Vince dropped his head into his hands and blew out a rough breath. “Yeah. If you don’t mind.”
I got out of bed and rushed through brushing my teeth and throwing on leggings and a T-shirt. I slipped my feet into my shoes and then I was ready. “Is Lauren okay?”
“Not even a little bit.”
We got in his truck and drove. He drove fast and I wanted to be able to say it scared me, but I could tell he was in complete control. He was always in control. His phone rang when we were almost there and I listened as his voice grew harder and harder.
“Where is it?” He waited. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Make sure everyone stays the fuck out of the office.”
I waited until the phone was down and he did a fast U-turn. “What is it, Vince?”
“There’s a pipe bomb at the office. Most likely courtesy of Frank Porter. It’s his style. Crude and cheap. I’m taking you back home.”
“What?” My heart started racing and I sat up, gripping the dash. “No. Fuck. We’re almost there. Just take me. This is my fault anyway.”
“I’m not taking you. It’s too dangerous.”
“You’re going.”
“I’m trained.”
“You’re wasting time, Vince. Just go to the office!”
He swore and then turned back around. Luckily, there wasn’t much traffic on the road. What little there was stayed out of his way. “This is a bad plan.”
“Every fucking plan is a bad plan right now.”
Two minutes later, we were squealing to a stop a block from the office. The rest of their team was there. I didn’t recognize two of the men, but by the way Vince greeted them, I could tell that they were the men he thought of as brothers.
Tucker was there and he looked surprised to see me. “What’s Cookie doing here?”
Vince shook his head. “Keep her safe. I’m going in.”
I jerked around to face him. “What?”
“I’m trained. They’re not. I’m going in to dismantle it. Stay with them. Don’t run off, Carolina.”
Lauren stepped out of a truck that was parked at the back of the line of their vehicles and moved towards us. She looked a mess. Her eyes were red and she looked like she was seconds away from breaking down.
I wanted to help her, but I was also reeling from knowing that Vince was going in with a bomb to poke around at it. “Is that safe? Shouldn’t you call in the police? They have bomb squads and stuff like that. Right?”
“Where is it?” He was ignoring me.
“Front of the office. On a chair in the front. The alarm went off and they must not have been able to get it in any farther.”
“This shouldn’t take long.” Vince popped his neck and started moving away. There was something in his step that hadn’t been there before. Determination, but also something else. He wasn’t dreading what he had to do.
With the realization that dismantling a bomb was exciting for him came the unyielding realization that I’d made a bigger mistake than I thought with him. I’d thought I could just have a little bit of fun with him and then walk away, but I should’ve known better. He was enigmatic. There was something between us, chemically or whatever, that was like a force, pushing us together. Of course, spending time with him in a dangerous situation would escalate things. Spending the night in his bed when we hadn’t gone on a date would escalate things.
That I was surprised that an attachment was forming was dumb. I’d put myself in a high-risk situation with a man I couldn’t keep my hands off of. I’d put myself in a situation that would only end poorly for me.
It was obvious that Vince was some kind of adrenaline junkie. He got off on scary situations that traumatized normal people. People like me. He took chances that were terrifying and he did it with a smile on his face. Even if he suddenly changed his mind and decided that he wanted to be with me for longer than a week or two, he was too dangerous. He was going to get himself killed one day and then I’d have to deal with the consequences of falling for a man who only cared about that next high.
I’d seen women I worked with fall for men who already had their first love in the form of whatever addiction they possessed. Whatever addiction possessed them. It never ended well.
Vince liked taking risks. Risks that were too scary for me to mess around with.
“Want to come sit with me?” Lauren’s quiet voice came from beside me, and when I looked over at her, she had tears in her eyes.
Snapping myself out of my own dramatic reverie, I wrapped my arm around her and walked her back to the truck. I helped her in and then got in on the passenger side.
“Vince told you Mercer is gone?”
I nodded.
“He’s not coming back. He’s just given up.” She let her tears fall freely. “He’s not going to try to fight to clear his name. He didn’t even say goodbye.”
I pulled my feet under me in the seat and turned to face her. “Vince made it seem like he didn’t have a choice.”
“He didn’t even say goodbye. We’ve been together every day for years. Years. I nursed him back to health after he lost his leg, after my brother died. I’ve been there with him through everything. And he cares so little about me that he just walks away without saying anything.”
I reached over and took her hand. “You love him.”
She sobbed. “Of course I love him. I’m in love with the fucking idiot. He only sees me as a kid sister, though. I can even accept that! I don’t like it, but if that’s how he feels, then fine. But he didn’t even say anything. I just came in and he wasn’t here. Then the cops show up, and they tell me that they tried to arrest him and he resisted and then got away.”
“Oh, Lauren. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m going to go after him.” She wiped at her face and straightened up. “I’m going to find him and kick his ass for doing this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. He can’t run and hide from me. That’s not how this works. I’m going to find him and let him know what a colossal fuck-up he made.”
