by Sybil Bartel
Then I fucked her until my balls drew tight.
No condom, ready to explode inside her and give her what she fucking asked for, I made a crucial mistake. I looked into her eyes.
My world collapsed.
I loved her.
I fucking loved her.
Pain, sharp and ruthless, crushed me from the inside out.
“Jesus,” I choked, grabbing her face. “Siren.” My knees buckled, my arms shook and it took everything I had not to let us fall to the ground. Burying my face in her neck, I felt her tight pussy spasm then clench around me as she came. Bracing myself with my forearms against the wall, I thrust two more times and simply let go.
I pulsed and pulsed inside her.
Breathing heavy, sweat running down my back, I couldn’t look at her. “You okay?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
Her fingers feathered across my shoulders and down my arms. “Yes.”
I hated myself.
Her soft lips touched my neck and her hand landed on my heart.
I jerked back and pulled out. Zipping my jeans up, I told myself this changed nothing.
“Talon?”
Fuck fuck fuck. “Yeah?” I buckled my belt with a shaking hand.
“Please look at me.” Breathless, worried, her voice put a vise grip on my heart.
Inhaling, I schooled my features and looked up.
Fuck.
Worried blue eyes met mine. “What just happened?”
“We fucked.” My voice sounded off.
“I meant after.”
I stepped back from her. “I need to get inside.”
She grabbed my hand and searched my face. “I felt that. I know you did, too.”
I said the first asshole thing that popped into my head that’d take the heat off me. “You should be worryin’ about your daughter, not me.”
Her expression shut down. “I am worried about her. I’ve worried about her for every second of every day for the past six months. I’ve worried myself until I got so sick, I couldn’t breathe. I live with an ache in my heart you can’t begin to imagine. But I can’t let that break me. If I did, what kind of a mother would I be? I have to be strong. I have to keep fighting. For her and for me.”
“Jesus fuck.” I rubbed a hand over my face. I really didn’t deserve this woman. She was a thousand times stronger than I’d ever be. “C’mon, let’s go find her.” I turned to go inside.
“I also worry about you,” she said quietly.
My head spinning, wondering how the fuck she flipped the tables like that on me, I walked into the house.
KENDALL SMIRKED AND ANDRÉ SMILED when I walked through the glass slider. Roark looked preoccupied like he always did and Neil studied me. Siren came in after me and she was either oblivious or ignoring the uncomfortable silence in the room. She excused herself and went to the guest room.
Kendall waited till her door closed then looked at me. “Guess someone kissed and made up. Or should I say fucked?”
I glared at her. “Take a walk, Kendall.”
“Jeez, not even sex calms the savage beast.” She rolled her eyes and disappeared into the other guest room.
André watched her ass the whole way then pulled a laptop out of his bag and sat at the dining table. “Okay, here’s what we got, which isn’t much.” Neil sat down but he was on his phone and Roark started unzipping the duffels. “I told you about the hit on Maddie’s social security number in Kentucky,” André continued. “I’m hoping it isn’t identity theft. Since there’s been no other activity, I’m going to assume it’s not. Nicole also told me that the day Stone took Maddie, he wasn’t alone and it got me thinking.”
“Hold up, how did Stone get at the kid in the first place?”
André frowned. “She didn’t tell you?”
I was an asshole. “I forgot to ask.”
He looked at me like I was on crack then shook his head and explained. “Randy was on his last deployment, Nicole was alone and Stone started coming around, offering help. He’d watch the kid, buy groceries, help her with shit around the house.”
“Doesn’t sound like Stone.”
“No kidding but she was a new mom and she was vulnerable. About a week before Randy came home, Stone came over and said he’d watch the kid so Nicole could run errands. Except when she got home, Stone was alone. He told Nicole if she called the cops, she’d never see Maddie again but if she was quiet and if Randy took care of some business for him when he got home, she’d get her back. Then he walked out. Nicole was so freaked, she tore the apartment apart and a neighbor called nine-one-one. Nicole was held for a seventy-two-hour psych evaluation at the hospital. Randy was notified and the Marines let him come home early but by then, Maddie was gone.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “So who was Stone with?”
“Nicole said when Stone walked out of the apartment, there was a woman in the car he got into. She was out of her mind upset, so she didn’t think to tell Randy about it until a week later. Randy asked around but no one was talking.”
This was so fucked-up, I almost couldn’t wrap my head around it. “And Randy didn’t go straight to the cops the second he was stateside?”
André gave me a look. “Would you?”
“Fuck. No.” Fine, I got it, but still. What a fucking asshole. Call some friends, corner Stone, beat it out of him, something. But six goddamn months?
“Nicole said Randy became hell-bent on getting back in with the LCs. He was convinced that if he was wearing a cut again, he could make one of the brothers talk and find out where the kid was.”
The pit of my stomach churned. “She could be anywhere by now.”
“She could be,” André agreed. “But I don’t think she is. I think she’s in Kentucky. Call it a gut feeling.”
“We need more than a gut feelin’.”
“I’m working on it.”
I ran my hand over my head. “So what did Stone want in exchange for the kid?”
