GoodKnight: A Reed Security Romance

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  He stared hard at me and shook his head slowly. “I would never do that to you. You asked me to take care of Kate once before. You put your trust in me then. I’m asking you to do that again.”

  I swallowed hard. Trusting didn’t come easy to me, and right now I felt like everyone was against me. But if what he was saying was true, if there was even a chance that she was alive, I had to know.

  “Show me.”

  I stood as he pulled out his phone and pulled something up. “I have to show you the video again. I know it’s hard to watch, but you have to trust me.”

  I nodded, even though I knew that watching that again was pointless. I saw it on replay in my mind every day. I knew it by heart. He hit the play button and zoomed in on the video.

  “Just watch.”

  He played it and the first time was harder than I thought. I couldn’t even watch the whole thing because my eyes blurred with tears halfway through. I shoved the phone away. I couldn’t see this. I couldn’t watch her die again.

  “Hud, I’m asking you to trust me. Don’t pay attention to what you think you’re seeing. It’s not real.”

  “It was live. How the fuck could that not be real?”

  “Trust me.”

  That was all he said. Like that was all I needed, and strangely, it was. I watched the video with him. I watched as he pointed out the hair movement. I watched as he pointed out the blood smears and the pool of blood that didn’t expand. And when I saw what he talking about, I snatched the phone out of his hand and replayed the video ten more times to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

  “It can’t be,” I said, still not believing it.

  “I don’t know how it was done, but Kate had to be in on it. Whoever is there wanted you to think she was dead.”

  “Why? They had to know how I would respond. What would they get out of it?”

  “I don’t know, but if Kate was in on faking her death, she had to know that this was her only way to survive. You know she wouldn’t put you through something like that.”

  I couldn’t think. It just kept running through my mind. Kate was alive. She wasn’t really dead. Suddenly, my chest didn’t feel so tight. The ache inside me had dulled and I felt like I could think again. If she was alive, I could still get her back.

  I looked at Hunter and gripped his shoulder. “I need your help. You help me get her back, but then you do what I once asked of you.”

  “Hud-”

  “No,” I said firmly. “If she really is alive, she’s already been through too much. I won’t put her life in danger again. We get her back and then you keep her safe. You make sure that she and the kids are taken care of. I’m counting on you for that.”

  He nodded slightly, but I knew he was just telling me what I wanted to hear.

  “Pappy, I’m serious right now. Don’t fuck with me on this. I need to make sure that my life never touches Kate again. We already know that my identity is out there. Anyone could go after her. I have enemies that would kill to get their hands on her. We end this, all of it, and then you make sure that she’s taken care of for the rest of her life. Promise me now.”

  “Or what?” he scoffed.

  “Or nothing. I need this, and I’m asking as your friend that you do this for me. I can’t go through something like this again. I need her protected and you’re the only one I trust to do it.”

  He huffed out an irritated sigh and looked away, but I knew I was getting to him. I didn’t ask for favors lightly. “Fine. We finish this and get Kate back, but you have to be the one to tell her. No walking away without explaining things to her. If you do that, I won’t keep my promise.”

  I nodded. It was the best deal I was going to get. Like it or not, it was the only way to make sure that I got what I wanted in the end.

  We pulled up to Reed Security after driving all day and all night. I was exhausted, but the urge to find Kate was forcing me to keep going. I had to find her. I was pissed at myself for not seeing sooner that the video was all a setup. Kate had been very convincing. The thing that really irritated me was the not knowing. There were so many questions. Was she still alive? Who had taken her and why had they faked her death? Why hadn’t they contacted me? Who would want to keep her alive, but make me think she was dead?

  I got out and slammed the door, hurrying over to the elevator. Cap was waiting for us when we got off, a concerned look on his face. I didn’t know if it was for me or that he had more bad news. I didn’t think I could take any more bad news at this point.

  “Did you find anything?”

  Cap shook his head. “Nothing yet. Becky’s been going over all the vehicles that were in the parking garage, but we’re not having any luck so far.”

  “There has to be something,” I said, shoving past him. I stormed into the IT room and walked over to the monitors on the walls, studying all the images of vehicles she had pulled up. There were faces of the drivers on the screens as they exited the building, but only half of them had information to go along with the picture.

  She flipped through the images to another screen and my heart stopped. Right the fuck in front of me was a man that I never thought I’d see again.

  “Becky, stop right here.”

  “What? Do you see something?”

  “Who’s this vehicle registered to?”

  “Um…Ty Stoneman. He currently lives in New York, but when I tried to call him, I got no answer. It looks like he works-”

  “As a lawyer,” I finished.

  She spun around and stared at me. “Yeah. How did you know?”

  Hunter walked up behind me, staring at the screen. “Is that…”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who is he?” Cap asked.

  “What are the chances that he’s here? That can’t be a coincidence.”

  I had to agree with Hunter. There was no way that this was a coincidence. But how was he involved? “Becky, pull up what kind of law he practices.”

  She pulled up his firm’s website and started clicking through to his profile. “Criminal law.”

  “Who is this guy?” Cap asked again.

  “He’s our former teammate,” I said, turning to look at him. “He’s one of the guys that helped Hunter break me out of the transport.”

