GRIFFIN

by Paula Cox

  I’m not here for my health.

  He sucked in three quick breaths and pivoted across. For a split-second, he was held by nothing. His body sliding across the rough Stucco was all that kept him from being airborne. Frantically he clawed at the uneven stone edges. The foothold he’d aimed for was insufficient. It didn’t support even the tip of his boot. The shadow of the moonlight had deceived him. His feet fell away. His stomach leapt into his throat. Dax steeled his crooked fingers as the tips scraped into the wall…

  He had purchase. Somehow. The fingers of his left hand had stuck in a crack he didn’t even know had been there. It actually ran across the wall haphazardly for several feet, but the upper Stucco lip bulged, so it hid the depression. With both hands fixed in place, he felt around below with his boots and quickly found a decent foothold.

  Dax pressed his forehead against the cool wall and thanked his lucky stars. This had been way harder than he’d guessed, and he wasn’t even in the compound yet.

  Get a move on, Marine. She’s in there waiting.

  He composed himself and resumed the climb. This shift of route had been the answer to the puzzle; from here on up, it was fairly straightforward. He peered over the top of the wall and reassured himself that he was in no danger of being seen if he got down the other side quickly. A scan of the perimeter brought his gaze to a row of hedges about forty meters to his right. It was a big jump, but the hedge looked soft enough and compact enough to cushion his fall. It was also away from the house, adjacent to some kind of tool shed. Unfortunately, the shed was too far away for him to jump onto the roof.

  He lowered himself a couple of meters down the wall then let go. He landed well, square on the hedge, but the front of it buckled and gave way, spilling him onto the hard ground, out of the shadows. For a few moments, he was in the beam of a security floodlight. Anyone watching the CCTV feeds could spot him easily.

  No use worrying about that now. He was in. He had to keep moving.

  Dogs barked from somewhere across the compound. There was a slight breeze, but he was upwind of the dogs. Important to keep it that way, give them a wide berth. There was a single entry point at the rear of the main building, a door set inside an archway. Locked. Dax made his way along the western edge of the building’s L-shape, careful to keep to the shadows wherever possible.

  He spotted a man on the balcony above. Another two smoking outside at the far end of the compound. The dogs were with them. Shit. The more time he spent creeping around out there, the more chance he’d be discovered. What he needed was a way in, and fast.

  The four buildings were not perfectly adjoined, he discovered. They were connected at the ground floor only, by narrow access passages. An eccentric feature. Climbable, because the joins were so decorative, almost semi-circular stone columns protruding from the walls. He pulled himself up and stayed low behind the balustrade as he made his way along the front balcony of the main house. The first shuttered door he came to was locked, and the next. Crap. He was drifting toward the middle of the compound—over the courtyard itself.

  He noticed an open window. Silk curtains fidgeted in the breeze. There was no light on inside, so he slipped in. He used his night-vision goggles to look around what he quickly determined was the master bedroom. It was opulent, tasteful, and empty.

  He crept onto the landing, down the main staircase, and into the well-lit foyer, always listening, always advancing by positions of optimal cover. The place seemed deserted, but he kept hearing the faint echoes of voices reverberating through the house. Not on this floor, though, unless they were coming from one of the connecting buildings. No, if he had to guess he’d say the voices were coming from…below.

  There was a lit stairwell behind the main staircase, heading down. Dax clicked the safety off his assault rifle and cautiously approached.

  Crack!

  A bullet hit the banister inches from his right ear. His sidewise duck spilled him onto the floor. He managed to spin and fire his weapon at the same time. He missed. His shots shattered a window. While the shooter hid behind a wall, Dax knelt on one knee and took careful aim at the spot where his opponent would have to reappear if he wanted to finish his job. For all he knew, Dax was dead.

  One glimpse was all it took as the man peered around the wall. The eye he cast in Dax’s direction was the one he lost. One headshot. One down.

  By now the entire compound had gone ape-shit: security lights blazed everywhere, voices shouted, and dogs barked. The sound of running feet approached from both inside and out. Dax held his position under the stairs. He shot out three lights, darkening the foyer so that his opponents would struggle to see. He slipped on his NVGs again and waited. His strong suspicion that Tiana was downstairs, almost within reach, only made him more resolute.

  Three men ran into the foyer brandishing Kalashnikovs. One of them had two Dobermans on a leash. They positioned themselves poorly and didn’t spread out as they should have. Dax lobbed a stun grenade into the middle of them, shielded his eyes from the flash and his ears from the bang, then opened fire.

  The men fell in quick succession. The terrified dogs fled back outside for dear life.

  He removed his NVGs and ran down the stairwell. It was quiet down here, too quiet. He looked at the reflection in the blade of one of his throwing knife to see into the room at the bottom. It was a spacious gym-cum-rec room. He tilted his blade minutely, studying every angle. Amazing how steady his hand still was, even after all this time away from the Corps.

