Love Me Forever

by Lisa Renee Jones

  My heart skips a beat and bile rises in my throat. Grayson and I set down our glasses because we both know who Brian Johnson is. Without a word, Grayson snakes his phone from his pocket and dials a number. And I know why. We both know who was in that house tonight and I pray that Eric and Blake’s team were out before the explosion.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Grayson

  I dial Eric only to have his voicemail pick up and it’s like a punch in the gut followed by a blade. Next up, I dial Blake. Again, I get his voicemail. I’m bleeding out here with the idea that something happened to Eric, and Blake and his team. I try Adrian, who answers on the first ring. “Tell me they weren’t in that explosion.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about and no, I haven’t been drinking. I just really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The house Eric went to with your team exploded and no one is answering their fucking phones.”

  “Say what?”

  “I said—”

  “Fuck,” he grunts as if my words have only now hit him. “Fuck. I’m making calls. And I’m sending Axe up to stay with you until I know what the hell is going on. Don’t go anywhere.” He hangs up.

  “Grayson?” Mia asks, watching me as I apparently pace on the opposite side of the island I don’t even remember walking to now.

  I force myself to halt and will myself to calm down. “No one’s answering their phones, baby. Adrian didn’t even know the house had blown up.” I dial Blake again.

  “I’ve got Kara’s number,” Mia says. “I’m calling her.”

  She darts around the island and I catch her wrist. “Where are you going?”

  “My phone’s by the door in my purse.”

  “Axe is coming up. You need to put on clothes. And don’t answer the door. I’ll do it.”

  She steps close and wraps her arms around me. “It’s going to be okay. This is Eric. He’s a SEAL. He a genius, quite literally.”

  “He’s still human. He still blows up in an exploding house like the rest of us.”

  She kisses my jaw. “He’s going to be okay. I feel it in my gut. I’m going to go try Kara and try to get you some news.” She pushes away from me.

  I dial Davis and he answers in one ring. “Tell me you’ve heard from Eric.”

  “Not for hours. Why?”

  “He went to that attorney’s house with Blake’s team tonight. It exploded and he’s not answering his phone. None of them are.” I run my hand through my hair. “Where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “Pull out that Glock you own and keep it with you. Don’t go anywhere until I find out if you’re in danger.” I don’t give him time to start worrying my ear off. I’m doing enough of that on my own. I disconnect and text Adrian: Is Davis in danger as my personal attorney and close friend? He’s at home. I told him to stay there.

  While I wait for his reply, I head to our bedroom, walk into the closet and throw on jeans, a basic black tee, and sneakers. Adrian finally replies with: I have four men here with me. I sent one to Davis, just to be safe. Axe will be there with you any second.

  I’m about to exit the bedroom when Mia appears in the doorway, her dark hair still a finger-fucked mess that I created. Fifteen minutes ago, we were planning our wedding and now this.

  “Kara’s not answering,” she says. “I’m going to get dressed.”

  The doorbell rings. “That’s Axe.” I intend to leave her to dress, but she catches my arm.

  “Grayson—”

  I cup her head and kiss her. “I’m okay, baby.” It’s one of the only lies I ever intend to tell her.

  “Liar,” she accuses. “But I’ll forgive you under the circumstances.”

  I don’t dispute her accusation. The doorbell rings again, and I kiss her again and untangle my arm from her grip before Axe blows down our door. I head through the apartment toward the door with a knot in my damn gut. Eric’s silence is killing me and it’s not a good sign. I don’t even want to know what news awaits me at the front door. I pause in the foyer and step to the panel beside the door and punch the button to the camera view to find Axe standing there.

  I yank open the door. “Any news?” I back up to allow his entry.

  “Nothing,” he says grimly, stepping inside and shutting the door, automatically locking up.

  I key the security system into action and turn to Axe, who is doing the same with me. “What do you think is happening?”

  “We have a silent protocol if there is even a one percent chance we could bring danger to our families. I don’t think they’re dead. I think they locked down.”

