Midnight Renegade (Men of Midnight Book 7)

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Her father was shaking and sweating and terrified, too, only he had a bad heart.

  “Don’t shoot!” He lifted his trembling hand, the other with the sheet of paper. “I’ll read it out!”

  Where the hell was Matt? Lee Chamness wasn’t as cool as he appeared. So close to him, she could smell the stress sweat coming off him. His shirt was damp, dark circles under his arms. Sweat trickled down his temples and his mouth had white brackets around it. The fingers holding the gun were white-knuckled.

  Jesus. Four pounds of pressure and she’d never walk again. The gun was inches from her knee. That close, it would just blow out the structure of the knee. They’d have to amputate. Then her hand, then her head …

  Oh God. Chamness was looking crazy enough to do it, too. His finger on the trigger tightened …

  There was an enormous explosion at the door, metal buckling like petals, and the entire world disappeared in a flash of light and a clap of thunder so loud it brought her to her knees. She crouched, dazed, hands over ears, eyes half blinded.

  Matt, Jacko and Joe poured into the room in precise movements, taking small careful steps, shooting.

  Honor had dealt with a lot of bullet wounds but she’d never actually heard or seen shooting outside movie theaters. It was loud and it was terrifying and chaotic. The shooting stopped suddenly, as if choreographed, and she lifted a little from her terrified crouch.

  The tall man and the goons were down, but Lee Chamness had rushed to her father’s side and was crouched down behind him. The son of a bitch! Taking refuge behind a sick old man, knowing Matt, Jacko and Joe would never shoot him.

  He rose, taking her father with him, the gun that had been aimed at her now against her father’s head.

  “Guns down!” he shouted. “Put your weapons down!”

  Honor looked around and to her horror saw Joe and Jacko standing, tossing their weapons on the floor. And Matt … she sucked in a terrified breath. Matt was on the ground! Groaning, trying to lift himself up on an elbow and failing.

  She rushed to his side, kneeling on the floor, and started wailing. “Matt!” she screamed. “Oh my God, no! You’re shot!” Sobbing loudly, running her hands over his body.

  Matt stopped one of her hands with his. “Honey,” he wheezed, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m okay. The vest —”

  “I know,” she whispered fiercely. “Shut up.”

  He shut up.

  She continued sobbing and wailing, slipping his boot knife out of its sheath and rose, still weeping, heartbroken. She managed to dredge up some tears as she staggered over to her father, still making a lot of noise.

  “Daddy!” She laid her head on his shoulder, crying madly, inching around to position herself between him and Chamness.

  Honor ran through it in her head. She usually did this to heal. Ran quickly through which steps to take and in which order to save a life. Now she had only one step to take and she did it, fast and mercilessly and precisely.

  In one whipping stroke, she ran Matt’s razor sharp knife down Lee Chamness’s brachial artery. It was the hand holding the gun.

  For a moment, he simply stood there, his body registering the shock before his mind could. The weight of the gun brought his hand down and he let the gun drop to the floor. The thud was loud in the cavernous room.

  Honor placed her father carefully behind her then stepped up and got right into Chamness’s face.

  “I just severed your brachial artery,” she said. “I also just severed your median nerve so your hand can no longer grasp anything. But that’s the least of your problems. Because you are rapidly losing blood and are becoming ischemic.”

  His face had lost all color and he looked down in surprise at his arm. It was red. Blood had started dripping down to the floor from his hand. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

  She stepped even closer to him. To this man who wanted to poison an entire city. Who had kidnapped and threatened her father. Who had kidnapped her.

  Who had ruined Matt’s life.

  “Our heart pumps blood at several liters a minute. We have about five liters of blood in our body and yours is pumping your blood out just as fast as your heart can manage it. In fact, your heart is racing now. It doesn’t know that an artery is severed. It just knows that blood is missing and is trying to pump out more.”

  She looked him straight in the eyes. They were blue. Arctic blue. Cold and unfeeling and right now, very scared.

