The blast slid across my back, scratching my shoulder in multiple places. If I’d been one second too late… Let’s not think about it.
A handful of stitches and the intern who did the needlework was done but my concern was on Caleb the entire time. The doctor who checked her out had no idea what Elijah injected her with. Some kind of homemade tranquillizer, incredibly potent and not exactly legal. Given the rate it’s leaving her system, he thinks she’ll be fine after a good night’s rest in her own bed.
I carry her up the stairs to her loft, ignoring the throbbing pain in my back. There aren’t a lot of moments in life when I get to play the cool guy and I’m not passing up the chance to carry the damsel over the threshold.
Caleb reaches out and twists the doorknob for me. The loft is exactly as it was before; a perfect constant to an otherwise chaotic day. I carry her inside and she squeezes my jacket a little tighter as I lower her down onto her bed, no doubt scared I’ll drop her but there’s no way I would.
“Try and get some rest, okay?” I tell her, laying her arms at her sides. “You should have your strength back by morning.”
“Are you leaving?” she asks quickly. Her eyes shake. It’s clear what she wants the answer to be and it makes my heart grow a little larger.
“No.” I pause to watch the short breath of relief as it passes through her. “I’ll be here…”
Caleb shifts onto her side and her hand falls to the sheets beneath her, gently crawling towards me as fast as her weak muscles will allow. Her hand touches mine and she smiles back at me.
“It’s going to be okay, Caleb,” I whisper. I lean forward to raise her head and adjust the pillow to a better position beneath her neck. “I’ll be back.”
She nods, trusting every word. “Thank you.”
I let her touch linger on my skin for a few more moments before I make myself stand up. There’s nothing I want more than to lie next to her right now but there’s the small matter of the very disappointed bounty hunter lingering around in the hallway to deal with.
Archer stands outside the door, leaning against the wall with Lilah’s discarded pistol in one hand. He admires it briefly before glancing up at me with hard eyes and sliding it into his belt. “You didn’t tell me this friend of yours was Fox Fitzpatrick, mate,” he says.
I close the door behind me. “It wasn’t relevant.”
“Like hell it wasn’t.” He pushes softly off the wall. “Do you have any idea how much his head is worth to the right people? Had I known he was here, I certainly wouldn’t have wasted my time chasing after Hansel and Gretel.”
“He’s not a part of this,” I say, keeping a steady tone. “Leave him alone.”
“And why the hell would I do that?”
“Because I will make your life a living hell if you don’t, that’s why.”
His lips curl. “And just how do you intend—”
“Archer Allen. Former MI-6 agent,” I begin. “You were dismissed for reasons unknown but I’m sure I could crack those files wide open within the hour but on the off-chance that won’t do any damage to you, I’ll just focus on the very expired visa you’re traveling on U.S. soil with and go from there. Can’t exactly cash in on bounties if you’re thirty-thousand feet in the air on your way back to Teabag Land. Or if that’s not enough — just give me about twenty minutes. Everyone has a skeleton or two. I’m sure you have at least one worth digging up.”
Archer chuckles. “All right…” he sighs. “I will look the other way on Fitzpatrick — but how about we say you owe me a favor someday?”
“I can live with that.”
“But I will say this… I don’t envy your friend. It’s not just the Harts out there looking for retribution against Fox Fitzpatrick.”
“Who?”
He lowers his voice. “No one knows her name. Only a few know her face but everyone knows what she does.”
There’s only two words I can think of that carry that kind of ominous fear. “The Boss.”
“You might want to let him know.”
I nod. “I will.”
Archer leans back again, flashing a look of expectation. “I held up my part of the bargain. Now, where can I find Dante Hart?”
I reach into my bag for a notepad. “Wisconsin,” I answer.
His brow shrinks. “What?”
“His childhood home is on Geneva Lake.” I scribble the address down from memory and tear off the sheet to hand it to him.
