by Susan Stoker
“Where. Is. It?” Teddy bit out, leaning into her and squeezing her neck harder.
Macie’s mouth opened and shut, but she couldn’t get any words out.
Obviously realizing he was preventing her from speaking, Teddy loosened his grip but didn’t let go. “I’ll kill you and your little friend right here and now if you don’t speak up,” he threatened.
“Not here,” Macie said as soon as she was able. Tricking him didn’t even cross her mind.
“You better not be fucking with me,” he said.
“I’m not. I took it with me when I left.”
“Fucking hell,” Teddy swore. “Where is it?”
“Killeen,” Macie said. “You can take the keys to the house and go get it. I’ll tell you exactly where it is.”
“Oh no,” Teddy sneered. “You’re coming with me. The last thing I want is your fucking boyfriend to walk in on me in his house. You’re my ticket to making sure I get what I want and get the hell out of there in one piece.”
Macie didn’t want to be his ticket to anything. She just wanted him to take his belongings back and get out of her life for good.
Just then, Trigger moaned on the floor next to them, and Teddy swore again.
He raised the taser he still held in his free hand and pressed it to Macie’s side. “Nighty-night, bitch,” he said, then Macie heard no more as the most intense pain she’d ever felt coursed through her body.
* * * *
Trigger lifted his head and tried to shake off the lethargy he felt. Then he tried to remember where he was and what had happened to him. Everything was confusing at first—until it all came back at once.
He tried to lurch to his feet, but only got as far as his knees before he had to brace himself on the floor and take a deep breath. “Son of a bitch,” he swore, then reached into his pocket for his phone. Thankful it was still there, he swore again when he realized that his keys were missing.
He crawled over to the nearest chair and hauled himself into it before clicking on his commander’s number in his contacts.
“Commander Robinson.”
“He’s got Macie,” Trigger said, not prevaricating.
“What? Where are you, Trigger?”
“Lampasas. Macie called me because she knew you were busy and she needed a file from her apartment. I didn’t see anything to be concerned about when we got here, but her ex ambushed me from behind. Tased me. Just woke up. She’s gone. As are my keys.”
“You need an ambulance?” the commander asked, and Trigger shook his head in amazement. The man had just learned his woman had been taken, and yet he was still concerned about him. “No, sir. I was incapacitated, but I heard her say something about a box with memorabilia in it.”
“That’s at my house,” the commander said. “Call Lefty. He’ll come pick you up. I’m taking the others with me. How long?”
Trigger knew exactly what he meant. He looked at his watch. “I’d estimate between twenty and twenty-five minutes.”
“Roger.”
And then the phone went silent, and Trigger knew his commander was on the move. He sent up a silent prayer that Macie would be able to keep things together and stay smart until her man could get to her.
Because there was no doubt that Colonel Colton Robinson would get to Macie. And the shape he found her in would determine if Teddy was a dead man or not.
* * * *
Colt clicked off the phone with Oz, one of the Deltas under his command, and knocked on the window of a conference room. He made a hand gesture, and the seven men inside immediately pushed their chairs back and hurried for the door.
Colt didn’t bother to wait for them. They caught up, and he informed them of what was happening while on the move.
Oz would call the others and have them meet at Colt’s house. There wasn’t time for them all to gather and come up with a plan. They’d have to wing it.
Within two minutes, Colt was climbing into his Wrangler, and Truck, Ghost, and Fletch had jumped in as well. He was only half-listening as Ghost discussed strategy and who was going to set up a perimeter around the house to make sure Teddy didn’t escape once they made entry.
The only thing he could think about was Macie. If one hair on her head was hurt, there’d be hell to pay.
“So he put whatever it was in a box of keepsakes?” Fletch asked.
“I guess. It’s a battered old shoebox. Mace told me she kept mementoes of her and Truck in there.”
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Truck said, and Colt knew he needed to get a handle on his men.
