by Dale Mayer
This asshole, Tom, she’d only known one side of him. And he didn’t understand the people he was working with. There was money involved and that was all he cared about.
Sad.
But, oh so damn typical. As far as she was concerned, he deserved everything he had coming to him. Did he even realize what the others were up to? How could anyone who’d fought for his country let something like this happen? Or did he have some kind of foolish concept he’d be able to stop it in time. Save the country and get kudos for his part in it all.
“How the hell is she still conscious?”
Tom walked over from the other side of the room. “Her father is the same damn type of stubborn.”
She lifted her head and glared at him.
He smirked. “And the same kind of stupid.”
Her defiance was short lived. She slowly lowered her head but still kept an eye on them.
“What if she doesn’t actually have anything to tell us.”
“Then she’s useless. But she knows something, and whatever it is has to be major or else she’d have told us a long time ago.”
The other men looked at each other behind his back. She’d wondered at the undercurrents. As if the others were only letting Tom believe he was the boss. She didn’t get the politics in this little game they were playing, but she suspected Tom was bankrolling it, and when they were done with him, he was expendable – moneyman or not.
“It couldn’t be too important.”
“Whoa, hold on. We’ve been checking the other people in her little community she’s close to. And there’s a best friend. Eva Loring. Eva’s brother is a SEAL.”
Silence.
Her heart sinking, she was desperate not to let on that their news meant anything. If she showed by even the slightest reaction they were on to something, she’d become expendable and worse, they’d know who else to target.
“What’s the chance the brother was actually there at the time?” The driver of the black truck, she thought his name was Dave, turned to Tom. “You said you checked out the men who she was with, and they were of no consequence.”
“They weren’t,” Tom said casually. “SEALs are an overrated group of military muscles minus the brains.”
Wow. Mia hoped there were SEALs listening. They’d make sure he paid for that. And what was his beef with them anyway?
“But they have connections and power we don’t need. It also means that if they know Mia, they are likely to come after her.”
“So?” Tom shrugged. “They are nothing.”
“You’re wrong,” Dave said. “If you have brought them to our door…”
Tom spun to glare at Dave. “Then what? Then you’ll kill them just like you’ve killed so many others before them. I want Gordon’s land. You want your little deal here. We are already done, so it’s not an issue. Dump her. See if I care. I hadn’t expected you to bring her here in the first place. Once I realized you had her I wanted to know what she knew. But now…” he shrugged. “Kill her.”
Dave nodded in Mia’s direction, and she knew they were coming to a turning point she wasn’t going to like. “Kill her yourself.”
*
Hawk watched the scenario in the brightly lit warehouse. There were enough holes in the plank walls for anyone to see inside. And what he saw was making him crazy. Mia was there but he was behind her. She’d been tied to a chair where she sat, her head slumped to the side as if she were unconscious. Blood dripped to the floor. His jaw clenched. They’d pay for hurting her.
“That’s what you guys are here for,” the man in jeans and suit jacket said.
Hawk could see his face but didn’t recognize him. Although he had to be from Canford if he was trying to acquire Gordon’s land.
“You’re not in for the cause. Just your own cause.”
“Remember who paid for all this.” Tom narrowed his gaze, his hands going to his hips.
Hawk watched the expressions roll across the men’s faces as they wiggled within their power hierarchy. He wondered if the “boss” had any idea he wasn’t anything close to being a boss. That he was expendable and likely here and now.
“She can identify you as well, so you’ll have to kill her. She’s your problem.”
Hawk’s gaze caught on the large table on the left with a tangle of electrical cables and connectors. Timers. Shit. They needed a team here. Now. But Mia didn’t have the time. He slid down the long wall looking for another peephole.
From the new position, his gaze swept the room. And landed on Mia’s face.
God damn it.
She’d been pulverized.
Why? She didn’t know anything.
“She was supposed to tell us who she was with. Who rescued her? Who we were up against?”
“Well, she didn’t. Now she’s past the point of being able to. So get rid of her.”
They were dead. That was all there was to it. He didn’t give a damn about protocol and procedure and justice. These men had beaten an innocent women into hamburger. He was going to take them out. He’d do it for any woman, that it was Mia? Sweet gentle, brave Mia who hadn’t given them up…made his blood boil.
From all the times he’d met her, watched her with her father, listened to his own sister go on and on about her best friend, Hawk understood she was so damn afraid of not being good enough, that she took special care to be the best she could be. To learn more to help out. To be so much better because she was afraid she was so far away from decent. In truth, she was much better than everyone. Always had been. He’d watched her stop to help a crying child, carry groceries for an older man. She was always there, always around. Always in the background.
Damn.
Where was Shadow? Being a shadow, of course was something he was damn good at. Going unseen in the most dangerous places. He caught a movement from the corner of his eye and realized Shadow was inside the warehouse. Shit. He shifted so he could watch the others, see if they noticed his presence. But they were caught in their own power-play.
