“You’re leaving me with my stalker?”
“Lady, your stalker just banged up my Mercedes.” She got out of the car and crossed her arms over her chest in frustration.
“Yeah,” I scratched my jaw, “sorry about that.” I took a picture of my insurance card and asked for his phone number. “Had to get my lady back.”
“I am not your lady,” Reese said, stomping her foot on the gravel.
I stalked toward her, shoving my gun back in my holster. “You are my woman in every way, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to let anything happen to you. I swore I would protect you, and I will.” I jerked her body to mine and leaned in close like I was going to kiss her, but instead nipped at her ear. “With my life.”
I heard her sharp intake of breath and felt her heart racing against my chest. I grinned. Like it or not, she was mine and she was coming with me. I would make things right between us, one way or another. Taking her hand in mine, I led her back to my truck and opened the door for her. Gripping her around the waist, I hoisted her into the truck and walked around to the driver’s side.
“Where’d you get the truck?” she sneered. “Did you steal it?”
“No. I used a little thing called my license and I rented the truck.” Since there was no one tracking us anymore, I didn’t have to worry about whether or not I used my credit card. Well, that wasn’t totally true. Cap would be tracking me, but by the time he caught up with me, it would already be too late.
I pulled back onto the road and headed back toward Pittsburgh. We had a flight to catch, and since I already booked it as soon as Becky said she found Reese, we were good to go. It would take us about five hours to get to Sin City, and man were we going to sin when we got there. Well, I definitely was.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Reese
“What are we doing at the airport?”
“We have to go find out why this guy was after you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I had a feeling he was lying, but if I was wrong, I could get taken again, and that might not end so well.
“Who are we looking for anyway?”
“An assassin,” Craig said, scanning the crowd.
“A what?” I screeched. “Why would an assassin be after me,” I practically shouted.
He covered my mouth and smiled at the people next to us. “It’s a book we’re reading for book club.” They looked at us strangely and backed away like we had the plague. “Would you mind keeping those thoughts to yourself in public? The last thing we need is someone innocent getting involved.”
“I’m innocent,” I hissed. “What did I ever do to get on a hitman’s list? I teach fucking kindergarten!”
“We’re still looking into it.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and I smiled to myself. I didn’t want to like the feel of him wrapped around me. I didn’t want to feel flutters in my stomach when he talked about me being his. But I did. And it was fucking with my head. I had to remember that this man stalked me for weeks, and now he was here to save me? It all sounded so strange. Besides, what the hell did I do to get targeted by an assassin?
“Do you think I saw something I wasn’t supposed to?”
“Could be. Now, just act normal. We’re a normal couple, just going on a trip to see your parents.”
“My parents live here. It doesn’t make any sense that we would be going on a trip to see them,” I hissed through a smile.
“Nobody else knows that. Nobody knows you, so just pretend that we’re a happy couple and you’ll be fine.”
“Except for the assassin that’s after me.”
“You know, the more you say that, the more chance there is that people will hear you and someone will call the cops.”
“Good, maybe they’d actually be able to help me,” I grumbled.
“The only thing the police will do is get in the way.”
I stood in the slow moving line with him for what felt like forever when I felt Craig stiffen beside me. My eyes started darting around the airport, looking for any sign of a threat, but I couldn’t see a thing.
“What is it?”
“Just keep looking ahead.”
His voice turned to steel and I did as he said. If he was this steely, then it had to be for a reason. Probably an assassin reason. I swallowed down my nerves and did my best to appear calm and collected, but inside I was a mess. In fact, I was pretty sure I was going to puke all over the place in just a few minutes. My stomach was churning with fear and I was sweating so bad that I could feel my hand slipping in Craig’s.
“When I say, we’re going to get out of this line and walk toward the exit. I don’t want you to rush or look nervous. Just follow my lead and we’ll be fine.”
“What’s going on?” My voice quivered and no matter how hard I tried to control it, I was losing it.
“Relax. Everything’s going to be fine.” He gripped my hand tight and gave a reassuring smile. “Okay, let’s go.”
I followed him through the crowd, focusing on what was ahead of us, instead of looking around like I wanted to. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself in any way. We were almost to the doors when I heard a shout. Glancing behind me, I saw a man with dark hair, built the same as Craig, rushing toward us. Craig swore and grabbed my hand, pulling me quickly out the doors. We rushed through the drop off line and through the parking lot. Craig was on his phone shouting at someone and then we were stopping at an SUV and he was shoving me inside.
I didn’t hesitate to buckle up as he peeled out of the lot. I didn’t know how he started a vehicle that we didn’t have a key to, and I didn’t want to ask how he knew where to find this vehicle. All I cared about was the fact that we were on the road and it didn’t appear that anyone was following us. Yet.
About five miles down the road, Craig pulled over and yanked the dash panel off the SUV and then ripped out wires. He quickly replaced the dash and took off again.
“What did you just do?”
“I removed the tracking in the vehicle.”
I nodded because that totally made sense. What didn’t make sense was how he knew it was there in the first place.
“Do all vehicles have tracking?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know this one did?”
“Because the IT woman at my work pointed me to the vehicle.”