“If anyone is killing him, it’s me. Hear me?”
He heard two “Yes, sirs,” and glanced over at Truck.
“Laughlin?”
“No disrespect, sir, but this is my sister.”
“And it’s the woman I love,” Colt retorted. “I need you to keep your head in the game, because I can’t. I need you to have my back,” he told the much larger man. “If I end up in jail, your sister will be alone, and she’ll blame herself.”
“She won’t be alone,” Truck countered. “She’ll have me, and the rest of us.”
Colt didn’t respond with words, merely glared at his soldier.
Finally, Truck relented. “I understand, sir. And I’ve got your back. We all do.”
Colt nodded. It was as good a plan as they were going to have by the time they turned onto his street. There was no more time to talk.
Trigger’s Porsche was sitting in his driveway, and every muscle in Colt’s body went on red-alert. They couldn’t have been at his house very long, but Macie spending even one minute alone with her asshole ex was too long.
Colt stopped his Jeep two houses down and all four men climbed out without a word. He heard a noise behind him, and turned to see three more cars stop and the rest of his men exit the vehicles. Ghost quickly made contact, and most of the men disappeared into the neighborhood. Colt knew they were taking up positions around his house, making sure Teddy—and, God forbid, anyone else with him—didn’t manage to escape.
That left him with Truck and Ghost. Colt looked at his men…and felt an odd calmness settle over his body. Teddy had made the decision to put his hands on Colt’s woman and he’d pay the price.
Colt led the way toward his front door. He knew Macie used the security code, and since he hadn’t gotten a phone call wanting his passcode, he assumed she’d correctly put in the code when she’d let Teddy inside the house. He very slowly turned the knob on his front door and held his breath as he pushed it open. When the security system didn’t immediately start beeping, warning him to put in the code, he thought, good girl. Macie hadn’t set off the alarm when she’d entered, which would have alerted Colt, but she also hadn’t reset it, allowing him and his men to enter undetected.
Colt didn’t have a weapon, but he didn’t need one. He was a weapon. A deadly one.
At first, he didn’t hear anyone in the house, and his heart sank with the thought that perhaps he was too late—but then he heard a man’s voice coming from upstairs.
Slowly and silently, Colt made his way up the stairs. The farther he went, the clearer he could hear what Teddy was saying.
“You’re so stupid! I can’t believe you’ve kept this shit after all these years. What’s this? A ticket stub? Fuck…ridiculous. And a napkin? Gross! What’s this? A picture? What the fuck is this?”
“Don’t, Teddy,” Macie pleaded, the fear easy to hear in her voice.
“Is this a sonogram? Don’t tell me you’ve got a kid stashed away somewhere?”
“No. Please, just give it to me.”
“Do you want to know why I picked you?” Teddy asked, but he didn’t wait for Macie to reply before he answered his own question. “Because you’re weak. You’re scared of your own shadow. I knew you’d be easy to manipulate, and I was right. But then you had to go and grow a backbone.”
“You hid drugs in my apartment,” Macie said, her voice shaking.
Colt gestured fo
r Truck and Ghost to pass him and get to the other side of his bedroom door. They needed to make a coordinated entry if they were going to surprise Teddy and get between him and Macie.
“It’s not my fault you don’t have a shred of human decency in your bones. If you hadn’t left me at that restaurant when I had that anxiety attack, I might still be dating you.”
“Bitch!” Teddy said.
Then there was the sound of paper tearing, and Macie’s anguished voice crying out, “No!”
“Now,” Colt whispered—and as a unit, the three soldiers entered the room.
Colt had time to see Macie on her knees on the floor, in front of scattered pieces of paper and other odds and ends.
Theodore Dorentes saw them before Macie did, and he lunged for her with the taser he held in his hand.
Later, Colt mused that perhaps he would’ve reacted differently if the man had come after him with the taser…but he didn’t. He targeted Macie, who wasn’t even looking at him and couldn’t protect herself.