As he watched, the other man opened up the back of the van parked to the left. Hell. The van was full. The man called to someone and yet a fourth male came over and helped load up boxes. From his position, Hawk couldn’t see enough to be useful. He ran down the side of the building. Where had Shadow gone? He couldn’t see him. As the two men finished loading the van, they called over to the arguing men. “Loaded.”
One of the two men who’d been loading walked to the boss, pulled out a gun and shot him in the head.
He crumpled silently to the floor.
“About damn time. Stupid ass. You could have done that an hour ago and saved me the stress.”
“He’s an idiot. We had to check he’d sent the last payment. We’ve just got confirmation that the money is in the bank.”
Shit. Hawk knew that meant they had money and that meant a hell of a lot of freedom.
“And her?”
“Toss her into the river. Should have shot her in the damn hospital parking lot. Waste of time and energy. Fix the mistake.”
And he turned back to loading more things into the van.
“We shouldn’t throw them both into the river at the same time. The cops will connect the two incidents.”
The other men nodded. “Get rid of the prick,” he sniggered. “Keep her until morning. We’ll throw her out tomorrow.”
Like a sack of garbage. Hawk struggled to contain the rage boiling through his blood. She had more bravery than any of these assholes. There’s no way he was letting anything else happen to her.
She wasn’t going to die like this.
“Not going to happen.” Hawk slipped around to the side where the men were busy dragging the boss man to the far back. He could see a small trap door that opened to the water below.
“Weigh him down good. He can’t pop up until we’re long gone.”
“We can leave him here if you want. He’ll hold for half a day.”
“No, that’s just going to bring in
the rats. We don’t need that. Get rid of the body, just make sure it doesn’t show until we’re out of the country.”
Out of the country? Hawk quickly sent a text to Mason. As he lifted his gaze, the van drove away. He raced to the side to catch the license plate, but it wasn’t visible. He took a picture anyway and sent it on. They needed to track that vehicle.
He’d seen four men. One was gone, possibly two. That left two men behind. And Mia.
Those were his kind of odds.
Chapter 14
The darkness rippled around her. She couldn’t think. Her mind flooded in a sea of darkness, and she just wanted this to be over. She was glad she’d spent time with her father before leaving. At least he’d be okay. Eva would miss her, but she’d be fine. No one else would know or care.
Now that the end was here, she was surprisingly good with it.
“Mia?”
The soft voice was warm against her ear. She was dead then. ’Cause that was Hawk’s voice. So sweet to take that across the great divide with her. Unless…her heart froze.
Unless he was dead too.
Moving her lips as little as possible, she whispered, “Are you dead too?”
“No. I’m not. Neither are you.”
“Yes, I am.” She reached up and stroked his beautiful face. “If you’re with me, I am. You’re too pretty to be with me any other way.”
He shook his head. “You’re not making sense. Don’t try to talk. You’re hurt. We’re getting you some help.”
“Help would be good. I do like to help.”
“No, we are getting help for you,” he stressed. “Not for you to help.”
She struggled to sort through the crazy confusion in her head. “Sorry, I’m not much good right now. They caught me,” she said in low tones. “I didn’t tell them anything.”
“What is she saying?” Shadow whispered beside them. “I can’t hear what she said.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” she mumbled in a louder voice. “They’ll come after you.”
“Good,” Hawk said. “Let them try.” He was behind her now, she could feel anger. She didn’t understand.
“You have to leave. You’ll get hurt.”
Her arms suddenly fell forward as if the ties had been cut. She cried out. But he had already cut the ties around her ankles and was swinging her up into his arms. She shuddered as her body still managed to react to the new position. To her nerves screaming as they bolted in awareness again.
“Easy. We’re getting you out of here.”
She closed her eyes. “Forget about me. Stop them. They are going to blow up the bridge.”
“We’ll stop them. You however, do matter. Get that into your head.”
She tried to smile, but her mouth hurt too much to move more than a wiggle.
“Don’t move, it’s making things worse.”
“Watch out for the men,” she whispered. “Don’t want them to get you.”
“We already took them out. They won’t be hurting anyone again.” He looked down at her and smiled. “How about you let someone else handle things for a while.”
He moved her gently into a vehicle of some kind. “I promise. Those two aren’t coming back ever again.”
There were sounds of an ambulance in the distance. Cops. Relief filled her. “Did you call them?”
“Yeah, we have a few dead men here to cart away and one heroine to save.”
“Not me. Not heroine material.”
Warm lips pressed against her forehead. “Definitely heroine material.”
People swarmed toward them.
She was laid down on a bed of some sort. “I’m fine. I just need to go to sleep for a while,” she protested sleepily.
“When the doctor says you’re fine then you can sleep, but in the meantime…”
Suddenly she was surrounded by people and noise. It was too much to sort out. A warm blanket was spread over her then straps went over top, and she sank into a peaceful oblivion.
As she went under, she reached out and grabbed for his hand. “Thank you.”
*
“Take good care of her,” Hawk ordered.
