Enemy Zone: Enemies-to-Lovers Standalone Healing-Love Military Romance (Trident Rescue)

by Alex Lidell

  He shook his head. Cullen usually maintained a strict two-drink limit in deference to the prazosin, which helped to keep his nightmares at bay, but he didn’t today. He didn’t want to go even that far. Cullen disliked tempting fate, especially where his meds were concerned. Getting the particular med and dosage just right had been enough of an ass pain.

  He might be many things, but being stupid on purpose wasn’t one of them.

  The waitress took Eli’s order and disappeared. Reclining against the high back of the booth, Cullen watched the North Vault flow through the evening around him. Liam and Eli were catching up on business and forecasting a Trident Rescue barbecue Cullen was not looking forward to. He guessed Kyan felt the same way, but it was hard to tell. Nudging the brim of his hat lower over his face, the man remained his usual circumspect self, sipping on his tequila and staying quiet. On the dance floor, the Vault’s guests were dancing free, one blonde’s smooth silhouette so like Skylar’s that Cullen’s fist clenched when a man beside her squeezed her ass.

  The woman grinned. She was obviously familiar with the guy, and was just as obviously not Skylar. But it was too late. The similarity had already made Cullen picture himself blindfolding Reynolds and tying her not to one of the club’s headboards, but to his own.

  He immediately went hard.

  Perfect, now he’d have to sit with his cock aching against his zipper and try to think of nonerotic imagery while the music thumped in the background and beautiful women traipsed by every minute or two.

  To be fair, he’d had worse problems to deal with, but he didn’t want to want Sky.

  And yet he did. No, his body did. There was a difference. Unlike his cock, Cullen had no desire to go near her—or anyone. Cullen had always been feral, and after returning from the Middle East, well, being who he was precluded any chance of relationships.

  Cullen’s eyes strayed back to the strawberry-blonde on the dance floor, her face tilted back with gleeful joy. The only sensations Cullen could reliably rouse in Reynolds were terror.

  “…Reynolds.”

  “What was that?” Cullen pulled his attention back to the men, finding Liam looking at him.

  “I was saying I have the preliminary on Reynolds you asked for.” Liam pulled a folder out of his bag. “No criminal record, but I don’t like where she’s living one bit.”

  Cullen flipped over the folder and felt his jaw tighten at the address. 1427-A Lincoln Drive. While Denton Valley wasn’t known for being seedy or having much of a crime rate, like anywhere, there were a few locations that were subpar. And Sky’s current residence was smack dab in the middle of just such a neighborhood.

  “Like I said.” Liam’s voice hardened, his protectiveness resonating with Cullen’s own rising blood pressure. The woman worked at Trident Rescue. That made her their responsibility. “I don’t like it.”

  Flipping over the first page, Cullen examined a series of photographs showing a run-down brick house with crumbling mortar, soot-stained exterior, and debris-filled yard. The driveway held Skylar’s Corolla alongside and a rusted-out vehicle up on blocks. He narrowed his eyes at it. “What am I looking at right now?”

  “Our dispatcher’s address. Maybe its inside is nicer than the outside.”

  “But you doubt it.” The place was a goddamn dump.

  “I doubt it. I checked past police reports, cross-referencing this specific address, and while nothing has ever happened on that plot of land, there’s been lots of drug activity and vandalism up and down her street. Her neighbor from across the road reported their car stolen less than a year ago, in fact.”

  Cullen tapped his finger against the table. Sky’s comment about the station being a comfortable place to work was finally making sense. “What haven’t you told me yet?”

  “That this is actually her landlord’s abode. This is hers.” Liam pulled out the final photo, this one showing a new perspective on the same cracked cement steps, now with steps leading down to a moldy-looking door. “1427-A. She lives not in the house, but in the basement.”

  “Not anymore she doesn’t,” Cullen growled, then reached for his drink, his hand stopping as something hard flickered over Kyan’s face.

  “Three o’clock,” Kyan said in answer to Cullen’s unvoiced question.

  Sure enough, when Cullen cut his gaze to the right, his own jaw tightened—because one Frank Peterson had just walked into the Vault.

