boom. If you shoot me and I fall over, we go boom. If I even bend over at the waist too far, we fucking all go boom. So…now that I have your attention, and we know who the fuck is in charge here,” he glared at Jag and Pid, who’d stood from behind the bar, “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
The two SEALs looked extremely pissed, but they did as Shawn ordered.
It was now only Shawn, Kenna, Marshall, Paulo, and Kaleen left in the restaurant, as far as she could tell. At least, if her coworkers had fled, they’d done so without standing. She hoped they did—and that they’d hit the silent alarm to summon police on their way out. Everyone else had fled onto the dark beach, into the storm, or through the front entrance of Duke’s.
Shawn kept his tight grip on Kenna’s biceps as he walked toward Marshall.
Kenna could see a muscle in her man’s jaw ticking, his hands fisted tight, but otherwise, he stood stock still.
Shawn stopped just out of Marshall’s reach and raised the pistol once more.
Kenna’s heart flew to her throat and she almost stopped breathing.
Instead of killing Marshall right then and there, it seemed Shawn was in a chatty mood. “Just as I thought…you’re not as tough as you think you are,” Shawn smirked.
Kenna saw something flash through Marshall’s eyes at the words—she could’ve sworn it was respect. But that had to be a trick of the light.
Or Marshall was just fucking with Shawn until he could find a way to take him out.
“Good job. I had no idea you’d left that note on my Jeep. How’d you get into the military parking lot? It’s strictly monitored.”
Kenna’s mind whirled. Note? He’d gotten a note too?!
“The military sticker on my car. I’ve done some work on base,” Shawn told him. “Who’d you think the note was from?”
Kenna felt as if she was in the twilight zone. If Shawn wasn’t holding a gun on Marshall, and if he didn’t have a freaking bomb strapped to his body, she might’ve thought the two men were old buddies catching up after some time apart.
“There’s a guy on base who’s been a pain in my ass for a while,” Marshall answered, seemingly unfazed by the fact he was looking down the barrel of a gun. “He said almost those exact words to me not too long ago. Figured he was still messing with me.”
Shawn laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. It was one of deep satisfaction.
“What about your note?” he asked, shaking Kenna. “Did it make you wanna shit your pants?”
“No,” she said with more bravado than she really felt.
“Fucking liar. All bitches lie,” Shawn seethed, shaking her even harder, his grip painful.
Kenna knew she was going to have some pretty damn vivid bruises in the next week or so…if she lived that long. Her arm throbbed where Shawn held it, and once more she tried to wrench herself out of his grip, but he simply laughed.
Kenna had already been terrified enough by this point, but the crazy look on Shawn’s face made her blood run cold. She could hear sirens now, and she prayed the police would hurry. But at the same time, she worried about what they’d do. If they didn’t know about the bomb, they might try to take Shawn out. And if he fell, that bomb would go off.
Shit!
Shawn began walking backward without warning, the gun at her temple once more, and Kenna almost tripped as she was yanked along with him.
“I was just gonna take what belonged to me and go,” Shawn informed them. “But that fucking bitch ruined everything, like usual. I know she was here earlier. I’ve been watching and waiting for all three of you to be in the same place.”
“What were you going to do?” Marshall asked, stepping forward, following slowly as Shawn headed for the exit that led out onto the beach. The wind had really picked up, howling outside the flimsy plastic windows Kenna had zipped into place. Rain was falling in heavy sheets. In fact, she couldn’t even see the shoreline, and the ocean wasn’t that far from the restaurant.
“Take what belongs to me after killing you and this meddling whore,” Shawn said without hesitation.
Kenna quaked. God, this was a
nightmare.
“And now?” Marshall asked.
“I still want Carly,” Shawn said. “I want what’s mine.” He shook Kenna yet again, making her stumble. “But I’ll make do with this bitch until I can get her back.”
“Not happening,” Marshall said in that deadly tone.
Shawn laughed. “Sorry, SEAL boy. It is. It’s all planned out, and you can’t do a goddamn thing about it. Once we’re gone, you’ll just have to suffer thinking about what I’m doing to your fuck hole. Wonder if she’s scared, if she’s in pain. And I’ll tell you right now—she will be. She’ll regret sticking her goddamn nose into my business—just like you will.”
Then Shawn swung the pistol toward Marshall.
Kenna acted on instinct the second his arm moved. She slammed her free hand against the underside of his arm as hard as she could, shoving it up just as he pulled the trigger.
Marshall was already leaping to the side, crashing into a chair that was in his way.
Shawn punched Kenna in the face with the pistol, making her cry out as pain bloomed in her temple. She felt blood oozing down the side of her face, but she didn’t fall.
Throughout it all, he never let go of her arm. The sirens wailed, much closer now, and Shawn didn’t wait for Marshall to get back up. He walked backward again, much faster this time, obviously trying to get out of there before the police showed up—which Kenna hoped would be any second.
“Time to go,” Shawn growled.
Kenna had no idea if he was talking to her or Marshall, but ultimately it didn’t matter. She didn’t know where they were going. It wasn’t like they could just take a stroll down the beach and blend in with the nonexistent crowd. It felt and sounded like a damn hurricane was going on and everyone had sought shelter. But Shawn obviously had a getaway plan.
Kenna just prayed that somehow, someway, she’d be able to escape before his plan succeeded.