  She put her face right up next to his and whispered in his ear. “You’re dying,” she whispered. “You’re already dead. It’s just taking you a moment to realize it.”

  “You — you can’t —” he stammered.

  “Oh yes. Yes, I can. You were planning on destroying a great city. You threatened my father and you were going to incriminate him for a monstrous crime. You ruined Matt Walker’s life. If I could I’d kill you twice.”

  His mouth opened and closed and the hemorrhaging continued. Beyond the point of no return. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t bring him back.

  And she didn’t want to. For the first and — she hoped — last time in her life, she was violating the oath she’d taken to save lives.

  This was a monster of a man and he deserved to die. His mouth twisted as he collapsed in a heap like a broken puppet with cut strings. She watched as he twitched, then was still.

  “But once will be enough.” She hauled back and kicked him. For her father, for herself, for Matt, for the citizens of Los Angeles.

  “That’s enough, Captain Marvel,” Matt’s deep voice behind her said. He pried the knife from her fingers. She opened her hand and it clattered to the ground as she turned and threw her arms around him.

  “Easy!” he winced and she pulled back.

  “You probably have some broken ribs.” She fingered two bullet holes in his vest. “But you’re alive!”

  “I am, thanks to you. He would have shot your father and then us.”

  They both turned their heads as the SWAT team erupted into the premises, bristling with weaponry, fanning out. One of the insectoid-looking men shouted through the barrier dividing the big warehouse and a moment later, the men in hazmat suits shuffled out with their hands up. Ten men in hazmat suits, the good guys, rushed forward into the shielded area and closed the door behind them.

  A member of the SWAT team, who’d been speaking into his microphone, came over. “You Matt Walker?”

  Matt straightened and nodded. The man held out a gloved hand. “Ted Hanson, LAPD SWAT. You guys did good work.” He held up a hand and cocked his head, eyes opening slightly, listening to someone talking into his ear. Which Honor took for SWAT-guy body language for total astonishment. “You know what they were doing in there?”

  Matt and Honor shook their heads.

  “My guys, who know their stuff, say that there are hundreds of canisters of cesium-137 in there, in the form of salts. They were mixing the salts with water

  to make a radioactive slurry.”

  “They were headed to the North Hollywood Pump Station on Vanowen,” Matt said and Hanson winced. He opened his mouth but someone shouted, “Yo, Hanson! Over here!” He gave them both a two-fingered salute off his helmet and walked away.

  “Jesus.” Matt folded her in his arms, holding on to her tightly. She held on just as tightly to him. “That was close.”

  Her shaken father shuffled toward them, swaying slightly.

  “Daddy.” She stepped back from Matt and kissed her father on the cheek and hugged him tightly. “Daddy this is Matt Walker, the man who —”

  Wincing, Matt turned, stuck out his hand. “The man who loves your kickass daughter, sir. Nice to meet you.”

  The Grange

  Two months later

  “John Huntington! Put that back!” Honor’s voice rang out, loud and clear as a bell. “You know better than that!”

  John Huntington, a warrior who struck terror in the hearts of his enemies, hunched his shoulders. There was sudden silence
in the Great Hall as he slunk back to the carving station and put back the slices of tagliata beef he’d heaped on his plate. He’d been found to have high cholesterol and had been put on a diet.

  His wife watched what he ate very carefully but she was at the other end of the table, chatting with Lauren and Isabel.

  Everyone snickered. Most of the guys had been on the receiving end of Honor’s lectures. Senior, aka Doug Kowalski, had passed by the meat carving station entirely, not without a wince.

  It was Felicity and Metal’s wedding and the place looked like a fairyland, plants and candles everywhere. The long table had a white linen tablecloth with tiny white rosebuds twined around some kind of green plants. White candles all along the length of the table.

  Isabel had outdone herself with amazing food that was also healthy. It was so good that the guys weren’t complaining.