  12

  Cullen

  Swaggering over to the far side of the bar, Frank Peterson planted himself beneath the big-screen television and gave the brunette barkeep a predatory smile before turning his attention to the news broadcast glowing in front of him. He wore a pale gray suit and flashy silver tie, garments intended to impress, Cullen had no doubt. While the suit looked high-end, it didn’t fit Frank all that well, emphasizing his slight paunch rather than concealing it.

  “Asshole,” Kyan muttered under his breath. Eli nodded in solidarity.

  Cullen glared at Liam, who only cocked a brow back in challenge. Liam’s continuing tolerance of Frank’s Vault patronage was a source of argument, but it all came down to a basic calculation: Frank regularly drank himself into loose lips—and Liam believed that keeping an ear on the bullshit Frank spilled was worth the irritation of his presence.

  On most days, Cullen agreed. Today wasn’t one of those.

  Finishing off his drink, Cullen homed in on the images flashing across the television screen, the red “Breaking News” banner scrolling across the bottom. The footage looked too familiar. Fractured sidewalks with eroded edges. Spray-painted graffiti on stop signs. Abandoned residences. Streetlight poles. Bars on windows in residential and commercial establishments alike and there… That car up on blocks. The same one Cullen noticed in Liam’s photos.

  “Is that Reynolds’s neighborhood?” Cullen asked, getting up for a closer look at the screens, his men falling in behind him.

  “Yes,” Liam answered grimly as the on-air reporter highlighted a possible burglary in progress.

  It figured. By Murphy’s Law or Reynolds’s Law, whatever horrible thing might be happening would be there. And why fucking not? Everything about that woman tempted fate.

  Yeah. Well, it wouldn’t be her neighborhood much longer. Turning on his heel, Cullen pivoted toward the door—then paused as he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

  Frank Peterson, having yanked his phone from his trouser pocket, now held the device in front of his face and spoke into the thing as if it were an old-fashioned tape recorder. “Hey, honey,” Frank’s eyes stayed glued to the television screen while Sky’s name and photograph filled his phone screen. “Got a hot prospect for you.”

  Skylar Reynolds. Heat spilled into Cullen’s blood.

  A soft growl just behind Cullen told him the others had marked Frank’s honey as well as he had.

  A few feet away, Frank squinted at the television. “Burglary in process. Lincoln Drive. Yeah. East side of town and…”

  On the live broadcast, an on-air anchorwoman went silent as she pressed a finger to her earpiece, obviously listening. Then she resumed with more intensity. “We have a new report from our on-site reporter stating that the burglary may turn into a hostage situation. We’re uploading the footage as we speak.”

  The picture altered to a blurry video of a car pulling into a detached carport. As three occupants—two adults and a small child—got out of the vehicle, two figures with concealed faces descended upon them, forcibly pushing the victims into the house.

  Cullen’s concentration on the television screen was so absolute that Peterson’s sudden cackle jarred him.

  “Shit’s getting interesting,” Frank hooted, his eyes sparking with excitement. “Get over there now, girl!”

  Before Cullen became aware he’d rushed forward, he’d grabbed Frank’s elbow. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What do you want, Hunt?” Frank pulled his elbow free, his grin gone.

  Heart poun
ding against his ribs, Cullen leaned down to stare Frank in the eye. “You’re a fucking asshole,” he informed Frank quietly before snatching the phone right out of his hand. “Reynolds. Don’t go anywhere near that scene. That’s an order.”

  “Cullen?” Sky’s musical soprano came over the line, bewilderment filling every word. “Why do you have my editor’s phone? And why—”

  He cut her off. “It doesn’t matter why. You’re not going.”

  But before Cullen could say more, Frank Peterson pushed him. Or tried to. The man had risen to his feet in a tizzy and made a quickly aborted attempt to stand up for his property—but even Frank knew that his flabby form didn’t have Cullen’s staying power.

  Frank slapped his hand against the bar. “That’s my phone, Hunt,” he snapped, spittle flying. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll—”

  “I’ll what?” Cullen tightened his grip on the cell so much that he heard an ominous cracking noise, his voice lowering by a whole guttural octave.

