Trusting Lucas
Page 6
“I agree,” Dylan said with a nod.
He wasn’t a damned hero. He did his job. That was it.
And with trouble potentially brewing with his old case, they may not be as lucky as they think to invite him in.
“I can’t commit to that.”
Zane’s dark, serious gaze pinned him. “What?”
“I got a call the other day from my DEA contact. He couldn’t give me specifics, but he said something’s brewing.”
“With which case?” Dylan asked.
“Sorelli,” Lucas said, blowing out a breath and turning his attention to Zane. “And Aaron Stern is dead.”
Cole let out a low whistle. “Coincidence?”
“Who the fuck knows, but I’m not taking any chances,” Lucas said, jamming a hand through his hair as frustration surged through his blood. “Which is why I’m also ducking your sister for now.”
Zane’s demeanor shifted in a second. His shoulders tightened as his spine shot ramrod straight. He turned to Lucas, his smooth, ominous motion more machine than human.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Zane asked, a dangerous warning in his clipped voice.
“Uh-oh, a wolf’s been in the hen house,” Cole said, earning an elbow in the ribs from Evan.
“I didn’t know there was going to be an encore,” Slyder said.
“She didn’t tell you about—you know what—never mind,” Lucas said. Why would she have told him? It’s not like they were chummy siblings that shared shit. At least, not anymore. Hell, if anything, Chloe shot barbs at Zane every chance she got. But Lucas figured that maybe with this newfound peace of hers, she might have worked on that situation with her family.
Apparently not.
Zane shook his head, his jaw hard. “Spill it, Burke.”
Slyder, Dylan, Cole, Evan, and Jake all backed up to the table, their hands in their pockets, grins on their faces, just waiting for the show.
He was the outsider here and just how much Zane knew should be up to Chloe. Lucas shook his head. “You should talk to your sister.”
“I’m talking to you. What the fuck is going on?”
Lucas shrugged. “Chloe and I are friends.”
Cole snorted, earning a sharp glare from Lucas.
“Why would that be an issue?” Zane asked.
Yeah, he had backed himself right into a corner. This right here was exactly why he tended to be a quiet guy. A listener. It was damn hard to get in trouble when you kept your mouth shut.
“She wants us to be good friends.” Okay, so putting it all on her might have been a dick move, but she is the one who called it a relationship. He walked away the first time and pretty much did the second time. Until her little bait and switch trick which earned her more of the blame.
“And what the fuck do you want?”
Lucas stayed stubbornly silent. A part of him owed Zane the truth. The guy had welcomed him into his home and life despite the fact that Lucas had spent days helping hold his sister captive.
But the other part didn’t owe Zane shit.
This belonged to him and Chloe. They understood each other in a way no one else could and that he wouldn’t share with anyone, not even her brother. It was too hard to admit to themselves at times, too intimate, and made them too vulnerable to people who couldn’t possibly understand.
Chloe was a big girl. She’d been to hell and back more times than most, and she’d found a way out of the darkness. If he and Chloe wanted to take this attraction between them to the next level, it was nobody’s goddamned business but theirs.
Yeah, he was fucking drawn to her, but at the same time, if some plan to take him out was in the works from behind steel bars, he sure as hell wouldn’t do anything to put her in the line of fire. But he set that aside, for now, because the pressing issue was to make sure Zane understood that this was not up to him.
“I want her safe so when the time comes, if the time comes, Chloe and I can figure that out.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking, Crew,” he said, taking a step in Zane’s direction, willing to stand toe to toe with him.
Before he’d walked her home from Zane’s that night, he knew her. He knew her heart, and he did everything in his power to make sure she stayed alive for those kids she loved so much. Yes, Zane rescued her, but he wouldn’t have made it out of there without Lucas’s help.
And if Lucas hadn’t taken that hit with the needle, putting his sobriety at risk, neither he nor Chloe would be here. Sorelli would have killed him, and she would have been tortured and succumbed to whatever brutality they decided to inflict on her.
He’d held that woman in his arms for hours on end, talking to her, making her promise to fight back. Vowing to give his last breath if it meant saving her. The bond between them became even stronger than the one he had with his SEAL team.
His loyalty lies with her. Then and now.
And that meant he needed to stop shutting her out. She needed to be a part of the decisions. It meant telling her the truth about what was coming. He’d been just as wrong hiding out as Zane was trying to wield control.
Well, wasn’t that just a kick in the nuts.
“We’re adults, and we’ll do what we want. But first, I have to make sure my shit doesn’t spill over into her life. You want to help me with that, or is it up to me?”
From the corner of his eye, Lucas spotted five guys, their heads all swinging back in Zane’s direction.
“No one’s getting in her house that doesn’t belong there,” Zane bit out, his gaze darting away.
Lucas stilled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Zane’s jaw clenched. “She has security.”
“But she doesn’t know that, does she?” Lucas asked.
“She doesn’t need to know,” Zane said.
“Yes,” Lucas said quietly. “She does.”