Colt threw himself at Teddy. The prongs of the taser crackled in the oddly quiet room, but Colt didn’t even feel them touch his chest. His arm was already moving toward the other man’s face and even though the electricity moving through Colt’s system jammed up his nerves, he threw his body weight behind his fist and managed to crash into Teddy with his body as he fell.
He felt Teddy’s nose break under his fist, and his head snapped back with the power of the punch.
Both men landed in a heap just feet from Macie. In seconds, Ghost was pulling Teddy out from under Colt and kicking the taser away. Colt forced his body to move, thankful that, once his fist had hit Teddy’s face, the man had dropped the device.
By the time Colt had regained his senses and turned to Macie, Truck had already wrapped her in his arms and turned his back, protecting his sister from whatever might happen next.
Colt crawled to the siblings and jerked at Truck’s arm. Surprisingly, Truck let go of his sister and all but thrust her into Colt’s arms. He felt Macie trembling, and assumed the same position Truck had, holding her in his arms and protecting her by turning his back to the room.
Within moments, the room was full of several pissed-off, hyped-up Special Forces soldiers, but all Colt could do was bury his face in Macie’s hair and rock back and forth.
Eventually, he realized that instead of being hysterical, she was trying to calm him.
“I’m okay, Colt. You got here in time. I’m okay.”
Taking a deep breath, Colt picked his head up and realized that he’d been crying, and he hadn’t even noticed. Macie shifted in his embrace and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I’m fine,” she whispered.
“He’s dead,” Ghost said matter-of-factly.
“Dead?” Macie gasped.
It was the tone of her voice that snapped Colt out of the daze he’d been in. He stood and helped Macie to her feet as well. Then he pressed her cheek to his chest and turned to look at Teddy and Ghost.
The man was lying on the floor, his eyes open and staring unseeingly up at the ceiling.
“If I had to guess, I’d say you severed an artery in his brain. The force of his head twisting probably broke the artery, then him hitting the ground didn’t help any. He’s definitely dead,” Ghost confirmed.
“Fuck,” Colt said under his breath. He hadn’t meant to kill the man, just to keep him from hurting Macie.
“Self-defense,” Lucky said definitively.
Colt turned to look at him. “It was, but I’m not sure anyone will believe me.”
“They will when they see the video,” Lucky said nonchalantly.
“Video?” Macie asked, her voice muffled from being pressed against Colt’s chest.
“Never leave home without it,” Lucky quipped. “Grabbed your ladder and was going to breach the window after you made your move. I caught it all on video. Commander, you were definitely protecting Macie from being further harmed.”
Colt closed his eyes in relief.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look at Truck. “Owe you, sir. Huge.”
Colt eyed the large man and pressed his luck while he could. “I want permission to ask your sister to marry me. Since her dad is an asshole, I’ve got no one to ask but you.”
He heard Macie gasp and felt her tighten her arms around him, but Colt kept his gaze on Truck’s.
The two men eyed each other for a long moment before Truck nodded. “One condition.”
“Name it,” Colt said.
“I want to be there to give her away. Don’t care if you do a courthouse quickie, fly to Vegas, or have the full-blown shindig. I want to be there.”
“Deal,” Colt said without having to think about it. It wasn’t even a concession, he’d already planned to ask Truck to be at their wedding, wherever and whenever it happened.
“Ma’am?” Grover said in his deep, rumbly voice.
Colt turned to see his soldier holding pieces of paper that had been torn.
Macie gasped and reached for it with a cry. She held the sonogram of her long-lost baby in her hands and sobbed.
Colt felt helpless. He didn’t know what to do to make this better.
“Can I see it?” Brain asked.
Macie let the other man take the pieces from her.
“I think I can fix this,” Brain said, once he’d examined the sonogram.
Colt glared at him, not wanting him to get Macie’s hopes up.
“You can?” she asked.
