Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three

by Lawless, Alexi

  Alejo flew backward but recovered quickly, crabbing toward her as she rolled away, desperately trying to regain her footing. That was the goddam annoyingly impressive thing about Delta boys. They had stamina like a motherfucker. Sam realized he was taking it easy on her, because she’d fought with him before, and she knew what he was capable of. But she also understood he was trying to wear her out and run her down until the noise and the agita inside her abated. He never treated her with kid gloves. She was angry and he was letting her take it out on him. Hell, from the looks of it, Alejandro was enjoying himself.

  They circled each other like two snapping alphas, him bleeding from his lip where she’d nailed him, and her weaving a little from the pain and exertion. Her lungs were already on fire, and her heart was pounding like it wanted to fly out of her chest. But she felt alive. This kind of anger she could deal with. This was the kind of hurt she could manage.

  “The first time I saw you, I saw nothing but an infuriating, entitled, eighteen-year-old know-nothing bitch,” Alejandro told her, his eyes narrowing as he rounded her on the mat like a jackal.

  “And I saw a smug, conceited asshole with a chip on his shoulder like we all owed you something,” she answered, pivoting on the mat to match his movements. “You’re the same asshole you always were, de Soto—just older and slower.”

  He took the bait, lunging in. He got a grip on the back of her neck and tried to pick up her leg so he could body slam her into the ground. Sam countered the move with a swift uppercut to the chin that had him releasing his grip. He fell back, wagging his jaw to test it.

  “Shame I didn’t break it,” she muttered.

  “You’re a stone-cold bitch, Wyatt,” he told her, though his voice was admiring.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You wanted to take me on, de Soto. Now fucking come and get it.”

  Alejandro lunged in with a sweeping backhand that she barely had time to duck. His heavy hand glanced her face as she reacted. Her next move was going to hurt, but she’d make it worth it. Sam dropped one hand to the ground and used the leverage to scissor one leg across his stomach, knocking him backward as her other leg hooked behind his knees in a claw hold that snapped him down to the ground like a manacle. The pain was sharp and excruciating as they both hit the mat, grunting. Sweat bloomed on her skin from the agony of her exertion. She tried to sit up, but that takedown had cost her. The muscles in her back seized up in a debilitating cramp, and Sam groaned helplessly, loosening her pin as she tried to breathe through the worst of it.

  Alejo immediately scrambled up. “How bad did you hurt yourself?” he asked, shockingly gentle as his fingertips pressed against her frozen muscles of her back.

  “Cramp—it’s just a cramp—” she panted out, trying to roll away.

  “Stop fighting me, Wyatt,” he snapped, shoving her over onto her stomach on the mat. He felt her back muscles with blunt fingertips, unerringly pinpointing the pressure points in her lumbar that helped the frozen fascia release. Alejandro worked methodically as Samantha breathed hard, fist clenching and unclenching against the mat. Tears of frustration mixed with confused gasps of relief. Goddammit, she was not crying again. She didn’t give a shit how much it hurt. She wasn’t doing it—not in front of him. No. Just NO.

  Sam squeezed her eyes shut, relieved when she felt his ministrations working, the pain in her muscles slowly ebbing back, replaced by the dull throb she’d almost become accustomed to. Alejandro continued to work, moving now to the muscles surrounding her lumbar, gently forcing everything to unclench, his movements patient and steady like a physical therapist.

  “You didn’t let me finish,” he chided, confusing her already overloaded mind.

  “Finish what?” Sam closed her eyes. “Kicking my ass?”

  “You were doing pretty good, considering how badly you’ve been injured.”

  She grunted. “Don’t be nice to me just because you feel bad for me.”

  “When have I ever felt sorry for you, Wyatt?” Alejandro asked, black brow raised. “And when have I ever been nice to you?”

  He had a fair point there. If she could count on anybody not to cut her any breaks, it was him. Though she’d never ever admit to him, she was grateful for it. Sam caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror lining the dojo. She looked pale, her eyes hollow. Her hair had come out of its braid while they were sparring. She closed her eyes against the image of her lying prone and broken against the mat.

  “Why are you so damn unrelenting?” Alejandro asked her bluntly. “After everything you’ve done—after all the things you’ve accomplished—I don’t understand why you’re so fucking hard on yourself. It’s exhausting to watch.”

  Because I’m punishing myself.

  She remained silent.

  He stopped kneading and sat back on his haunches. “You don’t get to wallow. You don’t get to give in to whatever is eating you up inside. If I have to pull you out of this by your hair, I will. Because I’m not putting up with it. So get your shit together, Wyatt.”

  “Stop acting like you have any idea what’s going on in my head,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

  His hand smacked the mat beside her face, making her eyes snap open.

  “You think I don’t know what it’s like to hate yourself?” His dark eyes blazed with anger. “I was supposed to protect my family—me. But I couldn’t protect my father when he got shot, because I was just a kid then. I couldn’t protect Rox even though I’m her big brother, because I was too busy defending my country!” he shouted. “I couldn’t protect Rita in Tikrit, because I was on a black ops mission halfway around the world! You really think I don’t know how you feel?!”