  Felicity was beautiful, as all brides were supposed to be. But she had an extra glow. The pregnancy was proceeding well and she had a rosy glow and a cute little bump and looked like happiness itself.

  Metal looked stunned. As well he should. He was getting a smart and beautiful wife whom he loved and who loved him and they were expecting twin sons. An instant family, for a man who’d lost his when the Twin Towers fell.

  Honor sat back in the circle of Matt’s arm. She’d quit the hospital and joined a small family practice not far from ASI headquarters. She was also on retainer from the company as their company physician.

  She took it seriously and had stated her intention of making sure every single member of the company, and spouses, lived to be a hundred. She was dedicated to them all and was always available.

  Two weeks before, she’d got a panicked call from Jacko and Lauren. Their tiny daughter Alice had a high fever and difficulty breathing and Honor came over right away, even though it was 2 am. She got Alice to the hospital, insisted on an IV of antibiotics and stayed with her for a day and a night until the fever went down. It had been a lung infection and not meningitis, but Honor had definitely saved Alice’s life.

  Jacko now would shoot on sight anyone who looked cross-eyed at Honor.

  Honor had kept her apartment but she now slept over at Matt’s place. He was conducting a clever campaign to have her move in permanently. He’d started with having her leave her toothbrush, and now she had half his closet and most of the drawers were filled with her stuff.

  He was thrilled.

  He wanted more.

  “To Felicity and Metal!” Joe stood with a glass of champagne in his hand. “Another good man bites the dust!”

  He looked at Honor. She smiled up at him and his heart skipped a beat. Oh, man.

  Sweat broke out over his body. But now was the time to man up. He was a former SEAL, after all. They ate danger for breakfast and caught bullets with their teeth.

  He was also a former SEAL with an honorable discharge. There’d been a clamor to have the Other Than Honorable discharge expunged from his record, particularly since it had been Lee Chamness who had had pushed for him to be court-martialed. Matt was glad that his buddies felt so strongly about it, but he had everything he wanted in life. A woman he loved and a job he loved and teammates he loved.

  Though he was only going to ask one of them to marry him.

  He stood and raised his glass. The entire table quieted and fifty faces turned to him. A couple of the guys knew what was coming and they were smirking at him.

  Oh God.

  He cleared his throat. He’d actually prepared a speech but when he dug into his pants pocket he discovered that it wasn’t there. Bad news, because his brain had just shorted on him.

  “Marriage is, ah, a good thing. Everyone says so. I say so.” Honor looked at him with a frown. “When two people love each other, they ah …” Fuck. They got married. Didn’t they?

  A couple of the women were now looking at him strangely.

  Metal, who knew, was sitting back in his chair, arm around the woman he loved, grinning widely. Enjoying Matt’s embarrassment.

  Matt’s throat tightened. There were so many things to say but he didn’t know how to say them. That he loved Honor, liked her, respected her. Had fun with her, but knew she understood the darkness he’d seen because she’d seen her own darkness. She got him, completely. She was the woman he’d been waiting for.

  Honor’s father was looking at him now, too. Simon Thomas had sold his company to a Canadian consortium and had bought a small apartment in the center of Portland and saw them often. He’d privately begged Matt to give him grandkids. Once he’d pulled out the big guns and asked for grandkids before he died, putting a quaver in his voice, which Matt thought was playing dirty.

  He was doing the best he could. They’d tossed out contraception and he was doing his very best to create another generation of Walkers. Honor was happy with the idea of kids. A little reticent when it came to marriage.

  But Matt discovered with a shock that he was old-fashioned. He wanted kids and marriage. Both. If possible, marriage first.

  Now everyone was staring at him and no words were coming. None at all. White static in his head.

  “Fuck it,” he muttered, pulled a box from his jacket pocket and held it out to her. “Honor Thomas, will you marry me?”

