His to Defend (The Guard Book 2)

by Em Petrova

  “The guys will be detained in customs. We pick them up there.”

  “Simple as that? Escort them out?”

  “Yeah, then do whatever needs to be done.”

  Lars knew that would mean a fight, but off security cameras. Either way, he had all the information he required—he and Roman were seasoned enough to handle anything.

  The biggest question in his mind tumbled around like a jagged-edged rock on concrete walls, cutting deep with each roll and drawing blood. Could he handle himself if Lillian proved to be the real criminal in this case?

  Ten minutes later, he and Roman strode past security, giving nods as their only clearances. When they reached the room where the two guys were being detained, Lars tossed him a glance. “Ready?”

  “Let’s roll.”

  Lars pushed open the door. Four men guarded only two, a testament of how dangerous they knew them to be.

  One guard stepped away from where the pair were handcuffed. “Need some help?”

  “Nah, we can handle them,” Lars drawled out.

  “You sure? There’s only two of you.”

  Lars folded his arms. “Pretty sure we can handle it.”

  From the corner of his eye, he noted the hired hitmen sizing up both him and Roman. They didn’t know what the fuck they were up against.

  He lifted his jaw toward the table, where a few weapons sat. “You strip those off them?”

  “Yeah. Motherfuckers are getting better and better at concealing from airport security,” the guard said.

  “Leave them to us. Maybe we can get some answers out of them on that too.”

  “We’d appreciate it.”

  The criminal on the right raised his jaw a notch in defiance. He hoped like hell Roman didn’t notice the gesture, because if he hated anything, it was a cocky asshole.

  Oh shit. He noticed.

  Roman’s jaw set and his fists clamped.

  Lars put himself between the criminal and his friend. “Grab the one on the left,” he told Roman.

  “I got this one.”

  “No, I got him.” He stared Roman in the eyes until he backed off.

  Lars gripped the length of chain securing the criminal to the floor so he couldn’t attempt escape. He took the key the guard offered, and he pulled off the chain. Then he grabbed the guy by the cuffs and with a hand on his shoulder, steered him to the door with Roman and the other man right behind.

  “Thanks, boys,” Lars threw over his shoulder at the four guards in the room. One of them was a flight marshal he recognized from a situation a year or so back.

  “You think you can hold us, you’re wrong.” The criminal with a deep scar in his cheek scowled.

  Lars only grinned as he propelled him out of the airport. They secured them in the back of the SUV and drove to a remote spot. When they reached where no one could see them or hear them, they stopped.

  Roman opened the back door. Amusement sounded in his tone. “Hey, this one got his hands free.”

  The guy leaped out at Roman with a roar. Lars turned from the other open back door in time to see Roman deliver a roundhouse kick to the guy’s midsection that knocked the wind from him.

  With an eye on his own criminal, Lars listened to Roman and the guy go at it. “You’re just fuckin’ with him, Roman. At least use the street fighting Madeline showed you.”

  “Come on, you bastard.” The criminal egged Roman on. Lars left his friend to the fight and closed the door in the other criminal’s face again. He reached inside and passed his wrist over the stereo system. Heavy metal music blared from the speakers.

  Lars locked the vehicle and wandered away from it, leaving the music blasting and the man inside. The screams of the vocalists always set his own teeth on edge, but he preferred classical. While he counted down the full fifteen minutes before returning to the vehicle to see if the guy was ready to spill information, he took out his phone.

  For a long moment, he battled with calling to check on Lillian. He held back, but the haunted look she wore before he walked out on her set his fingers itching to place the call.

  Another thumping noise sounded, and he raised his attention to Roman going rounds with the criminal while demanding he talk.

  Fuck, could Lillian really be guilty of what he accused her of? If he examined the situation from all angles, he could see how things might have lined up to make it look as though she were guilty. But then he kept seeing images of her speaking to Brun, how their heads positioned so close like they shared confidences, and Lars had to question her role in all this.

  He walked up to the SUV, now blasting on its sixth song. A pass of his wrist cut the music and then he whipped open the back door. “Did you enjoy your music?”

  The fucker looked as if he had.

  Son of a bitch.

  He stood back to regard scar-face. “Tell me how you tracked down your target.”

  He pressed his lips into a seam and refused to speak.

  With a sigh, Lars closed the door again and switched on the music.

  “All right over there, Roman?” he called out as he left the hitman to be tortured by the heavy screaming music with the volume kicked up a notch.

  “Time o’ my life,” Roman ground out from where he pinned the man. “No luck on the other yet?”

  “Our boy likes the metal, it seems. We’ll see for how long, though.”

  Lars looked out over the abandoned parking lot, but what he saw in his mind was the view of the shores as they reached Guernsey.

  Lillian demanding to captain the boat might have ended in disaster for him. Why had he given up control like that?

  Because I fucking trusted her.

  Don’t you still?

  I don’t fucking know. Just shut up.

  How the fuck could she have faked all those soft looks she gave him when he was buried deep inside her? How could she fake the expression she wore when she saw him standing in the bedroom doorway?

  Either the woman was a damn good actress, or those moments were real.