André crossed his arms. “I can guess.”
Fuck, this ought to be good. “What?”
“Maldonado.”
“No fucking way.”
André held a hand up. “Hear me out. Six months ago, Maldonado took over operations when his uncle died.”
My jaw clenched. The uncle Blaze and I rescued Layna from. “This is too fuckin’ coincidental.”
“It is, but it isn’t,” André protested. “Maldonado was never the businessman his uncle was. Stone saw an opportunity to push his way in but he needed Maldonado dead and whoever did it had to be either suicidal or disposable because Maldonado’s men would retaliate and we both know how far that organization’s reach is.”
Maldonado’s uncle had stalked Blaze’s wife for three years, far was an understatement, but I still wasn’t convinced. I shook my head. “Stone couldn’t have known I would ask Candle for a favor.” I’d never even met Stone before two nights ago.
“I agree but you’re focusing on the wrong thing.” André pushed back in his chair. “Another inmate took out Maldonado and you could pass that off as the type of shit that goes down in lock-up but I looked into his visitor log. The day before, Randy visited the guy who shanked Maldonado. He was a known ally of the LCs.”
“We already know Randy set it up,” I reminded him.
“Yes, but we didn’t really look at why. Despite what you think about him, Randy did three tours, he worked for his money and he tried to hold on to his woman. On paper, he was a smart guy. Yet he doesn’t bother to conceal his visit to an inmate who commits a murder the next day? And when Maldonado’s people found out, according to my sources, he didn’t even deny it. That was suicide. Randy had every opportunity to throw blame, give Maldonado’s men your name, do something, but he didn’t. Why would he do that?”
It was obvious as fuck now. “Because he was taking the hit to save his daughter.” The fact that I’d asked Candle for the favor had only upped Stone’s timeline. Jesus. I might’ve unwittingly sent Randy to his d
eath. Rationally I knew this shit was set in motion long before I entered the picture but knowing what I knew now? Fuck. The irony was if Carter had come to me six months ago, I would’ve helped him.
“Your deal with Candle just happened to coincide.”
“But why’d Stone wait to kill him if that was his plan all along?”
“Believe it or not, Maldonado was easier to get at in jail. Outside, he was keeping a pretty heavy security detail.”
“Jesus, this is fucked-up.”
André nodded in agreement. “And it’s only the tip of the iceberg. The sniper and the two guns who went after Blaze and Layna on Sunset Key on their honeymoon? They weren’t related. The sniper was one of Maldonado’s men but the two guns were hired by a biker.”
“You sayin’ Stone wanted to off Layna?”
“Not directly. Stone’s been undermining Maldonado’s operations for months. I dug around and found out he intercepted payoffs and shipments and raided one of their weapons depots. He’s been going after anything he can get his hands on, like an animal toying with its prey before killing it.”
“For what purpose?”
“I think to show that he could. So when he finally took down Maldonado, whoever was left in that organization would either be scared enough to fall in line with Stone or run for the hills.”
“Christ.” I should’ve killed Stone when I had a chance. Two nights ago played in my mind. “When Carter came after Siren, he kept sayin’ he was already dead.”
“He knew Maldonado’s men would come after him.”
I rubbed my hands over my eyes. “But he didn’t care. He thought he was getting his daughter back.” The pieces fell together. “He was coming after Siren to tell her what he’d done.”
“He traded his life for hers,” André said solemnly.
Siren walked into the room. Deep circles under her eyes, her face drawn, she looked vulnerable as hell. All I wanted to do was pull her into my arms but we needed any information she could give us.
I cut straight to the chase. “Did Randy say anything else to you that night?”
She held her splinted wrist to her chest. “He was trying to but I couldn’t understand.”
I pushed out the chair next to me. When she sat, I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. She smelled like sex and jasmine and woman and I wanted to pick her up and walk out of this fucking house and out of both of our lives. “Can you remember any of the words?”
“He said tradeoff and get and…” She swallowed and shook her head.
I gently took her good hand and held it in both of mine. “And what, darlin’? We need to know.”
She bit her lip then released it. “Maddie Bear. It was his nickname for her.”
My cell rang. “You’re doin’ great, Siren.” I ran the back of my fingers across her cheek before answering my phone.
“I got something,” Candle growled. “But I don’t know how promising it is.”
My heart rate kicked up. “What is it?”
“One of the old ladies is here cleaning up. She thinks a club whore took off last year to Kentucky after she got beat up pretty bad. Thinks the bitch had family there.”
Adrenaline started pumping through my veins. “What was her name?”
“Not sure. The guys called her Lassie because she had red hair but a brother who works in my shop thinks her name may have been Poppy Summer, or some hippy shit like that.”
I motioned to André for a pen. He tossed one at me and a section of newspaper to write on. “Did she work? Anyone know where she lived?” I wrote down her name and showed André. He nodded and got on his laptop.
“She might’ve stayed at the apartment complex with a couple of the other club whores. Rumor had it she was a masseuse. Not the rub your dick kind but the real kind, like at a fancy spa.”
I wrote down licensed masseuse and showed André. “Anythin’ else?”
“No. How’s Kendall?”
