Nakia called Carlos as she started down the elevator. He promised to meet her in the underground car garage. After the dramatic afternoon she’d just had, she was looking forward to a long hot shower. Since she’d skipped lunch, she wanted greasy fried chicken and fries with lots of ketchup and hot sauce. And then she wanted to be comatose soon after, forgetting Melissa Ragnarson ever existed.
As she arrived in the garage, Carlos wasn’t in his usual place to meet her. She’d just gotten off the phone with him, so she knew something wasn’t right. However, before she could grab her gun, three men surrounded her.
“You’re coming with us,” one of the men, who seemed to be the leader, demanded.
“No!”
The man reached for her.
“Don’t touch me!” Nakia fought against their hold uselessly. They ripped her bag from her shoulder and threw it in the nearby trashcan.
Nakia screamed.
They ignored her. Two of the men easily restrained her, while the third, their leader, stood guard to ensure no one came to her aid. “What did you do to Carlos and Laurent?” she demanded as they dragged her over to a waiting black SUV.
“They’re dead,” their leader told her coldly.
Nakia wanted to scream in anguish, but one of her attackers covered her mouth with his palm. She mourned for her bodyguards. Both men had families, and she’d come to know both very well over the past year. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She had no idea if the guards at the gate or someone going to their car had heard her or seen what was happening. She fought and delayed as much as she could while they manhandled her into the backseat of the SUV.
As the car screamed through the garage at a reckless pace, several of the firm’s security guards attempted to intercept the vehicle. However, they were no match for powerful automatic machine guns being fired at them.
Nakia prayed that no one else was killed. She used the opportunity of the men’s focus on the guards to ensure the lock on her seatbelt and carefully palm her gun. As soon as the car slowed to navigate into the busy downtown traffic, she didn’t hesitate. Doing something she’d never done and operating on pure adrenaline and fear, she moved with speed and stealth that had taken her years to perfect but had never had to put into use. Not allowing herself to think or be squeamish, she fired her gun first at the back of the head of the driver and then the man beside her as the car swerved and careened out of control. The man in the passenger seat turned and looked back at her in shock before raising his gun and pointing it at her. They fired their guns simultaneously.
The car plowed at a dangerous speed into the flowing traffic. With first a crushing hit to the front of the car and then another to the back, the impacts forced the car into a tailspin that had her dropping her gun and holding on to her seatbelt with a desperate grip. Everything around her seemed loud and eerily silent at the same time. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. The momentum of the car forced her body first against the door and then slammed her against her seatbelt biting into her skin. Pain from somewhere in her body blinded her to everything, and then she knew nothing.
Justin excited the elevator into the garage and into a sea of chaos. The building alarm blared loudly, the sound of footsteps running was loud in the stairwells, and the shouts of the security guards telling people to stay away from the garage were clear and urgent.
“What the hell happened?” Justin shouted to passing security.
“People have been shot, and there’s a bad car accident at the entrance of the garage.” They all continued running toward the entrance.
The sound of sirens in the distance seemed to be coming closer.
“Who was shot?” Colt wanted to know.
“It’s crazy,” one security guard muttered. “The two guys who usually accompanied Ms. McKenzie and some other dudes in a black SUV. Man, it was like World War III up in here.”
“Shit!” Justin gripped his hair in agitation. “Ms. McKenzie? Where is she? Is she okay?” Justin demanded impatiently.
The guard looked at him blankly and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. They said a woman was there, but I don’t know if it was Ms. McKenzie or not. They haven’t been able to reach anyone in the car wreckage out front.”
Justin and Colt ran toward the entrance, overtaking the guards and coming to a horrified halt on seeing the mangled black vehicle that used to be a large Expedition. And then they joined the dozen or so people trying to pry the doors open.