The ambulance driver nodded as he loaded Mia into the back of the ambulance. “She’s lucky to be alive.”
“I know.” Hawk glared at the chaos around him. The hunt was on for the van, but this place would be active all night with three dead men behind him. That left one driver to hunt down.
Shadow had kept out of the limelight. Now he approached Hawk. “You ready to move out?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t move though as he stared at the ambulance’s rearview lights disappearing into the distance. “Do we have eyes on the van?”
“Not yet.” Shadow was searching through his messages. “This place will garner us a lot of useable in-formation.”
“Not fast enough. That bomb is potentially ready to go.” Still he couldn’t pull himself away from where she’d been. The lights of the ambulance were long gone. Still, he stood there.
“Mason has a couple of leads. Come on.”
He spun to look at Shadow. “I’m going to go to the hospital. See how she is.”
Shadow nodded. “I’ll recon with Swede and swing by and pick you up.”
Getting away took a little longer than Hawk was prepared for. Still, he made it in just over a half hour to find the hospital teeming with bodies from a multi car pileup. It took a few moments for him to flag down a nurse to tell him where Mia had been taken only to find out she wasn’t at that hospital at all.
Worried, he raced out to the parking lot and called Shadow. “She’s not here.”
“Taken to a different hospital?” Shadow questioned. “If there’s a bad car accident, that’s possible.”
“Damn well better be. If we handed her over to the assholes…”
“There’s no reason for them to take her now. They’d have just killed her on the spot.”
He knew that. He was already in his Jeep driving toward the second hospital. “Call and see if she’s there.”
“On it.”
He was on the main drag, only blocks from the second hospital when Shadow called back. “She’s there.”
“Good.” He pulled up to the front and hopped out. He raced inside. And found her. She was in the first examining room. A nurse hovered over her.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Mia said, trying to sit up. “You’re supposed to be chasing bad guys.”
“We are but I needed to know how badly hurt you are.”
“Not,” she murmured.
Hawk caught the nurse’s gaze and she smiled. “We’re sending her for X-rays soon then we’ll know for sure.”
Right. He could have just called. But he’d needed to see her again. He bent down and whispered, “I might have to leave, but you call me if you need anything. You got that?”
Surprise lit her face. She murmured, “Thanks. But you go save the world.”
He grinned. “Will do. You save yourself, you hear me. Make sure you are healing by the time I get back.”
She stared at him, her gaze dark, fathomless. “Will you be back?”
He leaned over and kissed her. “I will.”
And he left.
Chapter 15
The X-rays clinched it. She was booked in the hospital and told to expect her stay to last for a few days. Now that she was in bed, medication pulsing through her veins, clean sheets and lots of water, all she wanted to do was sleep.
But her mind wouldn’t shut down. She wanted to go home. At least talk to her father. Let him know she was alive.
Did she have a cell phone any longer? The nurse walked in just then and she asked her.
“There is a phone. And your knife. They’re in a bag for you.” The nurse smiled at her. “I’ll put them on the side table.”
“No, bring it please. It’s not mine, it’s from the kidnappers.”
With a look of surprise the nurse hurried to a cupboard on the side and returned a few minutes
later with both items. As much as she wanted to call her father, it was the knife that interested her. She turned it over in her hands. And found the initials JF on the top corner. She didn’t know if that would help anyone or not. Initials weren’t terribly helpful. Besides, they already knew what the plan was. They needed to identify the assholes involved, but the initials weren’t going to help that much. Especially as he might have taken it off someone else. She opened the knife and pulled the blade all the way out. It was big and deadly sharp. A hunting knife. With dried blood in the hinge. Human or animal?
She picked up her phone and called Hawk. “Not sure it makes any difference, but I managed to steal a knife from one of the guy’s packs. I hadn’t had an opportunity to use it, but it was in my pocket at the hospital here. It’s got blood on it and the initials JF on the outside.”
“I’ll get someone to collect it. Keep it safe until they get there.” His voice deepened. “And you stay safe. Remember, we got this.”
She laughed as she hung up. “Yeah, he’s got this.”
With that happy thought, she dialed her father. “Dad?”
“Jesus, Mia, are you okay?”
“I am now,” and she burst into tears. Silly. After a few moments she managed to get a hold of herself and explain what happened.
“Oh my Lord. I’m so sorry baby. I should never have let Gerry back into our lives.”
“That might not have changed anything.” She told him about Tom wanting to buy the land. “Dad, I think there has to be a reason why he’s so adamant about the land.”
“It’s full of caves, but I have no idea why they’d care. I haven’t been down there in years. Last time wasn’t all that pleasant, so I just avoided it after that. Hell, it’s closer to fifteen years since I explored that area.”
“Maybe it’s full of guns too.”
“I doubt it. He was twisted and power hungry, but he was more money hungry.”
“Any chance of precious metals or minerals?”
“No idea. Honestly, he wasn’t all there with his get rich schemes. Now sure, he’s wealthy and all that, but it’s old family money. No idea if any of his ideas ever worked out.”