  Jesus, when is this guy gonna crack? Even I can’t take that music anymore.

  After striding to the SUV, he whipped open the door. The guy had his head resting against the seat, eyes closed as though savoring the tunes.

  He closed the door and shot Roman another look. He banded the guy’s hands behind his back with a thick steel cable that he wouldn’t be able to break free of even if he was fucking Houdini.

  Roman met his gaze.

  “He’s not done yet,” Lars said and walked off again to put some distance between himself and the music he could still clearly hear through the cracks of the vehicle.

  He gripped his phone again. Maybe he could get North on the case. Even laid up at home, he could hunt information better than an FBI agent. Hell, how many times had he found Lars while he was undercover in Russia?

  North could keep his mouth shut if Lars asked him to. He trusted the man with his life, same as he did Oz. And hell, Roman now too.

  He wasn’t certain he’d waited another full fifteen minutes before approaching the SUV this time. He cut the music and opened the back door to stare at the man.

  “Are you ready to talk to me?” he asked him very civilly.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Okay.” Lars circled to the back and opened the tailgate. There sat the black case Roman had tossed into the rear to make room for the prisoners. Lars searched in the case for a moment and returned to the back carrying a long, thin, metal instrument.

  “What are you going to do with that?” the man spit out, full of hate.

  Lars touched the sharp point with a fingertip. “Inserted beneath the fingernails, this tool really has a way of opening a man’s mouth.” He made a grab for the guy’s wrist, using his strength to pivot his heavy body.

  “I’m not telling you assholes anything.”

  Lars eyed him. “I think it’s in your best interest to tell us what you know. After all, we know quite a bit about you.”

&nb
sp; “Bullshit.”

  “You think you walk as a ghost? We know you murdered a family of four back in Nice. The hit was hired on the husband. Did you have to take his wife and kids too, you fucking murderer?”

  He glared at Lars, the scar down his cheek white against his tanned face.

  Folding his arms, Lars tapped the instrument he held. “There are a lot of other names, aren’t there? You’re not only a hitman. You like to kill, isn’t that right, Santos?”

  The man tried to conceal his alarm that Lars addressed him by his name.

  In the background, Lars heard shouts and the beefy sound of fists hitting flesh and knew the other criminal was giving Roman another run for his money.

  “You sure you don’t want to sing pretty like I asked?” Lars poked at scar-face’s fingertip. Usually he didn’t make it past the first layer of skin before the person spilled out everything he knew plus added in some bonus stories that linked The Guard to other crimes to solve.

  “Fuck you!”

  “Maybe I should mention that we know about the family of six you murdered in their beds in the Paris townhouse. Did you believe that crime would go unnoticed, you sick, twisted fucking serial killer?” His stomach bottomed out at the thought of this asshole finding Lillian’s family and taking away the parents she loved so dearly.

  That wasn’t a fucking act.

  Scar-face said nothing.

  Lars pricked his fingertip again. “Let me ask again. How did you know to come after Lillian Delphine? Who gave you the order?”

  Lars already partially knew the answer. The hired hitman cell extended throughout Europe and basically operated on a phone alert system. The Church had confiscated several of their phones and watched activity unfold before their eyes, which helped them locate these dickheads as soon as they entered the US.

  He applied pressure and drew a drop of blood from the man’s fingertip. “You really don’t know how painful it can be to have your nail beds gouged out, do you? What do you have to lose by telling me what you know? Save yourself, man.”

  “You’ll kill me regardless of whether or not I talk, so I’ll just carry the information to the grave with me.”

  “You speak very nice French, but I can hear it isn’t your native language.” He pricked the next finger on his hand, and the guy sucked in a sharp breath. More than likely, he hadn’t expected pain in another finger. The key to making men talk was to shake things up. They were more frightened of the unanticipated than they were the pain they expected.

  “What is your native tongue?” he asked him in German.

  The man grunted, but replied in French once more. “You don’t know much, do you, asshole?”

  “I know that your accent is off. I’m a master of languages, so you will not throw me off.” He switched to another language and then another until he felt the bastard stiffen with recognition.

  “So you understand Portuguese. We knew your boss cast a wide net, but you must be a new recruit. I suppose your accent places you from Algarve.”

  “Fuck you,” he said plainly in English.

  Lars chuckled. “Perhaps you’re a master of languages too, but you’re not as good as me.” In the man’s native tongue again, he began to prod him for answers, breaking him down bit by bit with pinpricks to his fingertips and finally edging beneath one nail. Scar-face cried out and clamped his lips down, but not before Lars saw he had broken him at last.

  Just at that moment, Roman returned to the SUV hauling the limp body over his shoulder.

  “Is he dead?” Scar-face demanded, voice giving away the fact he was pissing his pants with fear right now.

  Lars leveled a look at him. “We only kill when necessary. My advice is to not make it necessary for us to kill you. Now—give me names, dates and places.”

  Minutes later, Roman tied the other guy up in the back seat, where he lay unconscious, and Lars had a list of names imprinted on his brain.

  “Where are you taking me now? I told you what you wanted to know,” Scar-face mumbled.

