Delta Force Defender

by Megan Crane

  The other part was Julia Sheeran, daughter of a sociopathic, violent criminal and sister to this literal psychopath. The one who had known that her future was dark but had been convinced she could, at the very least, smuggle a night-light in. But light or no light, she would have been expected to suck it up and take what was given to her. Whether it was Vincent Campari or any of the other equally sociopathic and violent criminals her father associated with.

  She tried to imagine discussing these things with her regulars at the Water’s Edge Café, and couldn’t. Even though they’d burned it down, it was still hers. Hers, not Julia’s. It was a place none of this touched.

  “This all sounds insane,” Caradine pointed out, though she knew better than to antagonize Jimmy. Then again, he was going to hurt her either way, so why not? “You know that, right? You’re talking about my life, not a movie. My actual life, where I would have been the one who died. Me. Your sister.”

  “This is where you always went wrong, Jules,” Jimmy said, in that soft way that made her spine want to curl up into a ball. Maybe it did. “Who cares about your life? Whatever made you think you had a say in anything? Your job was to shut your mouth and do what you were told, but you sucked at it. All that fancy education and you still don’t know how to be what you are. A frickin’ pawn.”

  Caradine smirked. She couldn’t help herself. “Like you know how to play chess, Jimmy.”

  She braced herself for a blow. Wanted it, even, which gave her some insight into her mother that she didn’t want.

  What she didn’t expect was for him to smile at her.

  It was more than just creepy. It literally made her blood run cold.

  Especially because he wasn’t wearing the right face.

  “I’m going to hurt you for that,” he promised her, and it took her a second to register what that odd note in his voice was. Delight. “I’m going to hurt you a lot, Julia. And I’m going to enjoy it. I never liked you. I don’t have any use for your kind of uppity.”

  “It’s called intelligence, Jimmy,” she said, because she was in for a penny, a pound, and the whole rest of it, too. “Lindsay had it, too, but she was a junkie. At least she had it. I can’t say the same for you.”

  “You never did know your place.” He sounded sorrowful, but she could still see that delight flickering in his gaze. “Mom and Lindsay, it caused me pain, thinking I’d killed them. Their only crime was being part of the family. But you. Patrick with the gambling and Danny high all the time. You were all useless embarrassments. Dad couldn’t control you, so I handled it.”

  And the worst part was that he didn’t look or sound rabid. Or crazy. He sounded perfectly sane. Conversational, even. There was no doubt in her mind that he would kill them all again without a single qualm. He would feel badly for Donna and Lindsay—had she died when she was supposed to—and never question what he’d done.

  “Some people prefer therapy,” Caradine said dryly. “But sure. Firebomb the whole house. A random restaurant on the other side of the continent. Why not?”

  That one got her another slap. She needed to watch herself, because she wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t loosened a few teeth with that last one.

  “A man who can’t control his house can’t control his business, either,” her brother told her, leaning in close. “I don’t have that problem.”

  He grabbed her by the arm, a painful, awful grip that made her bones ache, deep and wrong. Then he started across that long lobby, his fingers digging even deeper into her arm as he dragged her with him.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Caradine said desperately, the way she imagined the Julia she’d been ten years ago might have. Beg, she ordered herself. “I have a temper, but it runs in the family. You don’t need to hurt me, Jimmy. I can be useful. I promise.”

  Any minute now, she told herself. All she had to do now was make sure she didn’t let Jimmy take her to a second location. She couldn’t let him put her in a car. Or knock her out and throw her in a trunk, which was his more likely move.

  She dug her heels into the lobby floor, ignoring that painful grip he had on her arm. And was grateful it was a sticky linoleum, not marble, so she got a little purchase.

  He turned on her again, shaking her so hard her teeth really did rattle. “So help me God, Julia, if you give me any more trouble—”

  But that was when the world exploded again.

  Only this time, it wasn’t the crackle of flames.

  It was Isaac.

  Twenty-three

  Isaac had this nightmare all the time.

  It was one of the reasons he rarely slept.

  Caradine in peril and him playing catch-up. Running and running and never quite making it. He’d watched her die a thousand times in those nightmares. Over and over and over again, he was too late.

  He was always too late.

  The only difference today was that it wasn’t happening only in his head.

  It had taken ten minutes to get a spare key from the bartender, which had seemed like an eternity or two to Isaac. He could have gotten the answer he needed a whole lot faster, but he’d made a bargain with himself a long time ago to stay on the right side of certain lines.

  A man who did the things he had, and would again, had to make very sure he didn’t let himself become a monster.

  In all the years since he’d made himself that vow on his first tour, Isaac had never come close to breaking it. Until today.

  But he hadn’t. Somehow, he hadn’t. He’d had to take the time to convince a bartender in a place like Sharkey’s that he needed to be more afraid of the men in front of him than the men in the neighborhood. A delicate proposition, but they’d gotten there.

  Eventually.

  “How did we miss the tunnels?” Templeton demanded when the bartender finally gave up his key to one of the reinforced-steel doors leading to the basement.