“The less she worries about—”
“You tell her or I will, Zane. Going behind her back isn’t the way, just like I shouldn’t be hiding. The more I think about it, the more I know she needs to be a part of battling this. She’s always had people stepping in and taking over. Me included with trying to keep a distance between us. I was wrong, and so are you.”
His mind rewound to the night he walked Chloe home. To the kiss. To the security system Zane had created for New Hope. “The same system is in her house that you installed here, isn’t it? And I’m programmed in, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t realize you were going to take advantage and move in on my sister, or I wouldn’t have given you clearance.”
“Me make the move?” Lucas said, his nostrils flaring as he banked the thrum of anger simmering under the surface. “I haven’t gone beyond the threshold of her house, and I’ve been spending way more time than I needed to in these tunnels just so I could avoid her. She’s the one who came looking for me and mauled me right up there in the hallway.”
Zane scoffed. “I thought she was afraid of you.”
“Clearly not,” Cole said with a snort.
“Guy, shut up and let the men handle their business,” Evan muttered under his breath.
“She was more afraid of what she didn’t remember. She has some of that back now. If Sorelli’s finding a way to pull strings from the inside, he’s looking for me. I betrayed him.”
“You said you’ve kept your distance.”
“I have, but he’s not stupid. He knows I was…focused on Chloe. The DEA pulled me out of there less than an hour after you took Chloe. He’s damn well decided in his head one has everything to do with the other at this point, and I’m the reason he’s in jail. He’ll want my blood. And if he can’t get to me, he’s going to use those close to me.”
“So, if he can’t have you, he’ll take her? Is that what you’re telling me?” Zane demanded.
“There’s a chance, yes,” Lucas said, scratching his head. He’d prided himself on being a pretty smart guy, but the moving parts of this one depended u
“Damn,” Dylan muttered in the background. “And we thought our biggest problem was going to be the logistics of hosting a family night here.”
“Family night? When the hell was that supposed to happen?” Lucas asked, whirling on them.
Dylan shrugged and crossed his ankles. “Well, if you met the deadline, we were going to have it two weeks from now. Limited of course. A restricted celebration of finally being fully operational, a chance to give all of our investors a chance to see it on the inside, but now I wonder if we should just scrap it altogether.”
“No one will make it in here. It’s the safest place to be,” Zane pointed out.
“Apparently here and at Chloe’s,” Lucas muttered.
“Good thing, considering this new development, don’t you think? If Sorelli knows of your interest in her, it doesn’t matter if you stay away or not. She’s still at risk. She lives two houses down from where they kidnapped her the first time so finding her is easy. For all I know, they’re watching her now.”
Lucas remembered back to the way Chloe looked over his shoulder and dismissed it as paranoia. Maybe they were already watching her. If he stayed with her and shit turned sideways, he could surrender himself, and she’d be fine. But if they couldn’t find him, and all they could do was reach her, who knows what desperation would have them do.
“We need to get the kids out for a while.”
“They’re in school.”
“But they’re young. Any chance Grandma and Grandpa would be up for taking them on a trip?”
“One way to find out,” Zane said, pulling out his phone.
“Hold up. We talk to Chloe first,” Lucas said. “She might not be okay with any of this.”
Zane gave him a hard look but didn’t argue. Maybe Lucas was finally breaking through. “Fine. Tonight. Meet me at my place at eight. The kids will be in bed shortly thereafter, and we’ll talk to her.”
“We should move forward with family night. Like Zane said, inside is the safest place to be so why not. We can invite Tex, Wolf, Abe, all of the guys who’ve invested in this. They deserve to see what we’ve managed to put together. I saw this as being a five-year project when Jake approached us with it, but look at it. In just under a year and a half, we’re fully operational. Let them see what their money did,” Dylan said.
“They’re safer inside, but it’s the process of getting them in here that leaves them exposed,” Cole pointed out.
“If someone is after Lucas, do you think they’re going to waste their chance by taking a shot at some innocent family member checking in for a couple hours? Because once one shot rings out, it’s on. They’re going to want to make it a good one.”
“Well, that’s warm and fuzzy to think about,” Slyder said.
“But true,” Dylan said. “Plus, if we round up some of these guys, maybe they can give us a hand getting a handle on the Sorelli situation, you know, if the authorities can’t seem to keep it contained.”
“I hate to admit it, but he’s right,” Jake said. “Really, how long are we supposed to hang back and put things on hold because Sorelli ‘might’ do something. What if he never manages to gather enough power on the outside to get his revenge? Are we supposed to make all of our decisions now, six months from now, a year from now, five years from now based on what he might or might not decide to do when he’s sitting in maximum security?”
“No,” Evan said, crossing his arms. “We’ve actually had to turn away business. I’ll be damned if I’m going to have to turn away more so we can have time to hash out what-ifs. Do any of you want to turn Fierce into that?”
The roomful of guys shook their heads.
“So let’s get Chloe up to speed and get the kids safe. Maybe Vic will get in touch sooner rather than later with good news, and we can call off all of this contingency planning.” Lucas offered a hand to Zane, knowing the guys would be on board, and if anyone was going to be a hard-ass, it would be Chloe’s brother.