  “I’m delivering you to some people who will deal with you accordingly.” With that, he closed the door.

  He turned to Roman, feeling as grave as he ever had.

  “Well?” Roman asked before they got into the front seats.

  Lars scrubbed a hand over his bristled jaw. “Brun’s name came up more than once.”

  “But not Lillian Delphine’s?”

  He shook his head.

  “That’s a good thing, right? If he’d heard her name, he would have blurted it out.”

  A sigh burned hot in Lars’s lungs. “Yes. That’s good. But I saw her speaking to Brun. The two had some kind of rapport. I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “Maybe they were lovers.”

  He issued a low growl. “Don’t even suggest it.”

  Roman chuckled. “And he says he isn’t in love,” he muttered to himself. “All right, they weren’t lovers,” he said to Lars. “They work together closely, with Moreau as their common interest. It doesn’t mean your girl put out a hit on her client.”

  He shook his head. “There’s too much there, though. She needed money. That’s called a motive where I come from.”

  Roman eyed him. “Could it be that you’re trying to find a reason to not feel something for the woman?” Before Lars could respond, he climbed behind the wheel.

  Lars slipped into the passenger seat and glanced at the two men, one sprawled like a dead man on the back seat and the other bound and gagged.

  Maybe Roman was right—he dealt with monsters every day of his life. It was his job to find the worst in people and bring it to light so he could eradicate it. Could he be doing the same with Lillian?

  * * * * *

  Lillian flipped on the light and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Breathing hard, she dipped her head into her hands. She might be able to chase away Lars in her waking hours, but her dreams were a matter beyond her control.

  The dream flooded back in all its technicolor glory—a small house overlooking a river, with a garden out back to hang sheets to dry in summertime and small crocks of flowers set on the steps. And Lars…coming up the path to the door, entering the house with a wicked glint in his eyes as he took her in his arms and asked about her day. The kiss they shared, ripe with passion and promises for later. Eating dinner and discussing their days, with her excitedly relating her work with a new racecar driver in the United States.

  Then Lars giving her that look which always made her panties damp, right before he took her hand and led her to their bedroom.

  She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Stupid.”

  She stood and drifted through the darkened room, still unfamiliar to her even after several more weeks here at the safehouse. When she followed the small nightlight to the bathroom, she didn’t bother to turn on the overhead light and instead splashed water on her face and onto the back of her sweaty neck. Then she cupped a hand under the faucet and brought the water to her lips to quench her thirst.

  When she glanced at her reflection in the mirror over the sink, she counted all the days since she left France. Twenty-nine…at least she thought. All the days blurred together, and since she had nothing to mark time’s passing by, she struggled to care. At this point, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever get her life back. If she did, how would it ever be the same?

  Back home, she would take a half dozen phone calls before noon and then grab a lunch meeting with a sponsor, magazine editor or talk-show producer and walk away satisfied that she’d done a good job for Pierre.

  In her private time, she shared the occasional drink with a friend, stopped off at the market on the way home and bought a fresh cut of beef for her dinner and some lovely vegetables to sauté. Her guilty pleasure of soaking in the tub for too long and then crawling naked between her crisp cotton sheets was one she missed most.

  Bleary-eyed, she blinked at her reflection. Too despondent, she turned away and returned to her borrowed bed. Mashing the
pillow under her head didn’t ease the ache in her neck that the unfamiliar bedding gave her. The sheets felt too hot and twisted around her legs, and she kicked them off.

  Not for the first time, she considered moving herself again. Sure, Lars would be irate. Let him do his worst—what did she care? She read the disgust for her on his handsome face at their last meeting. She didn’t have the same kind of relationship with her new hosts, however, and they would be more reluctant to help her leave.

  She flipped onto her stomach, aching for so much she didn’t have right now. Freedom being number one. She understood the necessity of remaining hidden. One slip and those men would find her.

  The biggest loss so far had to be her dream of owning a house in the country. Lars managed to turn that into something ugly, a secret to be stuffed under a dusty rug and never lifted again. Though as she lay there, she pictured some of her most relaxing moments of life, and they were all spent in the country. That was part of her soul like nothing else ever was, and she’d be damned if she would let Lars tear that from her.

  Why did her imagination keep returning to the quaint country house where she and Lars had hidden together so briefly? It felt as though the rooms engraved themselves on her brain, and she already lived there. He’d tended the cuts on her arm…and saved her life when those men came.

  No more Lars. She had to stop letting the man pierce through her armor. She prided herself on having thicker skin than that. Soon she would leave, she’d have her life back and she would damn well keep working toward owning a piece of paradis in the countryside.

  To pass the time, she added to a journal of notes with new ideas for press releases, public appearances and more. She turned her attention to work until she drifted back off to sleep. But in the morning, she woke with another dream of Lars, stroking the backs of his knuckles down her belly and between her legs, over her slick folds to her cries of bliss.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lars sank to a pew. Staring straight ahead for long minutes, he hardly noticed when someone slipped into the pew next to him. He glanced over to see Madeline. The petite blonde’s appearance must mean something important.