  “We didn’t miss them,” Isaac gritted out. “We were directed away from them by a woman who acted like she’d never in a million years go into one.”

  He could see the face she’d made. The way she hadn’t actually said she wouldn’t go into a tunnel but had let him assume it.

  “If she’s really a Sheeran, what do you expect?” the bartender chimed in, displaying more of that talent for failing to read a room that had already cost Isaac too much time. “Scum, all of them. There’s a reason the whole family was wiped out, buddy.”

  Isaac took approximately four seconds to think about how little he liked it when men he would never speak to in normal circumstances called him buddy or any variation of it.

  But then he was moving. He signaled to Jonas to come with him, Templeton to handle the bartender and the patrons on the floor, and headed for the shabby little hallway.

  Down the stairs at a run. Down the hallway like it was a race—and he’d always been good at a sprint.

  The clock in him ticked the way it always did in the dreams he had. The ones where Caradine merged with his parents and the plane was going down, but he was there, and he had to watch them all die.

  Again and again and again, and now it was happening. And he didn’t know if he was prepared after all of this or if it had all been one long, tortured premonition.

  “Ready?” he asked Jonas when they made it through a basement that was obviously used for wet work, then up another flight of stairs. He estimated they’d crossed the street, then headed south, and said so into the comm unit.

  “On it,” Blue replied.

  “I’m going to keep babysitting,” Templeton said, sounding irritated that he wasn’t in the middle of the action.

  At the door, Jonas nodded toward Isaac, indicating that he was ready.

  They were a well-oiled machine after all these years. Isaac threw open the door and went in at a dead run, Jonas right behind him, because that made them a harder ta
rget to hit.

  Isaac went low, knowing Jonas would stay high. That let Isaac scan the scene, make his determination in a split second, and then throw himself at the knees of the goon with his hands on Caradine.

  As he moved, Jonas shot twice.

  Isaac hit the goon as the two thugs at the far door went down, howling in pain.

  But Isaac’s focus was on the tangle of bodies on the ground. And the only part of the tangle he cared about. He saw bruises and blood, but her blue gaze was the same. Sharp and furiously lucid and focused on him.

  If he wasn’t mistaken, she looked annoyed. With him.

  As if he’d taken too long when she’d deliberately—

  Not the time, he snapped at himself, rolling to his feet and instinctively going into a fighting stance.

  “I knew it,” the man bellowed.

  He scrabbled backward, heaving himself back against the lobby wall to help him find his feet the way tough guys who relied on their size but not any skill often did. Caradine dived forward to crawl away from him, but he hauled her toward him with what looked like a painful grip on one ankle.

  Isaac took aim.

  And had to wait while Caradine fought. And while the man with his hands on her wrestled her around into a choke hold.

  Isaac was tense and ready and looking for just enough space to blow his freaking head off—

  Then the idiot made it even worse by sticking his gun to her temple.

  Not gently.

  There was a pause full of labored breathing, mostly coming from the dirtbag.

  “Hey, Isaac,” Caradine said mildly, though her blue eyes gleamed with a cold, hard fury, and she was panting a little, too.

  They were in a stalemate for the moment, so Isaac let his gaze track over her. He didn’t like what he saw. Marks on her face. A swollen mouth. And if he wasn’t mistaken, bruising around her neck.

  All of which he intended to make this animal pay for.

  “This is my brother Jimmy,” she continued, and then made a choking sound when the man tightened his grip. And ground the muzzle of his gun against her head.

  “You’re going to want to tell your buddy back there to drop his gun,” Jimmy growled.

  Isaac studied the man before him. He was unrecognizable as Jimmy Sheeran, having clearly undergone intensive plastic surgery to hide his identity. But he still looked like a Grade A scumbag.

  He didn’t bother glancing around to see who Jimmy was referring to. He knew Jonas had his gun pointed directly at the threat, on the extreme off chance Isaac missed.

  “I don’t control him,” Isaac said. “You can always try.”

  Behind him, he could feel Jonas’s deadly intent and stone-cold focus. He personally found it intimidating and he was used to it. Being on the receiving end of that glare often ended situations like this before they got going.

  “Don’t bother,” Jonas said with a certain quiet ferocity. “I’m not in the habit of taking orders from men who rough up women.”

  Isaac enjoyed watching Jimmy’s expression change. He cherished the dawning realization on Jimmy’s part that Isaac and Jonas weren’t the typical Boston lowlifes this man was likely used to dealing with. It might have made him smile if there weren’t a gun at Caradine’s head.

  “You can point your guns all you want,” Jimmy said after a moment, his gaze darker and flatter than before. “But my sister and I are walking out of here. You try to stop me? I’ll shoot her.”

  “He’s going to shoot me anyway,” Caradine said with a blandness Isaac would have found amusing if it had been someone else. Anyone else. “And if I’m honest, I’d prefer he shoot me here. I’m not really jonesing for all the hurt he promised to deliver my way once we leave.”

  Jimmy laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. “You stupid, stupid bitch.”

  Isaac hissed out a breath. “Keep tightening that arm around her neck, Jimmy, and I’ll return the favor. And rip your head off.”