When Justin saw the familiar color of Nakia’s dress through the shattered glass of the window, he almost lost his mind. Before the car door wouldn’t budge under their collective strengths, but now Justin found a desperate strength that had the door pulling away with a loud screech of metal on metal. He pulled the K-Bar knife , which he always carried with him, from his boot and cut the seatbelt from around her. On his knees beside the open door, and his heart in his throat in fear, he placed both of his hands at her waist and pulled her free of the wreckage.
At the stillness of her body and her blood-soaked clothes, fear crushed through him as though someone had taken a grenade to his stomach and hollowed it out. “Nakia? Baby? Wake up, baby.” He heard the tears in his voice, but he didn’t care who was there to witness it. He held her tightly against his chest and had to repeatedly remind himself not to hold her too tight or hurt her in any way.
“Justin, put her down and allow the medics to help her,” Colt told him gently.
He looked up at his brother and impatiently wiped his eyes when his vision was blurred by his tears. “I can’t…I can’t…” he whispered brokenly. He closed his eyes and fought back the tears. When he opened them again, he forced himself to gently shift Nakia onto his lap. Despite the medics hovering beside Colt all looking down at him, he was determined to examine her himself. No one was touching her but him.
He slowly ran his palm over her chest where most of the blood seemed to be pooled. However, he realized two things at once: one, the blood wasn’t from any wounds on her chest, and two, she had a faint heartbeat.
“Jay?”
He felt lightheaded with relief at the sound of her soft voice and the sight of her gorgeous gaze staring up at him. “You scared me, baby. Don’t do that shit again.”
She blinked and blinked again more rapidly before dissolving into a fit of sobs. “They killed Carlos and Laurent,” she cried brokenly.
“I know, baby. It’s going to be okay.” He would’ve promised her anything at that moment to ease her pain. It was killing him that she was hurting, and he could do nothing about it.
“Sir, we need to examine her,” the medic explained hesitantly.
Nakia gripped his bicep with both hands as though telling him not to let them touch her. “Jay?”
“It’s okay, honey,” Justin coaxed. “Just let them clear you so they can look after everyone else who got hurt.”
She stubbornly clutched onto his arm, and the medics were forced to perform their standard checks around her hold on him. They asked her questions, and she answered them with her face tucked into his neck.
Justin didn’t even try to dissuade her need to cling to him. He knew he needed it just as much as she did.
“Hey, they are moving Carlos and Laurent now.” Colt knelt beside them to tell them what was going on. “Carlos is still alive and is being rushed to the emergency room. He was shot in the chest, and a bullet grazed his head. He was wearing a vest, thank God. Unfortunately, Laurent wasn’t so lucky, as he took a bullet to the head.”
“What about those bastards over there? Any chance of us getting them in an interrogation room?” Nakia’s fingers dug into his arm with increased anxiety, and Justin tenderly soothed her by rubbing her back. However, he wanted Colt to ensure the police allowed them access to the men who’d attempted such a bold kidnapping. And if Melissa had anything to do with this, he would ensure that bitch suffered.
“There’s nothing there,” Colt was saying.
“They’re all dead.”
“What the hell? Were they such wusses that they folded on a little contact?”
“They were shot,” one of the medics told them.
Justin first held Colt’s gaze before both looked down at Nakia, who was staring off at something behind the medics. She refused to look at them or contribute to the conversation in any way. Justin decided to shelve the conversation for now. If Nakia had killed them, the bastards deserved it. He still couldn’t wrap his head around her ability to get so many shots off in such close confines.
Baldacci and his men would pay for killing those guards. Hopefully Carlos would survive, but they would also pay for every bit of discomfort Nakia was feeling now. He forced the medics to wrap up their review and left Colt to deal with the police. As soon as he placed Nakia in the front passenger seat of his car, she suddenly seemed to come out of her dazed state.
“Can we go to the hospital please?”
“Sure, baby.” Justin hovered over her as he remained by her side in the open front passenger door. “Where do you hurt?”
“It’s not for me. I want to be there for Carlos.”
“I know you do, but you’ve been through a lot today. I’ll get Colt to keep us posted and you can visit him tomorrow if all goes well,” Justin offered instead.