  I don’t know if I’m relieved or the opposite. I scrub my jaw. “I need a drink. You need a drink?”

  “None for me.” He pulls back the edge of his leather jacket and shows me his weapon. “We both want me to shoot straight.”

  “Well, then eat me out of house and home. You have to need something. These are the men you work with.”

  His jaw clenches but he offers nothing more than a barely perceivable incline of his chin. We enter the living room right as Mia, dressed in leggings and a T-shirt, with sneakers, rushes into the room. “Anything?” she asks urgently.

  “Any intel that might represent a breach of safety to our team or family is a mandatory silence order until that threat is cleared. Adrian and I can’t even reach our team,” Axe explains.

  “Then we know something went wrong,” Mia replies, “aside from the obvious house exploding.” She gives an awkward laugh. “I guess that was a stupid statement.”

  “There’s a difference between getting your mind around something,” Axe replies, “and stupid. That wasn’t stupid.”

  I walk to the bar and pour a whiskey for me and Axe. If he won’t drink his, I will. I return to the living room where Mia has flipped on the news on the big screen and claimed the couch, while Axe is now sitting in the chair to her left. I set the whiskey in front of him and then claim a spot next to Mia.

  “As much as it pains me to decline yet again what I’m certain is a fine, and expensive whiskey,” Axe says, “I must. Chocolate is my only on-duty sin.”

  Mia perks up. “Did someone say chocolate?” She casts me a hopeful look. “Please tell me you have some?”

  “We have plenty,” I assure her because she loves chocolate and it just became a habit to keep it in the house. “Always.”

  Her eyes soften with the knowledge that any stock of chocolate is about her, not me, and she kisses my cheek before she walks to the kitchen. “We both know that whiskey isn’t going to affect you.” And because I’m an observer, a man who reads people fast and well, I add, “We both also know that you’re a duty kind of guy, a rule-maker, and follower. Drink it. I won’t hold it against you.”

  Mia deposits a big bowl of chocolate on the table. “I claim the Heath bars. I’ll chew your arm off for these things.”

  Axe studies me a moment, grabs the whiskey glass, downs the bourbon, and smiles. “Damn that’s good. Thank you.” He then grabs a Mr. Goodbar. “I’d chew your arm off for one of these things, I love them so much.”

  Mia laughs and hands me a basic Hershey’s. “That’s all that’s left for you.”

  She manages to tease a hint of a smile from me, that I don’t expect. I down my whiskey, set my glass down, and accept the candy.

  “Did you know that chocolate really does affect the stress cortisol levels during an extreme stress spike?” Mia asks. “If you eat it every day just to eat it, then it increases your stress cortisol but during stress, it lowers it.”

  “Well, then I better have another Goodbar,” Axe says, snapping up a second candy bar.

  “What’s your story, Axe?” I ask.

  “Ex-CIA which means I have no story.” He down his candy and grabs three more.

  “Of course you have a story,” Mia insists. “Do you have family?”

  “No,” he says.

  “Where are you from?” she asks.

&nbs
p; “All over.”

  Her brow furrows. “Considering you don’t talk unless it’s about chocolate and all Adrian does is talk, how do you put up with each other?”

  He holds up a miniature Goodbar. “I eat candy so I won’t kill him.” His eyes catch on the TV before he points to the remote. “Turn that up.”

  I down the chocolate in my hand and grab the remote, turning up the volume as a picture of a man flashes on the screen. “In a bizarre twist,” the newscaster is saying, “This man, Brian Johnson, was not home when his home exploded tonight, but he was later found dead in his car outside an event he attended tonight. The cause of death is yet to be determined.”

  Axe grabs his phone from his pocket and dials. “Adrian,” he says. “Yeah. I just saw it on the news.” He listens a minute and hangs up. “He’s on his way to the lockdown location to try to get answers.”

  “Lockdown location?” Mia asks before I get the chance.