  At least the ring was perfect. Suzanne Huntington had helped him pick it out. Honor’s birthstone, sapphire, with some diamonds around it. Suzanne had blinded him with science about the cut of the stones and the setting and blah blah blah. He’d taken in one word in ten. But even he could see that it was nice.

  Honor’s pretty mouth fell open as she lifted the lid of the box. She held it and looked up at him. She wasn’t putting it on her finger.

  She was a woman who valued words. He could persuade her with words, he knew he could. Except none were coming to him. Not one.

  “Honor?” he croaked.

  She smiled up at him. But, fuck. She wasn’t saying yes. She wasn’t saying no but she wasn’t saying yes, either.

  Everyone was openly watching, some with their chin in their hands, like watching a series on TV. Only the kind of series where the lead character gets whacked in the first season. Sweat trickled down his back.

  “I promise to watch my cholesterol and eat meat no more than twice a week and to eat vegetables at every meal!”

  There. All his cards on the table.

  She carefully and slowly removed the ring from the box and put it on her finger and stood up. Taking her own sweet time about it.

  “Well, in that case, darling, yes!”

  The shouts and cheers and whistles rose to the rafters.

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed Midnight Renegade.

  If you did, I’d appreciate a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

  To read an excerpt from Nick and Kay's story,

  Midnight Fever, please turn the page

  Midnight Fever

  by Lisa Marie Rice

  Portland, Oregon

  “You’re a hard woman to catch, Dr. Hudson,” Nick Mancino said, smiling. Well, not really smiling, more like a baring of teeth. His dark eyes seemed to penetrate her head. “Missed you by five minutes in DC.”

  Kay Hudson suppressed a sigh as she looked at the handsome face scowling at her. It would be easier if he weren’t right. She had been avoiding him, though not because she didn’t want to see him. Nope. He’d featured in many erotic dreams. They’d been dancing around each other for months and it was entirely her fault that this was the first time they were actually together in the same room.

  And what a room—elegant, hushed, candlelit. The Lounge offered the finest food in the Pacific Northwest. She’d eaten here several times before with her good friend, Felicity Ward. They’d laughed and eaten superbly well.

  Not that she was hungry. Her stomach cramped with anxiety and the thought of food was slightly nauseating. She hadn’t even been able to order her meal, something she usually enjoyed.

  Nick had missed her by five minutes in DC. Yeah.
She’d gotten word that Nick was arriving and had escaped out the back door as he walked in the front. And she’d deliberately come into Portland last month the day after he’d left for a job. She’d been avoiding him for a while now.

  Not because she wanted to. God no. Who wouldn’t want Nick Mancino? Just look at him, she thought. He was elegantly dressed—definitely in her honor because she knew he preferred sweats and jeans—but the white Armani shirt, Versace tie and blue-black Hugo Boss suit couldn’t hide the fact that that hard body wasn’t meant for boardroom suites. It was meant for midnight raids.

  And sex.

  Nick exuded toughness and self-reliance, the kind of guy who wouldn’t back down from anything. More than capable of defending himself. No one needed to protect Nick, least of all her.

  In ordinary times, at least.

  There wasn’t any physical danger Nick would refuse to meet, but there was the question of fairness. Nick had had a brilliant career by being smart and brave and amazingly hard-working. He’d become a Navy SEAL and then a member of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team.

  Such hard things to do. They were things he’d earned a million times over. She didn’t want to hurt a career he’d worked so hard for.

  As long as he was in the FBI, she could ruin his life with what she was doing. If things went south, she might have to run for her life, and every single person she’d had dealings with before disappearing would have their lives turned inside out. He’d live under a perpetual cloud. It would ruin his career.

  But Nick wasn’t with the FBI anymore. As of last week, he was with Alpha Security International, a big security company in Portland. A good place to be, with good people. Felicity worked there, and said that the bosses at ASI were reasonable men. Nick would definitely not be penalized by an association with her. Not at ASI. They’d be on her side, and his. So now she could allow herself contact with him. Briefly.