Archer takes it from me and stares at it for a moment. “I have to ask — how do you know this?”
I crack a smile, smug as hell. “Library card.” He stares at me with confusion. “The Walworth County Library burned down in 1992,” I explain. “Only about half of the physical records were salvaged and transferred to the library the next county over — including the membership information of their grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Hart.”
He blinks. “Bloody hell…”
“The card was never officially used but her name still pops up in their member database, along with their home address. Geneva Lake, Wisconsin. Given the trouble Dante and the twins went to erase the place from record, I’d say he’s probably there now.”
Archer folds the paper in half and shoves it into his jacket pocket. “Well, I’m impressed, Sparky,” he says. “You’d make quite the private dick, if you wanted to.”
“Thought about it,” I say, “but I look stupid in hats.”
He laughs and pulls out his wallet. “Still… you ever find yourself looking for a job in hunting — give me a call.” His fingers flick towards me, squeezing a black business card between his fingertips.
I take it from him and slide it into my bag. “Maybe I will.”
His grin stays on his face as he turns to take the stairs down. “Be seeing you, mate.”
“Be seeing you,” I repeat, watching him closely until his shadow disappears out the door and it clicks closed behind him.
Caleb is asleep by the time I get back inside. I bolt the door behind me and slide the chain in place, feeling more than a little overprotective. Nothing lurches my heart more than seeing her this vulnerable. She’ll be back to her normal self by morning and she won’t need me anymore. She has never needed me, honestly, but it’s never been a goal of mine to make her either.
Want, on the other hand. If I could figure out how to make her want me, then all of my problems would be solved overnight.
I set my messenger bag down on the counter and my eyes drift over to her again.
Caleb Fawn. I’ve never in my life wanted anything more than I want her. I spent days in a warehouse, praying for water and I can safely say I didn’t want it to rain out in the fucking desert as much as I want Caleb Fawn in my life.
But none of that matters if she doesn’t feel the same way.
I reach into my bag and slide the brown envelope out. It’s been almost two years since I stuffed it into the back pocket and swore I’d forget it ever existed, but it always lingered in the corners of my mind like an awkward growing pain.
I pull the papers out and lay them on the counter in front of me. She signed them and sent them over to me before the ink was even dry. Her signature even has a slight smear to it on every page, like she just couldn’t wait to get it over with.
I grab a pen from my bag and I sign each one. I don’t want to. I never did but I can’t force her to stay with me if she doesn’t want to be with me. I could slip out right now and spend the next two years avoiding her again. We’d still be lawfully wedded but we wouldn’t be married like I want to be.
I slide the papers back in the envelope and I leave it on the counter for her.
I told her I’d stay and I will. If tonight’s the last time I’ll get to feel her next to me then I won’t miss it. I kick off my shoes and lie down beside her. She rolls over as I do it and lays her head on my shoulder. Her hair brushes my nose. Her hand falls to my chest. Her toes swipe against mine.
A few short hours of this bliss and I’ll
leave.
Hopefully, by the end of it, I’ll be strong enough to let her go.
Chapter 23
Caleb
Los Angeles
Present Day
Ugh. My fucking head.
I swear to god — if I ever stumble upon Elijah fucking Hart again, I’m going to punch him in the face. Seriously. How a full-body tranquilizer manages to make me feel like Nurse Ratchet sawed into my head and scooped out my brain using her fingers, I’ll never know.
I head straight for the bathroom for a bottle of aspirin, refusing to even turn on any lights along the way. It’s like the world’s worst hangover and if the nausea in my stomach tells me anything, it’s about to be one of those hangovers.
My dry tongue rejects the handful of pills I shove inside. I try to gather some spit to swallow them down but it’s like sandpaper in my mouth.
I stumble through the loft with half-open eyes and navigate the kitchen to find an empty glass.
I pause and look around the abandoned room. “Boxcar?”
He was here last night. I remember his arm around me and his warm body pressed against mine. Mostly, I remember not even questioning it like it was always meant to be that way.