  “If our team locked down for safety reasons,” Axe explains, “that’s where they’ll go.”

  The doorbell rings and my spine stiffens, my eyes narrowing on Axe. “If Adrian isn’t here, who is that?”

  Axe is already on his feet, drawing his weapon.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Grayson

  “Grayson?” Mia asks, pushing to her feet, all doe-eyed with fear, and why wouldn’t she be? Axe has a gun in his hand, charging for the door that he knows is protected by a security system. I like the guy but damn it.

  “Not enough chocolate or whiskey clearly, baby,” I reply mildly by intent. I’m not going to add to her stress with a bombastic reaction. “Stay here just to be safe.” I kiss her temple and force myself to walk with measured steps toward the door when I’d rather fucking run.

  Still, I manage a fast enough pace to be on Axe’s heels when he enters the foyer. “There’s a security camera,” I say because maybe I’m wrong and he doesn’t know.

  He walks to the panel and I open the drawer to the hall table and remove the Glock I do more than keep on hand. I know how to use it and use it well.

  Now that I'm armed and ready for trouble, Axe lowers his weapon. “It’s them,” he murmurs, unlocking the door.

  I don’t know who “them” references, which is why I don’t return my weapon to that drawer. For just a moment though, I’m back on that golf course, when my invincible father tumbled to the ground. I’m leaning over him, and my father’s pale face and raspy breaths have me screaming for help that never comes. It never comes because he never had a chance. He’d had what they call a “widowmaker,” a massive heart attack that shreds the heart. So yes, Mia’s right about Eric being a SEAL and a genius, but I know from experience that even the good ones, even the strong ones, are not invincible.

  Which is exactly why when Axe opens the door, I hold my breath, waiting for the enemy that I can’t defeat, the one that takes and takes and just keeps on taking: death. I’m not holding the gun to shoot someone. I’m holding it because I just need some damn way to feel under control. I’m waiting for bad news, and I’d welcome another enemy, one that I’d have to battle because I can fight and win any battle that isn’t death.

  Axe backs up and the first person that I see walk through the door is not an enemy at all. It’s Rick Savage—one of the Walker men. A giant of a man with a scar that ripples down his cheek. “Don’t shoot,” he says, holding up his big hands. “I told Eric not to cut that wire, but you know, I’m just a surgeon, not a fucking savant, and he didn’t listen.”

  “I didn’t cut a wire at all,” Eric growls, entering the foyer. “We weren’t there when the damn house exploded.” He eyes my gun and then me. “You’ve been hanging around these guys way too much.”

  I’m just processing that Eric’s really here and okay, relief washing over me when Mia beats me to an outward reaction.

  “Eric!” she exclaims, rushing forward and throwing her arms around him. “We thought you were dead. God, Grayson would not have survived losing you. I wouldn’t survive losing you.” She looks up at him. “You have no idea how relieved we are that you’re here.”

  We.

  God, I’ve missed being a “we” with Mia.

  Mia gets to Eric, too. I see that in the softening of his facial features that are normally steel and stone. And Eric is not an emotional man. He’s not a man of many words. He’s also a man with a blood family that treats him like shit, but I am his family, we’re his family now that Mia is back. Mia has driven home that point—she’s affected him in that way she does everyone around her.

  “Well then,” Eric says, “I guess I better come all the way in then, shouldn’t I?” He squeezes her shoulder. “And your man there needs to put away that gun before he shoots one of us.”

  Mia whirls on me but she says nothing. She knows I have the gun. She knows how to use it herself, but I want her to practice. I want her to become an expert. I want her to protect herself in every way possible. I seal the gun back in its drawer, and Axe and Savage head to the living room. Mia kisses my cheek and follows them, a silent understanding in her actions that I need a minute with Eric.

  God, I really did miss this woman.

  I close the space between me and Eric and while we don’t hug, we do lock palms. And I go one step further and grab his forearm with my free hand. “You’re not a damn SEAL anymore. Don’t do that shit again.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” Eric assures me as we break the connection.