  “Cullen.” Eli materialized beside him, but Cullen’s focus stayed on the asshole luring Skylar Reynolds into a viper pit.

  “You’ll be sorry,” Frank said.

  Cullen snorted. “Last time you and I tangled, I seem to remember my fist breaking your nose.”

  Frank’s complexion skipped right over the color red and turned a distinctive shade of purple. “You haven’t changed one bit from the violent, little, delinquent shithead you were at fourteen. Go ahead, Hunt. Take a shot. You’ll find you’ll get more than a spanking from the law now.”

  Red flashed at the fringes of Cullen’s vision, his heart rate and pulse all rising, feeding an irresistible need to sink his knuckles through Frank’s skull. Cullen had been fourteen the last time he’d had the pleasure, and the resulting spanking was a lawsuit that broke whatever relationship he’d had with his parents, snatched him out of his home, and got him marooned at Trident Academy military school.

  Then again, he did meet his Tridents there, so it was more than worth it. It had been more than worth it to keep the girl Frank had been pawing from getting what the gleam in Frank’s eye said he’d intended.

  But Frank was right. Bashing in his skull in the middle of North Vault would tie them up in court for months. And the bastard would target Liam as the owner as well.

  Frank raised his index finger and pointed it right into Cullen’s face.

  Cullen growled in warning.

  “Peterson. Don’t.” Kyan stepped up beside Cullen, his movement silent as a ghost’s. Though Kyan kept his voice low, he emanated power with every uttered syllable and glared at the man’s upraised finger until Frank wisely dropped it and took a pace backward.

  Cullen went to step after him, but Kyan splayed his hand on his chest. “Not worth it, Hunt.”

  “Keasley’s right.” Eli threw Frank a foul glance before inserting himself between him and Cullen. “Are we going or not?”

  There was no need to explain where. Since Skylar worked at Trident Rescue, she was one of their own.

  “Reynolds,” Cullen barked into Frank’s phone, only to discover that the woman had disconnected. Cullen slammed the phone down on the bar, the abused screen giving a final click before shattering while its owner yelped in pathetic dismay. “Yeah,” Cullen said, turning his back to Frank. “Let’s move.”

  13

  Sky

  I stomp out of my basement apartment, trying like hell to stop seething at Cullen’s audacity so I can focus on my work. Did the man seriously think it was acceptable to interfere in my journalism? To get between me and my own editor? To opine on what stories I should be covering? My hands clench into fists, my pulse rising. The next time I see Cullen, I’m going to—

  Stop, Sky. I force myself to take a deep breath of the cool evening air, the breeze whipping my hair over my face. Cullen’s attempt to interfere was his fuck-up, but you letting it consume you now would be yours.

  My thoughts finally calm three breaths in, my professional mind taking over. This isn’t Frank’s usual drivel; this is actual news. The reason I went into journalism. It doesn’t matter that I only got the lead because I’m closer than anyone else. I have it. And damn it, I will cover it.

  Pulling my hair back into a bun, I adjust my shoulder bag and set a quick pace toward the unfolding scene, trying not to let the fact that it’s only a few blocks from my house distract me. It’s still light outside, but won’t be for too much longer. Two steps later, my phone vibrates. I pull it out, expecting to see Frank’s number and nearly answer on reflex before seeing the caller.

  Cullen Hunt.

  Yeah. Sorry, Hunt, I’m not on your clock right now.

  I set the phone to silent and then, after a moment’s hesitation, temporarily block the bastard’s number altogether. If he can’t act like a respectful professional, then into a digital time-out he goes. Slipping the phone into my back pocket for easy access and recording, I quicken my steps toward the address—and the Channel Thirteen van that’s already parked at the end of the block.

  Dammit. On the other hand, if rival new stations are responding as well, that underscores the relevance. Plus, Thirteen is on air and I’m print, so we go after different angles.

  “Again, this is Trent Cannon, reporting for Channel Thirteen News from Denton Valley’s Lincoln Drive,” a well-dressed young man says into a microphone as his cameraman monitors the footage. The shot is angled to get both Cannon and a house with peeling red paint, which must be where the action is. “Here, an exclusive source reported seeing two men with faces covered removing merchandise from the residence directly behind me.”