“Well, I can’t make it perfect, but I can scan the pieces, and put them back together on the computer and reprint it. It won’t be like new, but it’ll be pretty darn close,” Brain said with confidence.
Colt could see Truck looking on with the saddest expression on his face as he realized what Brain was holding, and why his sister was so upset. It was obvious brother and sister needed to talk.
“I’d appreciate that,” Macie said, her voice breaking.
“I’ve called the police,” Ghost said, interrupting the moment. “I would advise that everyone but Truck, Macie, myself, the commander, and Lucky disappear. Lucky, we need you to stay since you have the video. Leave everything where it is. Evidence.”
Colt knew he should be taking control instead of Ghost, but the only person he was concerned about at the moment was Macie. He picked her up and carried her out of the room and headed downstairs to await the cops.
* * * *
Two hours later, Macie felt as if her head was going to explode. She was sitting on Colt’s lap on the couch, with his arms around her. Truck had gotten her a Vistaril tablet, but it hadn’t helped the anxiety migraine that had begun the moment she’d woken up in Trigger’s Porsche with Teddy driving.
She’d explained to the police at least three times everything she remembered. Teddy had bragged he’d killed the two thugs who’d broken into her apartment because they’d failed in their attempts at recovering her keepsake box. That was why the cops hadn’t been able to find them.
Then she’d learned he’d stashed a small amount of drugs in her box, but that wasn’t why he was so desperate to get his hands on it again. He’d also put a list of his suppliers in there. He knew if she found it and gave it to the cops, he was a dead man. His suppliers would kill him for being so careless. For someone as desperate as he was, he was also scarily patient. He’d waited weeks for Macie to show back up at her apartment so he could confront her himself and find out what she’d done with the shoebox. It was fairly obvious that he’d planned on killing her, just like he had his “friends,” after he got the list back.
Macie was glad to find out Trigger was all right. Apparently, Teddy had beaten him after tasing him a second time, to try to ensure he was knocked out for a long while, giving Teddy time to get to Killeen and collect his list.
She made sure the officers interviewing her knew she believed Teddy when he’d said he was going to kill her. Colt had reassured her before the cops got there that he wouldn’t be arrested.
The “stand your ground” law that the state of Texas had meant that he didn’t need to attempt to retreat on his own property before using deadly force to defend himself or Macie. Colt really had saved her life. Macie had no doubt about that and she also had no doubt Teddy would’ve tortured her before he’d killed her if he had the chance.
Thanks to Lucky, who apparently always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, and his video, the cops didn’t arrest Colt. After checking his background and finding out what he did on the Army post, they’d warned him not to leave town and to be available for any questions they might have, but they didn’t handcuff him and bring him to the station to be questioned.
Macie kept her eyes averted when the coroner came and wheeled Teddy’s body out of the house. The entire situation seemed surreal to her.
Truck, Ghost, and Lucky had stayed the entire time the police questioned her and Colt. At one point, Truck disappeared upstairs and came back down with her shoebox. He carefully placed it next to her laptop on the dining room table and gave her a look, which Macie knew meant he would want to talk about its contents later.
Looking at her laptop, Macie winced.
“What is it? Are you in pain?” Colt asked.
“No. I mean, yes, but it’s not that,” Macie said. “I went to my apartment to get a file I needed to help an author with her website, but I never did get it, and she still needs help.”
“I’m sure she’ll understand,” Truck said.
“No. She won’t. You don’t get it. These authors rely on me to get their work done. Yeah, she might feel bad about what happened, but that doesn’t mean she still doesn’t need her websites fixed.”
“You can do it tomorrow,” Colt said softly. “I’ll have one of the guys go to your apartment and pack up all your stuff and bring it here. Then you won’t have to worry what you have and don’t have anymore.”
Even though her head hurt, and she wanted nothing more to sit in a dark room and sleep, Macie turned to Colt. “Did you just ask me to move in with you?”
“No,” he said. “I told you that you’re moving in with me.”