“By running?”
“By running. By never seeing me as enough for him. By shutting me out and never letting me in when I’ve given him every part of me.”
I looked out the window, towards the way Vince had gone. “These aren’t easy men, are they?”
She followed my gaze and snorted. She’d lost all semblance of the put-together woman I knew from yoga. “Hardly. Yet, some women manage them. Vince, though… You’re in for it, if you’re planning on going that way.”
I shook my head. “I’m not.”
“He’s just as scarred from what happened as the rest of them. They’re all fucked up in their own way. Vince just keeps everyone away.”
“And it seems he gets off on risking his life.”
“This? This is nothing.” She blew her nose. “This at least has a purpose. He’s always getting into bar fights and going on these crazy trips to do crazy shit. He takes chances that have no real purpose, besides the chance itself.”
I took my hair down and busied myself with braiding it, needing something to focus on besides Vince getting himself killed.
“They’re all good men. They’re just… stupid at times.”
Chapter 20
Vince
If I’d thought that I was getting some kind of hero’s welcome when I got back out to Carolina, I was wrong. After dismantling the crude bomb, I got rid of it and then got back outside to find her cold and distant. I figured she was just scared, so I let her be.
When we all got inside the office, after a complete check of the building, she was still distant. She sat down in one of the chairs in the office and looked up at me. “This was for sure Frank?”
“Yeah. Camera caught one of his goons leaving the bomb.”
She nodded and firmed her jaw. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this office or anyone in it getting involved. It’s my mess and I caused it.”
I sat d
own next to her. “It’s not your fault. He did this. He must’ve recognized me or looked me up and connected you to Black Dog.”
“I’m tired of hiding and running. I want to go back home and live my life.” She met my eyes and the look in hers was so final that I felt something in my stomach flutter. “I’m tired of reacting to him. I want him to react to me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I want to go on the offensive. I want to come for him. This isn’t going to stop. I was stupid to think that he’d just forget about me one day and go on with his life. He has to go. Jail or hell.”
I sat back in the chair, shocked by her attitude. I knew she was as gentle as a kitten inside. She still had nightmares about killing Donnie Porter. I could hear her every time she fell asleep, even if she didn’t wake up screaming. She whimpered. She didn’t have it in her to attack anyone.
On the other hand, though, I’d just had to dismantle a bomb inside a space that was supposed to be safe, the morning after Mercer went on the run. Something had to give. I didn’t feel like we could sort the shit out with Mercer as easily as I could find and kill Porter, so that swayed me into agreeing with Carolina.
“Okay.”
She rolled her neck and sat forward. “What do we do?”
I had an idea of how to get him out, but I didn’t like it. The easiest way would be to use her as bait to lure Porter in and then take him and his men out. There were too many chances, though. She could get hurt.
Lauren screaming into her phone snatched my attention away. “You can come to our office. I’m not coming down there and sitting in your dingy little shithole after everything you’ve done to Mercer and this office. Fuck you, you scumbag.”
She slammed the phone down and glared at it. “Fucking Detective McHale. He requests our presence to talk about where Mercer ran to. He thinks we know where he is. After all, we’re his family—right?”
I winced. Mercer had done a number. I could understand him running. I couldn’t understand him not manning up and taking Lauren with him, though. Or at least telling her that he was leaving.
Cooper, Tucker, and Branson moved around the office, trying to calm Lauren down and make sense of our schedule with clients. It’d actually helped that we’d lost the Ghering job, but we were still all supposed to be somewhere, doing something.
Everything was chaotic and I had to be able to focus on the office. That meant ending things with Porter as quickly as possible. I swore and pulled Carolina to her feet. We had a plan to put together and I wasn’t sure either of us was going to like it very much. I needed to be able to focus, though. I needed to be able to make sure that nothing was going to happen to her.
“We’re going. We have to handle this shit with Porter. You three focus on shit here. I’ll take care of this as fast as I can.”
Tucker frowned. “You sure, man? We can put the office on hold and help.”
At that moment, Lauren answered another call. “I already told you, McHale. We’re not coming to you. We’re busy since you’ve framed and run off one of our men. You want to talk to us, you come here.”
I nodded at Tucker. “I’ve got this. Everyone needs to be focused on the office and on making sure we don’t go under while figuring this out. I’ll be back as soon as I get this over with.”
I saw Carolina wince, but I didn’t have time to worry about her feelings in that moment. There was too much shit happening at once. I took her arm and pulled her out after a quick goodbye to Lauren. We had to get Frank Porter taken care of, and fast. No matter how.
Carolina was quiet on the way back to the house. Silent, actually. She was obviously upset about everything, but we had a job to do. I’d figure the rest out after everything calmed down.
Back at my house, I cleared the dining-room table of the mess my family had left the night before and sat down with her. “We have to keep it quick and simple.”