  There was definitely movement near the far end. Hushed voices. The muffled sounds of a struggle, as though someone was being restrained.

  Those bastards!

  He shot out the nearest ceiling light, cloaking himself in darkness. Then the next, so he could advance. He made his way along the right hand wall and put his NVGs back on. Then, he took out another light.

  The slip of a shadow several meters ahead alerted him to an enemy presence. But how could he be certain it wasn’t Tiana there, hiding?

  He called her name.

  “Stop right where you are, Easterling, or she dies!”

  Bad move on Bernal’s part. The threat told him three things Dax hadn’t known for sure. One, Bernal was farther away than the shifting shadow, which meant someone else was in here, waiting just ahead of Dax. Two, Tiana was definitely in here. And three, she was with Bernal.

  “Touch her and you know what will happen,” he answered. “Let her go and I’ll leave with her right now. No one else needs to die,” he lied. No fucking way Bernal was surviving past this night.

  “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

  Dax replied by shooting out another light, then moved forward. He could see the tips of the crouching man’s boots ahead of him, peeking out from behind the thick leg of the pool table.

  “Last chance, Bernal.”

  “No, it’s your last chance to save her.”

  So be it. Dax inched to his left, lay flat on the floor and shot at the crouching man’s foot. To his surprise, the boot flew away across the laminate floor. There was no foot in it! He’d been duped.

  No sooner had he realized his mistake than two bullets slammed into his back, knocking the wind out of him. He immediately rolled sideways, making it trickier for his enemy to hit a moving supine target. Another bullet hit his chest. The Kevlar caught it, but it still hurt like hell. Just like the others. Another shot caught his rifle and knocked it clean out of his grip. Dax scrambled away behind the pool table and went to retrieve his twin Berettas.

  He didn’t get to use them. The shooter dove over the top of the table, landing on Dax. He slammed a knee into Dax’s face, then kept on kicking him in the ribs and the face while he was down. Who the hell was this guy?

  Desperate to gain his footing, Dax pulled out one of his throwing knives and drove it into the side of the man’s knee. It didn’t topple him, but it made him cry out and clutch his wound. That brief reprieve was all a Marine needed. Dax shot him through the hea
d with a 9mm Beretta round.

  The final third of the rec room was fully lit as he approached. A row of punching bags lay flat on the floor. Twin ropes hung down from the ceiling. A dark, wet patch on the floor beneath them suggested something really sadistic had taken place here. Every inch of Dax tensed. Hate and shame and disgust rippled through him. He’d taken too long getting here. The idea of Tiana being slung up like a slab of meat and tortured down here for hours almost made him gag.

  Jesus, what have these bastards done?

  Suddenly there she was, curled up in a shivering ball at Bernal’s feet. He was crouching over her as he held a blade to her throat. Tiana didn’t even look up at Dax. She was staring at the floor near his feet, shaking like he’d never seen anyone shake before.

  What have they done?

  “Easterling, listen to me, okay. It doesn’t have to end like this.” Big bad Bernal, getting ready to plead for his life—something he’d thrown away the second his men had forced her into the sedan outside Cassie’s house. “I don’t want to slice her thro—”

  Dax shot him in the shoulder, disabling his knife arm. Then he emptied a full clip into the son of a bitch for everything he’d done to Tiana. Whatever it was, it had to have broken her this time. He didn’t want to think that, but it was inevitable. Her body was covered with cuts, her underwear soaked with blood. Christ. After all she’d been through with Thad. No one could go through shit like this and ever be the same again.

  She winced when he picked her up, then sobbed in his arms. He did his best to comfort her, to reassure her, to tell her that he loved her, but still she couldn’t look at him. Was it fear? Shame? Or was it that she’d lost all hope of ever escaping this torture room?

  After checking their exit route was clear, and shooting out all the lights on the east side of the compound to cover their retreat, Dax opened the front gates and carried her through. He was tired, but he didn’t care. He’d have carried her a hundred miles if he’d had to. Tiana didn’t say a word. And though he knew in his heart she would never be the same after this, and that he’d probably lost her, he was glad, no, proud—prouder than he’d ever been—that he’d been able to keep his word.

  This might be the end of their life together, but at least, for the first time in his life, he’d discovered what it was like to love. It was probably more than a man who hurt and killed people for a living deserved, but it was his, and nothing could take that away from him.

  ***

  On their way into the hospital, she finally spoke to him in a hoarse, broken voice. “Don’t go.”

  “Never.”

  “I think—” Her voice failed her, and she suffered through a racking cough. “I think we should take a trip…to the beach. You know, when I’m better.”

  “Done. Which beach did you have in mind?”

  She shrugged with her eyes. The rest of her body was in too much pain. “Just one thing.” She laid her palm flat against his chest—right on the bruised spot where his vest had caught the bullet. “You—you’ll have to teach me to swim.”

  “You never learned to swim?”