  “One car waiting outside,” Blue reported on the comm unit. “Driver neutralized.”

  Templeton sighed. “Babysitting continuing to be boring.”

  “Initiate phase two,” Isaac replied.

  Then he shifted his attention back to the deadly family drama unfolding in front of him.

  The one that kept flickering into his own family drama, somehow, when he knew he couldn’t let that happen. This wasn’t the day he’d lost his parents—and one crucial distinction was that he was right here. Not haplessly sitting in school with no idea his world was ending.

  Focus, he barked at himself.

  Caradine was whistling theatrically. “Oh, Jimmy. Bad news, big brother. Phase two is the feds. Won’t they be surprised to learn that you’re not dead?”

  “You can call the feds all you want,” Jimmy snarled, and shook her, like a rag doll. Isaac kept his aim steady, because he knew it was a distraction technique. Not that knowing it made him less homicidal. “They can’t help you, Julia. You should have died ten years ago. You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “You’re looking pretty spry for a ghost yourself,” Caradine said airily.

  Isaac wondered what it cost her to sound like that. So carefree when a monster had her in a tight, hard grip.

  “You never could do what you’re supposed to,” Jimmy growled. “Why couldn’t you be like Lindsay?”

  “She ran away, too,” Caradine pointed out. One eyebrow arched as she looked at Isaac. “Even if she did end up dying. I’m not sure she’s the angel you think she is.”

  “Then you can tell her all about it in hell, bitch.”

  And everything seemed to slow down to a deadly crawl.

  A flattening Isaac knew all too well.

  Caradine’s gaze was locked on to his, that eyebrow high and a smirk on her face, looking bruised and battered but still the woman he knew so well. Still the only woman who had ever lodged herself beneath his skin.

  The only woman who mattered to him like this.

  Her brother shifted his weight, then slammed that gun against her temple again, intent and resolve all over his fake face.

  Isaac wished he’d let her say what she was going to say in the SUV. He wished he’d allowed that good-bye speech.

  He wished a thousand things, all of them in an instant—

  Then he was lunging forward, but it was already too late—

  Once again, he was much too late—

  And all he could see was her face. That determined chin. That light in her blue gaze, locked on to his.

  I can’t lose another person I love, he thought, very distinctly, as her brother’s finger moved on the trigger. I won’t live through this if she doesn’t—

  And then everything sped up.

  Jonas roared from behind him.

  Something slammed into the floor where he’d been standing.

  He heard the crack of a bullet a split second later, and he was still midlunge, suspended in the air, but Caradine was moving, too.

  She was moving.

  Her head was tucked and her hands were in a position he’d seen her practice in Grizzly Harbor. A duck of the head and the thrust of her hands and the muzzle of the gun was pointed somewhere it couldn’t hit her.

  She moved.

  Isaac let his fist lead, slamming it into Jimmy Sheeran’s plastic face. Jimmy was still holding on to Caradine, so they both moved as Isaac slammed Jimmy back into the wall.

  Maybe Isaac ordered him to let her go. Maybe he only thought it.

  But Caradine did something else, using her hip and a vicious twist. Then she had the gun, and she propped herself up against the wall while her older brother lurched for the far door, slipping and sliding over the lobby floor.

  “This is really just embarrassing,” Jonas said, almost lazily, still standing back by the door to the stairs. He didn’t e
ven raise his weapon.

  Caradine was flat against the wall, the gun hanging at her side. But she was looking at Isaac, not tracking her brother.

  “I told you I missed you on purpose,” she told him, her voice hoarse. “In Maine.”

  Isaac saw something he recognized in her gaze then. A certain bleakness he knew all too well, each and every contour.

  And he didn’t want that for her. He’d spent so much time in that desolate place it was like a second home. He didn’t want her to add that particular darkness to the things she already carried around.

  He didn’t want her to touch it, because once she did, there would be no taking it back.

  There was never any taking it back.

  “If you do it, you become it,” he told her softly. “That’s how it works.”

  “You do it all the time.”

  “Not all the time. And never lightly.” He saw her hand twitch at her side. “And I’ve never pretended I wasn’t what my choices made me. You can’t take a life without paying for it, one way or another.”

  He understood the misery on her face then. Too well.

  “Caradine—”

  But another shot rang out across the lobby before he could finish his sentence.

  And this time, her brother went down in a heap. But he made a lot of noise while he did it, which made Isaac’s chest feel slightly less frozen solid.

  Because Caradine had shot her own brother, but she hadn’t killed him.

  “Right to the knee,” Jonas said like a sports announcer. “Ouch. That’s going to sting.”

  And later, maybe, Isaac would think about the fact that she really might have missed on purpose in that little house in Maine.

  But not now. He was there before her, his hand aching from the punch he’d delivered, and she was staring back at him with that familiar mix of longing and defiance all over her.

  Everything was different. And yet this was the same. They were the same.

  “Report, for God’s sake,” Templeton snapped over the comm unit. “Some of us are stuck in the bar time forgot.”