She nodded. “Just tell me what to do.”
“We have to get Porter out and away from the public eye. I’m thinking that your house is private enough that it would take a little bit for the cops to be called and for them to get there. His men have already gone there once.”
“How do we get him there?”
I swallowed and fought back every protective urge I had. “We lure him there… with you.”
She closed her eyes for a few seconds and when she opened them, they were colder than ever. I thought she would fight, or at least argue, but she just nodded. “Fine. I’m bait.”
“I don’t want to do it this way, but—”
“It’s fine. Let’s just figure out how to let Frank know that I’m there.” She pulled her hair out of the braid she’d put it in and then piled it on the top of her head. “And how to keep me from dying, because I have plans that don’t include being dead.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“That’s the thing. You can’t tell me that for sure. You don’t think anything’s going to happen to me, but really you don’t know. It’s a chance you’re willing to take to get this all over with.” She stood up and walked towards the bedroom. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“Carolina—”
She spun around and glared at me. “Vince. Just tell me what to do. I need to focus. I don’t want to talk about anything else. I don’t want anything else.”
I got the message loud and clear. She wanted me to keep my fucking hands to myself. She was pissed. I groaned and ran my hands over my hair. Everything was a fucking mess, but I just had to get through it. It’d be okay on the other side.
***
What a stupid fucking plan. It was going to work, though. Because Porter was a stupid fucking man. I’d purposely driven by the front of Carolina’s house a few times, checking to be sure we were seen and that there was no one inside, waiting on her. Then I stopped the truck in front and looked over at her.
“You’ll be okay. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Carolina.”
She shrugged. “What do you care?”
“Carolina!” I tried to reach for her, but she was already out of the truck and running up the path to her house. I watched her open the front door and slam it behind her. “Fuck!”
She was more than pissed. She was hurt. I could practically smell it radiating off of her. It probably seemed like I didn’t give a shit about her, being willing to use her as bait. She had to know that I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her, though. I couldn’t.
Still, though. I didn’t like the plan. If I didn’t have to hurry up and get Porter off of our plate, I would never have considered it.
I parked as far away as I could without leaving her alone for too long and then hurried back to the rear of her house. It was dark out and I was in all black, hidden from anyone moving by in a gap beside Carolina’s house. Her neighbor would have to open her window and stick her head completely out with night-vision goggles on to see me.
A window closest to the back of the house was open, like I’d instructed Carolina to do, and I could hear her moving around inside. I could also hear her crying. It was light, but it was a kick to the gut.
She was probably scared and feeling alone. Every time a car drove by, I could hear her let out a little gasp. She’d only gone along with the plan because I’d asked her to. If anything happened to her, it was on me. Completely.
A couple of hours passed and I was starting to get antsy when a car slowed down in front of the house. It didn’t stop, but it crept by slowly enough to let me know that they were most likely looking at the house.
Fifteen minutes later, it crept by again, the same low rumble of an expensive car giving it away. The third go round, it pulled around the back of the house and stopped. A door quietly shut and the back steps of Carolina’s porch creaked under someone’s weight.
I leaned forward, getting ready to attack, when I heard movement from behind me. I jerked around just in time to see someone bringing a gun down
towards my head. It clipped me on the shoulder, but the man was instantly on me.
I swore, angry that I hadn’t heard him sneaking up, and furious that someone was getting into the house with Carolina at that moment. I fought hard and had the guy on the ground, incapacitated, in under thirty seconds. Then there was another man. And another.
With every blow I took and gave, the fear that Carolina had been right not to trust me increased. My plan had been stupid. A desperate plan for a desperate man. A man who’d incidentally put his business over his woman.
I fought hard, but it seemed like every time I took one of them out, another one showed up. I couldn’t get away to get to Carolina.
The first scream of hers that I heard caused me to pause and take a hit to the gut hard enough to send me to my knees. If any part of me had been stupid enough to believe that the men were focusing only on me, I knew then that that was wrong. They were inside with her. They were hurting her.
I fought back up to my feet and took out another man. The sound of flesh hitting flesh came from the open window, followed by another scream from Carolina. The sound of something hitting the ground hard and then no more screams.
I fought my way out, just in time to see a black car peeling away. I knew Carolina was inside. They’d taken her and it was my fault. I ran hard and fast to my truck, set on following, but they were gone. I couldn’t find them. I couldn’t find a trace of them. While I’d gone for my truck, the men I’d taken out had even been scooped up and removed.
Frank Porter had run an efficient and clean mission to get Carolina. I’d just given her to him like a present on a silver platter.
Chapter 21
Cookie
The elbow I’d taken to the face had hurt, but the hit that’d been delivered right to my nose and mouth had knocked me out. I woke up tied up in the back of a car, who knew how much later, and there was no sign of Vince, anywhere. Frank had me.
I fought against my restraints and a hand landed on the back of my head. Hard.
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