“Right. So…she knew where we were and…I’m sorry, but I’m really confused.”
“Don’t worry about it. The point is that we’re on the road and no one can find us now.”
“What about your phone?”
“I tossed it.”
“But, that means you can’t contact your company,” I said in a panic.
He was silent for a minute and then he turned to me with all the confidence in the world. “We’ll be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Cap
“Goddamnit!” I slammed the door to the SUV that Alec showed up in to drive me back to Reed Security. “What the fuck is he thinking? He kidnapped a woman!”
“Boss, you knew that he was in love with her,” Alec shot me a sly grin.
“That does not justify kidnapping! What the fuck am I supposed to say to those old ladies?”
“I think the better question is how did he find your vehicle so fast and get away?”
“No shit. It’s not just dumb luck that he came across my SUV in the parking lot. He had help.”
“Look, it’s not the first time that one of us has gone off the rails over a woman.”
“Not like this,” I said angrily.
“Okay, I just want to point out that Sinner quit his job over a woman. Cazzo practically got Vanessa killed when he disobeyed protocols. You stuck a tracker in your woman, and you keep knocking her up just to keep her out of trouble.”
“That’s not why I’m knocking her up.”
He snorted and headed back for Reed Security. “Keep telling yourself that. And then we have Knight,
who was the ultimate stalker. You think Craig’s lost it? Knight was way worse and you know it. And then Derek, well, I guess he didn’t really do anything. Hunter, well, he took after his buddy, Knight. And then there’s Chris. He started a fucking gang war over his woman. And Ice was just a dumb fucker. Lola, she’s good. Probably the only sane one of us all. And let’s not forget how I got shot in the chest. Not that that was Burg’s fault, but he disobeyed protocols also. Chance started a war with human traffickers and got himself and his woman taken. Jackson is pretty normal. Gabe is probably the most disturbed mother fucker of any of us.”
“And let’s not forget that you broke a man’s neck when you thought Florrie was killed.”
“See? You get it. So Craig’s lost it and kidnapped his woman. Seriously, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“See, it’s sentences like that that make me fucking hate my job. I could make a whole fucking list of things that could go wrong with kidnapping a woman. One of which is us having the reputation of not protecting our clients.”
“But, she was never our client. This can still work in our favor, Cap.”
I stared at him for a minute, completely baffled by his line of thinking. “Have you all lost your goddamn minds? What he did is a punishable offense. If she presses charges when, no, if she comes home, we’re all fucked.”
“It’s not gonna happen, Cap. I’m telling you. He loves that woman and by the time they come home, she’s gonna be singing his praises.”
“You’d better fucking hope so, or we’re gonna all be living on the same fucking land with no fucking jobs and our wives running around wild. Take a minute to really think that one through.”
His eyebrows furrowed for a minute and then he turned to me with a steely expression. “We have to find that fucker and bring him home.”
“No shit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Craig
I couldn’t believe Cap actually came after me. What a load of bullshit. I always had his back, but this was the second time that he didn’t have mine. And I didn’t want to hear any of that crap about me going rogue. I was taking my woman, just like every other man that worked at Reed Security. So, my methods were less than conventional. Look at Knight. That guy was more of a stalker than I would ever be.
“Where are we headed?” Reese asked for the tenth time.
“Same destination. Just a different route to get there.”
“But, won’t they be waiting for us?”
Damn, my woman wasn’t just some dumb blonde that sat back and let me do all the work. She was a thinker, which normally I would be grateful for, but it would nice if right now she was the dumb blonde so I could pull off my plan without worrying about her catching on.
“So, if they knew we would be at the airport, they probably know where we’re headed. And assassins are smart, right? I mean, they wouldn’t just go around killing random people. They need to know which people to shoot and where they’ll be. Why aren’t you freaking out about this?” she practically screamed.
“Because I’m trained for this type of stuff.”
And thank God for that. If I wasn’t, there would be no way I would escape Reed Security. I just hoped that Becky didn’t rat me out. She was the one that bought the tickets for me. If they knew where we were going, there was no doubt in my mind that they would try to intercept us. I just had to stay one step ahead of them. They didn’t know my exact destination.
“So, what’s your favorite color?” I asked, trying to get to know my future wife.
“Really? You want to know my favorite color?”
“Of course.”
“Blue.”
“Favorite animal?” She sighed and stared out the window. “That’s okay. I can talk about myself all day. My favorite animal is a Koala. I mean, they’re so cute and cuddly, but they can be surprisingly violent.” She still didn’t say anything. “Not so much koala-on-koala violence. They’re usually pretty mild mannered toward each other, but they have been known to go after humans.”
Still she didn’t say anything, so I just continued talking.
“Favorite food?” Crickets… “Me personally, I like pizza. Any kind of pizza, but I really hate mushrooms. I mean, it’s fungus. Who eats that shit? Same goes for fish. I mean, that shit stinks. And when I picture people eating caviar, I picture someone shoving their fingers up a woman’s-”
“Stop! I don’t need to hear any more of your thoughts on caviar.”
“Okay.” I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel, trying to come up with something that could snag her attention. “So, how many guys have you fucked?”
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