“Mouthy.”
Candle didn’t laugh. “If I wind up dead over this information, take care of her.”
“I’m done with this secretive bullshit. Who is she?”
He sighed. “The worst mistake I ever made.” He hung up.
I focused on Siren. “Did the woman with Stone have red hair?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
I turned to André. “It’s her.”
André typed lightning fast. “I’m getting nothing.”
“Try a few variations on spellin’.”
“Already on it. What are we going to do with the women when we roll out?”
“Siren’s coming with us. Kendall can stay here.”
Roark broke his silence. “The guard at the gatehouse is useless and you’ve got wide-open access points from the water and the main road. You’d need a whole team to secure this place.”
He was right. “Neil?”
“Ja?” He looked up from his phone.
“What about your place in the Keys?”
“Same problem,” he answered me in Danish. “Take her to Luna’s penthouse.”
I looked at André. Despite him flirting with Kendall earlier, he was frowning and shaking his head. “No.”
“It’s just until we get back.”
André gave me the no-fucking-way look. “You know the drill.”
Yeah, I did. He was religious about keeping his place off the radar and off-limits. No family, no chicks, no visitors. I’d only been there because I’d helped him install his own alarm system, which he monitored himself. “We can’t put her in a hotel. She’ll piss her way through the place. Every staff member will know her inside an hour. Ten minutes after that, Maldonado’s people will have her. Everyone thinks she’s Candle’s old lady.”
Neil pushed his chair back and stood. “Drop her in Ocala with Graham.”
“Candle suggested him before but I thought the band was on tour.”
Neil switched back to English. “They got back last week. Graham has a room in the back of his shop. No one will know she’s there. Move on. We’re wasting time.”
“Oh shit, I just got a hit. Hold on.” André typed for a few seconds. “Poppy Sumners, S-U-M-N-E-R-S. I’m doing a background check now but…is this her?” He swung his laptop around so Siren could see the screen.
She leaned forward. “She looks much younger in this photo, but yes, I think that’s her.”
André gave me a look before going back to his screen.
“What’s the probability she has the kid?” Roark asked.
“Don’t know, but if she’s in Kentucky, we’re checkin’ it out.” I didn’t want to give Siren false hope but my gut was saying this woman had Maddie.
“Got an address,” André said. “It’s in Lexington.”
I turned to Siren. “Go help Kendall pack up. Let her know we’re movin’ her to a friend’s place in Ocala.”
“Okay.” She nodded.
I waited till she was out of the room and looked at André. “If you want to stand down, I understand.” The risk to his business if this went south was huge.
“I’m in.”
“You’re not licensed outside the state,” I reminded him.
He snorted. “We’re loading a plane with a small arsenal of untraceable weapons to kidnap an already kidnapped kid. I’m not licensed for this, period. I’m a security agency, not law enforcement.”
Neil chimed in. “If we find the child, we reunite her with her mother then worry about any legal ramifications.”
I glanced at Roark.
“Fine with me, I’m just the pilot.”
“How many can the plane hold?”
“Eight-seater, we’re good.”
“How long a flight?”
Roark shrugged. “Depending on weather, about three-and-a-half hours with a touchdown in Ocala.”
“Neil, call Graham, let him know we’re comin’. André, we’ll need transportation once we land in Lexington.” I heard Siren and Kendall coming down the hall and
I stood.
Neil stepped up to me. “You smell like alcohol and sex.” His weighted stare said it all.
I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself but he was right. I had no business going after a kid if I was drunk. “I’m solid.”
He continued to stare.
My hands went to my hips and I sighed. “I was drunk. Now I’m not.” My buzz was long gone and all I had now was a pounding fucking headache and enough adrenaline to fly the damn plane myself.
“Shower.” He tossed the word out like a command then pulled his phone out.
Kendall waltzed into the kitchen, followed by Siren. “I hear operation rescue is in full swing and I’m dead weight.”
“You’re goin’ to Graham’s in Ocala.”
“The angry bass player. Awesome.” She dumped her bag on the floor.
“You should fit right in.”
The phone to his ear, André stopped talking and glared at me. “Cállate.”
Kendall smirked. “You’d better be nice to me or Cuban Boy will kick your ass.”
“He can take a number,” I said dryly. “Siren? Got a minute?”
She nodded.
I walked into the living room and waited for her to follow me to a quiet corner. The sway of her hips, the stoic expression she was clinging to, it made me want to sink my hands into her soft hair and kiss the fuck out of her. Instead, I locked down my expression and turned all business. “If we find her, what are you gonna need?”
“Need?” She fought to not look taken off guard.
“Diapers, food, a special blanket or toy?” I didn’t know shit about kids except Ariel’s son was two and he was still in diapers and didn’t go anywhere without his blanket.
She curled her lips into her mouth then released them. “I don’t have anything. I’ll worry about it later.”
“She may not remember you.” I delivered the blow as gently as I could but facts were facts.
Her throat moved with a swallow and she nodded once. “I know.”
“We may not even find her.”
This time she inhaled and I could tell she was trying like hell not to cry. “I know.” She dropped her head.