“I really don’t have the strength to debate this with you,” she said softly. “Either you take me to the hospital, or I catch an Uber.”
Justin could only shake his head at the swift changes in her mood. “You’re so damn stubborn.” Despite his rebuke, there was no real sting in his voice. He was worried. Justin started to waiver about taking her to the hospital for an entirely different reason. She looked ready to collapse.
“Yeah,” she agreed weakly.
Almost four hours later, Justin was beginning to rethink his sanity where she was concerned. Not only did she refuse to see any doctors, she also refused to lie down in the hospital bed he’d secured for her use while they were there. Since they’d been in the hospital waiting room, she’d gone from leaning on him and needing his support to impatiently pacing about room and demanding progress reports from the nurses every few minutes. Justin, and he was sure the nurses felt the same, had never been so glad to see a doctor in his life.
“He’ll probably have an extended stay with us, but he’ll recover from his injuries,” the doctor informed them and Carlos’ family, who’d come en mass to see him. “He’s stable, and you’ll be able to see him once they secure the ICU.”
Later, after a visit with Carlos and his family, Justin drove them to Colt’s ranch.
Chapter Twelve
Nakia protested the entire journey, but there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going back to her apartment. She also tried protesting when he took her to his suite of rooms on the ranch. However, when he reminded her that he hadn’t slept in three days, she settled down surprisingly quickly. He left her to get settled in the room before meeting his brothers in Colt’s office.
“Jesus, you look like shit.” Matt wrapped his arms around Justin in a bear hug.
“I’ve been working in a hellhole. What’s your excuse?” Justin teased. He deliberately tried to keep his voice light, but he was seriously worried about his older brother. Matt was only two years older than he was, and yet, he seemed to have aged ten years since Justin left on his mission. Not only was his hair thinning out, but he also seemed to have gained an extra sixty pounds. Although Matt had only been in the army for a few years, his work on the ranch had always kept him fit. Matt, despite not being as tall as him and Colt, had always been lanky and lean. To see him now, overweight and with an unhealthy pallor, Justin was worried. He looked over at Colt and knew that after they cleaned up the mess with the mob, they were going to have to deal with whatever the hell was going on with Matt.
“Not all of us have a trust fund that allows us to go out and play soldier.” Matt laughed, but Justin didn’t miss the bite behind Matt’s repeated complaint. He could never understand why Colt had always been okay with his inheritance, while Matt had always been bitter about it. His maternal grandmother had been unapologetic and eccentric as fuck. None of them knew why she gave Justin her entire fortune and had left nothing to her five children or the other twelve grandchildren among them.
“Matt, we asked you over here because we need you to take Anna and the kids on a trip for a few days.” Colt was all business now, clearly not going to get involved in a back-and-forth over Justin’s inheritance.
“Again?!?! Is this about your wife and her damn inventions?” Matt seemed like a petulant child, even going as far as stomping his foot to emphasize his disgust. “I have a ranch to run. Of course, you boys wouldn’t know anything about that. You wouldn’t have noticed that this has been a harsh summer and we’ve lost a lot of herd to disease. But never mind that. You want me to drop everything for your precious wife.”
Colt gritted his teeth in annoyance.
Justin didn’t blame him. Matt and his wife barely tolerated Imani’s presence and never gave up an opportunity to show their dislike of Imani. The only reason Colt still spoke to his younger brother was because Imani insisted on it; otherwise, Colt would have cut Matt and Anna out of his life long ago.
“Look, Matt, I’ve warned you of the impending danger at Imani’s insistence,” Colt told him with chilling cool. Like Justin’s, Colt’s eyes were almost gunmetal dark with fury. “For some reason she still cares about your ass. Me, I don’t give a shit what you do.”