I fill the glass with water and choke down the pills lodged beneath my tongue.
“Boxcar?” I ask again, instantly regretting the volume in which I chose to shout it.
There’s no answer, which obviously means he’s gone. No surprises there. Our last moment in this place before last night wasn’t exactly a happy one. I said fuck you and he replied with I love you and I didn’t do a thing to reciprocate no matter what my heart told me.
My emotions take a swift turn towards annoyance and then my eyes fall on the brown envelope sitting on the counter.
It takes me a moment, thoughts fighting together in my brain to come out over the splurge of pain and misery, but eventually, I remember what they are. I remember everything.
The envelope is a bit crinkled but it’s the exact same one I touched two years ago. When I never got a response from Boxcar concerning our divorce, I assumed he torched the documents and ran off. I never for a second thought that he actually kept them. He dodged my communications for two months after that and eventually I stopped trying, especially when he made tracking him down damn near impossible.
I open the envelope and I slide the papers out.
This moment has drifted through my head many times over the last two years. I imagined how relieved I’d feel for it to be over and done with; for Boxcar to go on living without the constant threat of my death lingering over him. Now that the moment is here, I stare down at my old signature and his next to it and a cold darkness strikes my chest.
Bartholomew Carson. My ex-husband.
I never thought I’d be anyone’s wife. I’m not even sure I ever wanted to be. Sure, I’ve had boyfriends but they all eventually bailed. I was too emasculating or I didn’t wear the right kind of make-up or my hobbies were strange. They all found something in me they didn’t like.
Except Boxcar.
I thought our differences made us weaker but in the end, they had the opposite effect. When I think of us together, it’s not the moments of anger or frustration that stand out anymore; it’s the good, tender moments that do. The way he always caressed my face before a kiss or the gentleness in his voice, even when what he was saying was harsh or blunt.
And now, he gives me this. The thing I’ve wanted for two years. It’s the last thing he wanted but he made that sacrifice anyway — along with taking that bullet for me. He didn’t have to do that and just like that night in Afghanistan when he plowed into that warehouse to save me, I feel an overwhelming urge to smack him for it.
I shove the forms into the envelope and drop it back onto the counter.
Chapter 24
Boxcar
Los Angeles
Present Day
I drop the last of the overpriced, outside cameras in the garbage sack and toss the thing over my shoulder. Designing the ultimate home security system for a beautiful Hollywood actress and her live-in bodyguard is a dirty job but there’s no one out there more qualified than me. I also owe him — a lot — so I won’t be charging him a dime for my time. Not that I would anyway. The challenge is, honestly, the most fun I’ve had in ages outside of the twenty minutes I spent in Caleb’s bed yesterday.
As I step back inside the house, the soft murmuring of voices pulls me towards the kitchen where I find Fox and Dani bent over the counter, facing each other with serious, somber expressions. Dani’s short, black hair falls over her face, casting deep shadows of doubt across her perfect, pale skin. That plastic surgeon did a bang-up job fixing up the Gash Seen Around the World. You can’t even see it unless you’re really looking for it, unlike Fox’s identical scar on his freshly-shaven face. I guess Dani made him drop the beard but he looks far more handsome without it, if you ask me.
I drop the sack to the floor near the garbage can and Fox looks down to catch what’s inside.
He sighs. “Seriously?”
“Dude—” I shake my head and slide onto the stool by the counter. “Trust me.” He and Dani share a nervous glance, she looking far more fearful than Fox. “Guys, I have this completely under control.” I open my laptop. “The system I’m custom-building here is going to be amazing. I did the same thing to my own place in Boston.”
“You owned a 4.3 million dollar house in Boston?” Dani asks.
“No, an apartment near—” I blink. “Is that how much this place costs? Good for you.”
She sighs loudly and stares across the counter at Fox.
“Let’s just…” He waves a hand to try and calm her down. “Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt before we make any calls.”