  Becky stared at me for a moment, her mouth open in shock. Cap looked pretty much the same. Yeah, it was pretty fucked up. How the hell was he involved, and better yet, what did he want from me?

  “Okay, so we need to track down any places he would be hiding out. Any-”

  Hunter interrupted Becky. “There’s no need. I know where he is.”

  “How do you want to do this?” Hunter asked from beside me. We were just down the road from the cabin. Hunter said that Ty had always talked about this place. It was his refuge and Hunter had even come out here once with him. That was a long time ago, way before I came back into Hunter’s life.

  Derek and Alec were set up in positions around the cabin, along with Cap, Ice, Chris, and Jules. It might be overkill. After all, he was only one man, but then again, I was only one man and I wouldn’t be intimidated by that number. I had no idea what Ty had been up to since I last saw him.

  “I’ll go in alone.”

  “I don’t think that’s a smart idea. You know he’s going to be armed.”

  “I can’t take the chance that he’ll get spooked and kill her.”

  “What are we doing?” Cap asked over coms. “Whatever we’re doing, we should do it fast. It looks like this guy is getting antsy.”

  I pulled up the binoculars again and looked inside the cabin. Kate was sitting in a chair, staring straight ahead, but Ty had disappeared. Where the fuck was he? “Does anyone have eyes on Ty?”

  “Negative.”

  “Negative.”

  Nobody could see him. What the fuck was going on? I checked in on Kate again, my heart thumping erratically in my chest. I was so close, I could almost touch her. I needed her in my arms. I needed to get to her.

&nb
sp; “I’m going in. Cover me.”

  “Knight, we need to make sure this guy isn’t around,” Cap argued.

  “Fuck that. He’s got my wife in there. I’ll just shoot him when I see him.”

  “This doesn’t feel right,” Chris said. “It’s wrong. Why would he just disappear?”

  “Maybe he’s taking a shit,” Ice answered.

  “Look at Kate’s posture. I’m telling you, this is all off,” Chris said again.

  “What about you, Jules? What are you seeing?” Hunter asked.

  “Nothing. There’s no movement over here. It’s like he just disappeared.”

  I heard the click right before I felt the barrel of the gun pressed against my head. I slowly removed the binoculars from my face and set them down. “Found him,” I said, wondering how the fuck this guy got the drop on Hunter and I.

  “Oh shit,” Jules swore.

  “You know that I don’t like visitors out here, Pappy. I told you once before, you never bring anyone uninvited.”

  I glanced over at Hunter, wondering how the fuck we were going to get out of this.

  “I don’t have a shot,” Cap said in my ear. “Chris?”

  “Not unless you want me to shoot Hunter in the process.”

  “Ice?” Cap asked. “I’m working on it.”

  “Tell them to stand down,” Ty said, shoving the gun against my head with more force.

  I gritted my teeth, hating that I was going to have to give in to this fucker. “Stand down.”

  “I’ve got the shot,” Ice said. “You want me to take it?”

  “Unless you want your wife to end up dead, I would tell them to back the fuck off,” Ty growled.

  “Stand down, Ice.”

  I felt the pressure lessen as he backed off and took my chance. I spun, quickly grabbing the gun from his hand, but he was just as fast, pulling a second gun from his hip and aiming it right at my head. We were at a standoff, both of us ready to kill the other.

  “Put the gun down,” I said slowly. “You’re outnumbered.”

  “But I have your wife,” he said, a slight smirk on his face.

  I shook my head slightly. “I never took you for someone that would hurt a woman.”

  “Who says I did? She’s alive, isn’t she?”

  My eye twitched with every second that passed. I wanted to put a bullet in him, but then he was one of the men that helped free me. Years of conditioning, believing that anyone that came near me was a threat, was overpowering.

  “Really, Hud?” The name shocked me out of my need to kill. “I save your life and then I save your wife, and this is the thanks I get?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “You snuck up on us and held a gun to my head.”

  “Because I didn’t want to get shot. Do you think I didn’t know who you were? Garrick Knight, assassin for hire. And you thought I would just sit in my cabin, with your wife, and wait for you to storm in and shoot me? I know how it looks. You would have shot first and asked questions later.”

  I wanted to believe him. He was right. I would have killed him without a second thought. But he still had my wife, and this could all be a trick. I rarely trusted anyone, but I found myself wanting to trust in Ty.

  “How did you end up kidnapping my wife?” I asked.

  He stared at me for a moment and then flipped the safety on his gun and holstered it. “How about we have this conversation inside? Call your men off and tell them to come inside with us. I’ll explain everything.”

  “You’d better.”

  “When have I ever let you down?” he asked. Shaking his head slightly, he sighed and walked past me. “I’m not the asshole you think I am in this.”

  Against my better judgement, I tucked my gun into my waistband at the small of my back and motioned for Hunter to follow. “Let’s go,” I said, motioning for the guys to follow me. I turned and took a deep breath. I was about to see Kate. She was really alive and just inside that cabin. It felt too good to be true, like it was a trap. But I had already seen her. I knew she was in there. I felt Hunter’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Let’s go get your woman.”