  “No. I think it’s about time I did. It’s about time I did lot of things.”

  “Well, if you’re not swimming after your first lesson, you can have your money back. Guaranteed.”

  She sobbed gently as she nodded at him. “They told me you were dead. I thought I wasn’t going to see you again.”

  Dax held her as softly as he could, realizing she’d somehow managed to stay strong despite having nothing left to hope for. Unbelievable. She’d been through hell and had somehow come out more loveable than ever on the other side. Swimming lessons? Thinking ahead to a new challenge before she’d even recovered from this one?

  He’d never find another woman like Tiana Crowe.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, “until you’re ready to come with me.”

  She stroked his cheek and managed a weak, quivering smile. Before they could kiss, the nurses arrived to escort her into the examination room. She looked over her shoulder, though, on the way in, perhaps to make sure he was still there, that he was real, that he really had rescued her.

  He blew her a kiss. As soon as she was gone, he went outside and started dialing. First Monte, then the police, then Cassie. By the time he’d finished, he was dog-tired. He considered sleeping in the Jeep, but he wanted to be there for Tiana when she needed him. So he grabbed a blanket from the trunk and put three chairs together in the hospital waiting room.

  Almost as soon as he put his head down, he drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  “You know what? You’ve handled yourself like a pro.” Dax stood tall in the water, watching over her. The gentle turquoise swells tickled his waist as Tiana swam around him. Her confidence was growing in the water, but hot damn, he wasn’t helping her concentration with his naked upper body glistening in the sun like that. Every woman on Reduit Beach was ogling him right now. A gaggle of teenage hotties in bikinis had even come over to be near him in the shallows. They swooned whenever he glanced their way.

  “A pro? You think so?” She swam up to him and wrapped herself around his waist, so he could hoist her up into his arms. It was easily her favorite part of these swimming lessons he’d been giving her for the past three days in St. Lucia. It made her feel special, wanted. And it made every other woman on the island jealous. “It is getting easier,” she added.

  “That isn’t what I meant,” he said. “Well, not only that.”

  “It isn’t?” She kissed him full on the lips, quickly losing herself in the heat of his passion. He slid a hand inside the back of her bikini bottoms, exposing half of her butt. She pulled it out, readjusted her bottoms, and at the same whipped her head round to see who was watching. Christ, everyone. Dax laughed hard when he saw how red her cheeks had become. Determined to get him back, she climbed up onto his shoulders and toppled him backwards into the sea. She went under too, but at least she’d gotten the mighty Dax Easterling off his feet, something many of the toughest fighters in the world had failed to do. In fact, he completely upended in the water and wound up with his legs sticking up above the waves.

  Tiana laughed her ass off and clapped when he resurfaced. The gaggle of teens giggled as he said, “Right, my turn,” and stalked her into deeper water. She swam as fast as she could, cutting through waves, but he caught her in just a handful of strokes. “You’re mine.”

  She screamed when he dove under and surfaced with her on his shoulder. Dax gently slapped her ass, then cradled her in his arms as he carried her back into the shallows, just like he’d done that night in the Mojave. He’d gotten her out of deep water and taken her to safety.

  “I meant you’ve handled everything in these past few months like a pro,” he told her. “The way you recovered, the way you handled yourself in the trial, the way you’ve put your life back together. Seriously…I’m proud of you. It took guts to even make it through all that, but you faced it all down and didn’t even blink. Impressive.”

  “Aw, you’re sweet. But do you want to know something? There was no way I’d have ever given in to those bastards. Thad gave in. He was the coward. I know that now. And there was no way I was going to go down that path. It ends with you hating yourself. At least when you stay strong and stick to your principles, you go down knowing you didn’t give in. I think…if I learned anything from Thad…that was it. That there are no shortcuts to being the best you can be. Sometimes the right path is the hardest path, and that’s alright. It gets you there in the end, and the best thing about it is you don’t lose yourself along the way. I think people forget that part. I know Thad did.”

  “Amen to that.” He kissed her cheek. “So how does it feel to have buried Martinez and his bloodsuckers like that? Porter reckons it’s going to change the way the whole sport is governed. The financing, the vetting, the medical scrutiny: it’s opened up that can of worms we talked about.”

  “We had
no idea, did we, that our first coffee shop chat was going to have such an impact.”

  “Um, I kinda did,” he admitted. “I was wanting to nail you the whole time. There was never any going back after that.”

  “You’re incorrigible!”

  “Babe, you have no idea.”

  ***

  That evening, while they were dining in their usual private cabana on the edge of the beach, Dax kept looking out to the ocean. He was fidgety and hadn’t been himself throughout the meal. He had been in and out of the conversation. His wandering mind wasn’t worrying her especially—he’d been through a lot in his life, and there were some things she knew he couldn’t tell her, things from the war—but it was rather killing the romantic vibe he’d gone to all this trouble to create.