“This is not all about Imani, Matt,” Justin intervened. He had no doubt that Colt would have no problem cutting Matt and his family out of his life if Imani would allow it. Matt was only still breathing because of Imani. He was sure that Nakia would face the same discrimination from his family. Like Colt, he wouldn’t tolerate it. “This situation is about some assholes after me and Colt. They came after someone I care about today. So, listen to Colt’s advice. Take Anna and the kids away for a few weeks. We’ll clean this mess up and make sure it’s safe for you, Mom, and Dad to return.”
“You fuckers got Mom and Dad involved with this shit as well?” Matt glared at them. “I heard all about your latest obsession from Melissa. You’re an ass! Giving up your wife of five years for some colored pussy?”
Justin savored the image of his fingers around Matt’s neck for a brief moment before breathing out slowly. “Let me fuckin’ stop you right there,” he growled softly. “Don’t make the mistake that I won’t wipe the floor with your ass if you ever talk about Nakia like that. I’ve put up with a lot of your bullshit over the years. I won’t ignore this.”
“Why am I not surprised that you two are acting like thugs? And you wonder why no one wants our family lineage tainted?”
Colt had Matt by the neck and slammed up against the wall in seconds. “Are you trying to imply that my son is tainted?”
Justin was already formulating in his head the story he’d have to tell the authorities as to why Colt killed their brother.
“No!” Matt wheezed. “I didn’t say that.”
“What the fuck did you say then?” It was clear that Colt didn’t believe him, and his grip tightened around Matt’s neck.
Justin didn’t blame him. He didn’t believe Matt either. “We have things to do tomorrow,” Justin reminded Colt calmly. “Cleaning Matt’s blood from your wall and carpet isn’t in the game plan.”
It took a few seconds, but Colt eventually released Matt’s neck.
Matt stumbled toward the door, coughing and gasping loudly for breath along the way.
“Matt, once this shit is over, I’m buying you out of the firm. No,” Colt gritted out when Matt started to protest. “This is not up for debate. I want your dumb ass away from me and my family.”
“Ditto for me,” Justin drawled.
“Fuck you! You both can go to hell!” Matt slammed the door behind him.
“That went well,” Justin mumbled drily.
Colt didn’t bother answering him.
Justin knew that he was still seething over the tainted comment from Matt.
Justin found Nakia watching a late-night news broadcast when he returned to their room. Ignoring her gasp of surprise, he dragged her into the bathroom with him. He needed a shower, and he wanted her with him even though he knew that she’d already taken a shower.
He was again struck by how incredibly beautiful she was when he stripped the oversized T-shirt from her. She stood before him naked and shyly trying to cover her breasts.
He pushed her hands to her side. “Don’t.” His voice was gravelly with emotion. He was suddenly feeling very territorial where she was concern. After being reminded of the inexplicable hate that Nakia had to face simply for the color of her skin, he wanted to protect her and show her that he wanted her and loved her honey-brown skin no matter what anyone thought of it.
“Jay?” She stared up at him uncertainly.
He tried to ease his expression and appear more relaxed, even though the need to mark her as his for every male to see was coursing through him. He slowly let his fingers caress her plump lips, her cheek, the long column of her neck, the swell of her breasts, her beaded nipples, and her flat stomach before settling his palm on her round ass. Her body, although fit from daily exercise, was succulent and curvy in all the right places. Her creamy skin was silky soft to the touch, and she was beyond pliable and responsive under his skillful fingers. She was soon writhing and curling against him in approval at his sensual exploration.
Despite his lack of sleep and the task he and Colt had to complete, he was hard and throbbing the moment he saw her. He couldn’t look at her and not want her. It was this way before they’d made love, but now that he’d dipped into that pool, his reaction to her was more primal, basic. Seeing her trapped in the car had momentarily sent him into a blind fury. She was his, his to protect, his to love. Baldacci and his crew were about to find out exactly what happened to assholes who fucked with a Ragnarson. It was a lesson he’d been forced to delay, but no longer. In a few hours, he and Colt were going to ensure Baldacci came after him directly and stopped going after Nakia, Imani, or any of their employees. Baldacci would wish he’d never heard their name, much less wanted Imani to make weapons for them.
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