  I nodded and moved toward the cabin, but I only took two steps when she appeared at the cabin door. Her eyes were shimmering with tears and her hand flew to her mouth, and then she was running toward me. I scooped her up in my arms and held her tight, not wanting to let go. She was real. She was here. The band around my chest loosened with every moment that passed. My hands found their way into her hair and then I was kissing her, tasting her sweet lips again.

  I choked down the lump in my throat as I pulled back and rested my forehead against hers. I had to take a moment just to soak this all in. She wasn’t dead.

  “Hudson,” she whispered, her fingers brushing along my cheek. “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I’m so fucking sorry,” I whispered back. “God, I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re here. It’s okay.”

  I shook my head. It would never be okay. I would never be okay after all that had happened. I swore my heart stopped beating in that moment. As I held her to me, I felt my heart mending and breaking all at once. I had her back, but deep down I knew I couldn’t keep her. I ran my hand over her hair, brushing over the silky strands over and over again, not believing she was real. I pulled back just enough to look at her face. She was here, one hundred percent whole. She didn’t have a scratch on her. If I didn’t know any better, I would say she had been on vacation.

  I shook my head, still not able to speak as I stared at her. Then my lips were crashing into hers and her hands were gripping onto my shoulders, pulling me tight against her. All the pain and the anger of the last few weeks slowly leached from my body. My hands shook as I pulled back to look at her again. It just couldn’t be real. How was she here?

  “Are you okay?” I finally asked. “Did he hurt you?”

  She gave me a watery smile and shook her head. “No, he saved my life.”

  “He…”

  “It was all supposed to be real. The video was supposed to be real. He killed the other men that were with him and told me what to do. He said you were on a job and would come back for me when the job was done. I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to think that I was dead, but I didn’t see another way.”

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  I shook my head. I had no idea. I had to take her back, but then I had to leave her. I couldn’t keep her to myself when I had almost gotten her killed. But I wasn’t ready to walk away yet. I needed some time with her, a chance to say goodbye.

  “Now I take you home.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Hunter

  I watched my friend kissing the woman he loved and smiled. This was not how I thought this would all end. I thought for sure that I had lost my best friend. I thought for sure that Kate was just a memory. But she was here and Knight was whole again.

  But deep down, I knew he wasn’t planning to stick around. In his mind, he had fucked up and almost gotten his wife killed. There was no going back for him. He wouldn’t rest until the job was done, and then he would walk away in the name of saving her. It was a ridiculous idea. She needed him, and he would fall apart without her. But that was something to figure out later. First, we had to deal with Ty, and then we had to get rid of the lab. Then, I would figure out a way to make Knight stay.

  I glanced at Ty, who was also staring at Knight and Kate, a slight smile on his face. I approached him warily, not sure if we could trust him or not. None of this made sense. Why the fuck would Ty be with Kate? How did he even know about her? He turned to look at me and huffed out a laugh.

  “Pappy, don’t look so happy to see me.”

  I looked him over, shocked that he still looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him. That day we had broken Knight out of the transport was the last time we had all been together. He had a beard now,
but otherwise looked exactly the same. He didn’t look at all like a lawyer. He was dressed in black pants and a black t-shirt, but then, I guess he wouldn’t wear a suit in the wilderness.

  “I’m still trying to figure out how you fit in all this,” I said, not shaking the hand that he offered me. The guys approached warily, guns still in their hands as they came closer.

  “You want to tell them to put their guns down? I’m not gonna shoot you.”

  “How are you involved in this?”

  “I’d like to know that too,” Knight said, appearing in the doorway, blocking Kate with his body.

  “That’s a long story,” Ty said, jerking his head for Knight to come in. “Come on. I know you have a lot of questions.”

  I could see that Knight just wanted to get the fuck out of here, but we needed answers. This guy had deceived all of us, whether for good or bad, we needed to know why. Knight pulled Kate inside, but I didn’t miss the way he blocked Kate with his body no matter where Ty stood. I didn’t blame him after all he’d been through.

  “I’m Ty.” He walked over to Kate and held out his hand. “I served with your husband.”

  Shock crossed her face and she looked to Knight for guidance. “You knew my husband all along?”

  “Yep,” he said unapologetically.

  “But…you said that you weren’t involved in any way.”

  “I wasn’t.” Ty moved across the room and took a seat, but the rest of us just stood there dumbstruck. “As I’m sure you know by now, when I got out of the military, I became a lawyer. But I was seeing way too many criminals get off. Some of them because I helped them. I was ashamed that I was helping them, but not all of them were guilty. After one particular case that I won, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I had just defended a man that had sold drugs to teenagers, but they were laced with fentanyl. He got off on a technicality, but I’d had enough. I decided to take matters into my own hands. If the courts weren’t going to do their job, then I would take care of it.” He huffed out a laugh, rubbing his hand across his jaw. “Except, when I got there, I had competition. I found myself in a bit of a predicament. Anyway, since then, I just continued to do both jobs. And occasionally, someone calls on me for help. That’s what this job was. I thought I was being called in for a legitimate job, but when I picked up Kate at the garage, I knew that this was not my typical job.”