“Calls?” I ask. “What calls?”
He scratches nervously at the scar on his cheek. “We’re a little concerned…”
“About what?”
“About the assassins that know where we sleep, Boxcar.”
“Pfft! Don’t be. They only know where you sleep. I made sure that they wouldn’t know Dani lives here. And besides, those two are going to be very busy for a while. I have a bounty hunter tracking them down as we speak.”
“There’s also a bounty hunter who knows where I live,” Fox argues. “On all counts, we should probably move.”
“Okay—” I close my laptop to give them my undivided attention. “No one is moving anywhere. Look—” I gesture behind me at the kitchen table where I’ve stacked boxes upon boxes of new tech I bought on my little shopping spree this morning. “I’ve got new, non-shitty cameras to install in every room of this glorious mansion and in every corner of that perfect, green lawn of yours. Noise sensors, pressure sensitivity plates, booby-traps — the works.”
Fox smirks. “And on what sleazy politician’s dime?”
I pause. “I’m going to plead the fifth on that one — but it doesn’t matter. Just consider it a generous donation or… hush money, if you will.”
Dani’s little eyes grow wider with concern. “I’ll call the real estate agent,” she says at Fox.
“No one’s calling the real estate agent!” I chuckle. “Trust me, guys. When I’m done here, this place will be an impenetrable fortress.”
The front door opens and a voice echoes in from the front hall. “Hello?”
Fox glares at me as it closes and shoes tap down the hall towards us.
“I said, when I’m done,” I repeat. Caleb steps into the kitchen and I point at the doorway. “It’s just Caleb. She’s mostly harmless.”
She gestures over her shoulder. “Did you guys know your front gate is wide open?”
I flinch. “Okay, that was my bad. Sorry.”
“I’ll go close it,” Fox says, his voice dry as sand. “Then maybe I’ll get started patching up the bullet holes riddled throughout my living room.”
“Hey — I took a bullet in your house and I didn’t sue you,” I joke. “You should be thank
ful.”
“It was a graze.”
“Pfft, like anyone here has had worse,” I challenge. Fox gestures at Dani with his eyes and I swallow hard. “Oh, right. Sorry.”
To her credit, Dani smiles. “It’s okay.”
As Fox passes Caleb, he flashes a quick smile at her and the two of them exchange a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Caleb.”
“Hey, Fox,” she says. She cranes her neck and calls over her shoulder. “Did you bring me back something Japanese?”
“I might have.”
“Hey, Caleb,” Dani greets.
“Hey, Dani.” Caleb pauses near me and I notice the brown envelope in her hand as she lays it on the counter near my laptop. “Mostly harmless?” she asks me.
“I stand by my phrasing,” I defend.
Dani clears her little throat and twists away with a smile. “I’m going to go help him,” she says, her eyes jolting between us with a knowing glimmer.
“Bye, Dani,” I say. She takes off and I wait until her echoing feet disappear out the front door. “Okay — she is fucking adorable.”
“I know, right?” Caleb says.
“I didn’t even know the human race was capable of imbuing that much cuteness into one living being.”
She chuckles. “I think she’s already taken, Box.”
“Story of my life.” I shake my head. “Eh, that’s not really my type, anyway.”
“I’m not sure how to take that.”
“Let me know when you figure it out.” My eyes fall down her body. “You feeling okay?”
“Not too bad,” she says. “No side effects to speak of other than a massive headache but a few tequila shots on the way over here did wonders for that.”
“Good,” I chuckle.
Her eyes graze my shoulder. “You?”
I point at it, acting cool. “What? This? It was nothing—” She reaches out and flicks my shoulder with her finger, shooting a sharp pain across my back. I hold back my wince. “Okay — that was just mean.”
She chuckles. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” I look into her green eyes and the pain disappears. “How did you know I was here?”
Love and Wargames: A Bad Boy Hacker Romance Page 17