  Exclusive source? I snort, willing to bet Cannon just chatted with Mrs. Frobisher, my crotchety neighbor who fancies herself the neighborhood watch and spends her day peeking through curtains and ranting about the police. Now that I think about it, she’s exactly the kind of person to ring up the news instead of law enforcement should a crime happen.

  “The circumstances became immediately worse,” Cannon goes on, “when a vehicle evidently containing the family who lives here pulled into the carport, interrupting the burglars. Two of the criminals reacted by dragging the three family members, including a small child, inside, where they all now remain. Denton Valley authorities are expected to arrive at any moment.” Cannon gives a dramatic pause, and the cameraman shuts off the footage.

  “Still on burglary?” The cameraman snorts. “That’s a fucking collection crew raiding a drug house. Can I help you?” The last is directed toward me.

  “Skylar Reynolds,” I say, my mind still reeling from what I’m hearing. “Denton Uncovered.” I hold out my hand, and both the men shake it.

  “Welcome to the shit show,” Cannon says. “Though this isn’t the type of thing Uncovered is usually interested in. This is more…”

  “Actual real news?” I supply, earning an earnest grin. Cannon has a nice-boy look about him, nothing like Cullen’s dark broodiness. And he smiles a great deal more too. I stick my hands into my back pockets and peer at the screen, where the cameraman is rewinding the footage. “So why did you say burglary if you think it’s a drug money collection?”

  “Same reason I said the authorities were showing any time soon. Political correctness.” He yawns. “This is Lincoln Drive, Reynolds. Neither the cops nor anyone else gives a flying fuck about Lincoln Drive. Now if this were happening about two miles down the road, that would be a different situation. As it is, though—we only got the airtime because it’s a slow night. Plus, odds are ten to one that nothing more’s happening. The bastards are going to work things out behind closed doors, and end of story.”

  “What about the child?” I ask. I thought he’d recorded that bit, but maybe I’m wrong.

  “What about him?” Cannon shrugs. “He lives there. This is probably a weekly occurrence. Let’s not drink our own Kool-Aid. A burglary claim from an annoying neighbor who calls with something every other day isn’t exactly evidence. And a mom and kid? Yeah, th
ey got ushered inside along with the baby daddy. If there was a news van outside my house, I’d be doing the same thing. No weapons, no violence. As far as a story, this is a whole lot of smoke.”

  I’m smart enough to give Cannon a what are you gonna do smile instead of arguing, no matter how much my blood is heating with outrage. Glancing at my watch, I mark the time. Whether or not this “burglary” is serious, a chronic delay in police response to a neighborhood is something that needs to come to light. Carefully. Factually. Professionally.

  Making myself a mental note to pull the public records on 911 statistics and response times, I nod toward the house. “I’m going to canvass the neighbors, see if they have anything to say.”

  “Not a bad idea. A good sob story goes a long way. But…just as a matter of professional courtesy, lemme tell you, this isn’t the type of street where you want to be knocking on doors and asking for testimonials on drug-dealing neighbors.”

  No, but it is exactly the kind of street to be asking for testimonials on police response. And not from Mrs. Frobisher.

  Cannon yawns. “If we’re lucky, this becomes a hostage situation and we all get the story. If not, this will die on the vine.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right, but we don’t all have a pretty camera, so…” I let my words trail off with a light little shrug. The last thing I want to do is burn professional bridges, but I’m not going to stand around, hoping for a hostage situation. If I’m working, I’m working.

  Leaving Trent Cannon and his cameraman, who are set up a good hundred yards from the residence, I cross the street to get a better look. I’ve only met a few people in the neighborhood, but I think the house next door is the one with the shy tween I see flying her drone after school. I don’t know the girl’s name, but we wave to each other a lot. A connection. A start.

  As I make my way to the tween’s house, which is right behind the peeling red two-story, I catch sight of something flashing in the window. A gun. My heart stops, my chest tightening as I drop to my hands and knees, pressing myself against the house’s wall. Who knows what the guy might do if he sees me out here. All right, this was a stupid idea.