  My jaw sets. “Yeah, fuck you too, man,” I say, which is not a statement I usually make. That’s not how I talk, that’s not who I am, but that’s exactly why it gets my point across.

  He laughs and confirms that I am indeed accurate in that assumption. “Point made. You want to protect me. I want to protect you. But the good news is that we feel like this is over.”

  My brow shoots up. “You feel? Since when do you give two coins about a feeling rather than a fact?”

  “Since we’re backing that statement up with facts. Brian’s dead. The Dungeon killed him. They ended him because they don’t want him to be able to talk. They want this over. They don’t need him.”

  “You’re sure it was them?”

  “Blake picked up a plate on a traffic camera near the murder. That plate belongs to someone he’s identified as part of the Dungeon.” The doorbell rings. “And I hope that’s the half-dozen pizzas we ordered on the way over here. Savage and I haven’t eaten in hours.”

  Now I laugh because only Eric would take it upon himself to order pizza to be delivered to my apartment and I’m damn glad he’s alive to do it.

  A few minutes later, Mia and I are sitting on barstools with Eric and Savage across from us, and Axe at the endcap, all of us eating pizza. “The attorney Ri enlisted in his dirty deeds is dead,” Mia says. “I can’t quite get my head around that.”

  “Good fucking riddance,” Savage, says, finishing off what I think is most of a pizza with record-breaking speed. “He was a lowlife. And they got rid of him because they didn’t need him anymore.”

  “And that means what?” Mia presses.

  “Here’s what we know,” Eric begins, finishing off a slice. “We were smart enough to walk away when we saw the safe wired to blow.”

  Savage finishes that thought before Eric gets the chance. “Those Dungeon assholes showed up after we exited the house. Which we know because us smart guys were lurking in the bushes, the way all honorable men do and all. They blew themselves the fuck up, at least a few of them did. I hear those are the brand of asshole that grow like weeds, but never fear. Eric is here. He shoved a bunch of cash into that dweeb attorney’s work safe and the rest of the Dungeon, the ones still alive, grabbed it and ran.”

  I set my slice down, my gaze sharpening on Eric, who’s directly across from me. “How much money? And where did it come from?”

  “Enough money,” Eric replies. “They won’t stay around to get busted, believe me.”

  “Where did it come from?”r />
  He arches a brow. “Does it matter?”

  “If it came from your bank account, not mine, then yes. It matters.”

  “You know I’d never spend your money without clearing it.”

  “Exactly,” I say. “How much do I owe you?”

  He shoots right back with, “It’s more about how much I owe you, now isn’t it?”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  “Untrue on every level. Bottom line,” he adds, “Blake’s tracking the Dungeon’s communications and so far, we believe this is over.”

  “How much money?” I ask, looking at Savage.

  “A fuck-ton.”

  My gaze returns to Eric’s. “Then I should write the check out to you as a fuck-ton?”

  Mia, my little keeper of peace, delicately clears her throat and changes the subject. “When do we know if this is over? Are we on lockdown?”

  “We aren’t,” Eric replies. “In fact, Blake and I both agree that we need to act as normal as possible.”

  “And then what?” Mia asks. “When are we free from this?”

  I catch her hand. “Soon, baby.”

  Her lips thin and she looks between me and Eric. “Now or in three months?”

  Savage stands up. “Axe and I are going to leave you to this. We’ll be nearby if you need us.”

  Axe pushes to his feet and offers us a mock salute. I’ve apparently gotten over him and his rash pulling of the gun. Funny how everyone being alive and well smooths out a wrinkle.

  “Thanks, Axe,” Mia says. “Take all that chocolate if you want it.”

  “Chocolate?” Savage asks, perking up. “What chocolate?”

  Mia points to the living room and he heads that way, with Axe scowling and following on his heels.

  Eric stands as well. “I need to hit the road.”

  My lips press together. “Mia, baby, give me and Eric a moment.”