Zane looked at his hand, his lips thin and tight, but the minute his eyes sank shut, Lucas knew he was in.
Zane took his hand and leveled a hard stare at him. “If you hurt her, I don’t care what you did to save me, your ass is mine.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Lucas said with a laugh while clapping him on the back.
Chapter 6
Chloe had just sat her butt on the couch with a bowl of butter pecan ice cream when Kinsley’s telltale light knock sounded on the door. She dropped by on occasion for a glass of wine after the kids went to bed, but Chloe had no interest in wine tonight.
Nope.
She wanted ice cream and the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. She needed to wallow in some immature teenage revenge vibes. Just two hours to banish Lucas the sewer rat from her mind so she didn’t spend one more night tossing and turning with the haunting memory of his scent.
Those faint memories, innocent as they were, only had her wondering what it would be like if they came together under relatively normal circumstances. Skin to skin. Mouth to mouth. Frantic need to frantic need.
“The butthead,” she muttered, setting down her bowl. She yanked open the door and started to spill her guts without even saying hi. “I’m not good company tonight. I’ve blown right past wine to ice cr—” The words died on her lips as three sets of eyes blinked back at her.
Kinsley with Zane towering over her on her left and the sewer rat that had her all tied up in knots towering over her on her right.
“Oh, this can’t be good,” Chloe muttered, stepping back to let them in.
“We need to talk about a few things,” Zane said with a hand to Kinsley’s lower back as he ushered her ahead of him.
“Well, just come right on in, but keep it down; the kids are sleeping.” She shot a hand out and flattened her palm against Lucas’ chest.
His rock-hard chest. The shit.
“Not so fast, sewer rat,” she said, stepping in front of him. “Where the hell have you been?”
His lips twitched, making her want to bite him. “Working.”
Uh-huh. “And avoiding me.”
He nodded. “And avoiding you, yes.”
“So, what changed that you wound up at my door, with my brother no less?” she asked, tossing her head in said brother’s direction.
His hands slid along the sides of her neck, those long fingers tangling under the back of her hair even as his thumbs grazed the soft skin under her jaw and tilted her mouth up to his.
Goosebumps burst out over her skin, and she shivered right before he kissed her, his mouth warm, firm, and in complete control. And here she thought she was Cat from 10 Things, but nope, she totally turned into Bianca and rolled onto her back, exposing her soft underbelly.
Zane cleared his throat, but Lucas just pushed a little more, went a bit deeper, and took his dear sweet time ending the moment. Even when he did, he took one last opportunity to press a gentle kiss to her forehead before letting her go completely.
Would he always do that? That little sign off where he privately paid homage to their rough beginning? God, she hoped so because that one simple, sweet gesture meant more than flowers, chocolates, or diamonds.
“We have a problem,” he said quietly, taking a step back. “But first, your brother has something to tell you.”
Zane dropped down to the edge of the couch looking a little…uncertain. A look she hadn’t seen on his face since high school. Hell, she didn’t even realize it was possible for him to feel that emotion anymore. He seemed to walk through the world ready to take on everyone and everything. Confident that he was almost always right.
Zane shook his head and flinched. “God, I can’t believe you two are—”
Lucas gave him a look, and Zane’s mouth snapped shut.
“I’m going to need to know how you did that. After you guys tell me what’s got you all looking like—well—that,” she said, waving a hand in their direction.
“You’re sure the kids are asleep?” Kinsley asked.
“Yup, passed right out early. Grace had them outside playing for a couple hours today. So…get on with it.” She did good to not freak out, although, glancing down, she had crossed her arms so tight she looked like she might be trying to keep herself from bursting into a million pieces. They were all so calm. Careful to keep their voices down. Not looking her directly in the eye for longer than a few seconds.
“First, I have something to tell you,” Zane said, flashing an irritated glare at Lucas. “Before you moved in, I had this house outfitted with security.”
“News flash. I might have lost a bit of oxygen on my way to the hospital when you rescued me, Zane, but I can see that,” she said with a pointed look at the wall by the door.
“Not just that. With this.” He took out his phone, swiped a few keys, and plunged the room into darkness. Her breath caught. She hated the dark. She slept in lamplight. So did her kids. Not that he could have known that. Just as she opened her mouth to say something, blue, red, and yellow lasers shot through the room. After crisscrossing several times and dancing along the walls, they finally landed on their skin, traveling over the curve of their shoulders, the slant to their faces, and up over the tops of their heads. Zane did something on his phone, and they winked out, and the living room lit back up.
She dug her fingernails into the arms of the chair and glanced around. “What the hell were those?”
“Heat-seeking identifying lasers. The same ones in New Hope. The only reason you don’t know about them is that you were scanned the first time you went up there when you checked in. You didn’t even know it was happening. No one does,” Zane said.
“What do they do?”
“They measure height, weight, details of your face, the measurements between contours, even your body mass index. Basically, they’re designed to identify an intruder. Fierce hired me to design a system that kept the residents of New Hope safe without them feeling like they were locked in some sort of prison.”
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