  Sam closed her eyes, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “Do you know how many suicide missions I took after that? Do you?” Alejandro snatched her up by her shoulders, shaking her. “Can you imagine how fucking angry I was after I survived each and every one?!”

  They stared at each other, both breathing heavily, the air charged with shame and anger.

  “How could I live when I couldn’t even protect what was mine? I am a fucking amazing soldier—and I couldn’t even save my own family,” he ground out bitterly, his voice heavy with the guilt she recognized so well.

  Sam swallowed, her throat working. For all their rivalry, mutual dislike, and incessant bickering, she saw how similar they were in the most painful of ways.

  “I know what’s in your head, Wyatt—I’ve been there. And I’m telling you—you have to stop,” he told her, staring at her. “You can’t keep thrashing yourself for the past. It doesn’t change it.”

  “How did you—” her voice broke. “How do you stop?”

  His grip on her shoulders loosened. Alejandro looked up at the ceiling and when his eyes came back down to meet hers, she could have sworn she could see right into the heart of him.

  “You gave me back Roxy,” he told her simply. “She needed me to be her mano again, and I needed her, too.”

  Oh, God, she’d been so fucked up. So lost in her own need for revenge and some twisted version of justice, she’d pushed away nearly everyone who loved her. The pressure behind her eyes made her head throb. He let go of her, and Sam swayed as a profound weariness set in, filling the singed spaces inside, now that her anger had burned itself out. Everything hurt, but she was too tired to care. She could sleep on this mat all night if she had to. She curled in on herself, prepared to do just that. Let sleep and suffering take her.

  “You’re just messed up right now, Wyatt,” Alejandro told her in a low voice, mouth grim. “We all get there. But that’s when you have to just let the people who need you take care of you a while.”

  “Leave me,” she whispered.

  “Tempting, but no.” Alejandro leaned over her, slipping a strong arm under her neck and another one under her knees. He lifted her up, carrying her out of the gym and into the cool darkness. As he stepped onto the walkway, she heard one of the guards ask if she was alright.

 
Embarrassed, she made a half-assed attempt to shift out of his grip.

  “I can do it by myself,” she mumbled, head lolling.

  “I know you can, Wyatt,” he answered, as he crossed the field up to the house. “The point is—you don’t have to.”

  *

  April—Same Time

  Wyatt Ranch, Texas

  J A C K

  He stood up from the porch swing as Alejandro approached from the darkness, carrying an exhausted and inert Samantha.

  “Is she okay?” Jack asked softly, immediately reaching for her.

  “Mira, cabrón—have you seen my face?” Alejandro responded, his voice heavy with sarcasm. De Soto had a split lip and bruised cheeks, one eyebrow already swelling. “Wyatt may be injured but she still fights like a fucking badass.”

  He handed her over, letting Jack gather her into his arms. He glanced at her face and arms. She had a bump on her cheekbone, near her temple, but that was all he could see. “Why were you fighting?”

  “Because she needed to.” Alejandro winced slightly, pressing a hand to his rib cage.

  That feeling Jack intrinsically understood. All too well. Sometimes, when it was too much to keep in, you had to claw and fight your way out of it.

  “Her back seized again,” he told Jack. “Take care of her, okay? She needs someone she trusts to take care of her right now.”

  “She doesn’t trust you?”

  “She’ll never admit it, but she does,” Alejo answered as he opened the porch door. “But it’s you she loves, man. Just don’t let her down like the last one did.”

  A warmth spread through him as he looked down at her sleeping form. “I won’t,” he promised.

  Jack carried Samantha past Alejandro and upstairs to her room. He laid her down on the bed, pulling off her leggings and slipping off her shirt. He loosened the thick braid over her shoulder, letting her hair slide through his fingers as he spread the waves back. Samantha opened her eyes, staring up at him blearily.

  “Jack?” she mumbled, still half-asleep.

  “You’re okay, tesoro,” he whispered back, his fingers trailing down her face. “Are you hurting?”

  “I’m tired…” she breathed slowly, eyes fluttering closed. “Stay with me…”

  He laid down slowly, stretching out alongside her. “I’m here. Sleep now. I won’t leave you.” He pushed a tendril of her raven hair back, listening as her breath evened out, deepening as his love succumbed to sleep.

  *

  S A M A N T H A

  She rolled, turning and undulating underwater. She was being dragged, pulled down and deeper.

  Samantha opened her eyes.

  She was surrounded by a profound, endless blue ocean, dark and silent as she went down, down…

  She could see the sunlight filtering from above, glinting and shimmering ahead of her like a mirage. She felt her body’s natural buoyancy as she struggled to rise, even as some unseen force weighed her down.

  She looked down, saw the ropes binding her ankles.

  No.

  She kicked uselessly even as the ropes tightened, dragging her further down into darkness…

  Down,

  Down…

  I’m going to drown here, she realized. She began to fight in earnest, kicking and struggling, but the harder she struggled, the farther she seemed to get from the surface.

  The ropes tightened like vines around her ankles, continually pulling her down.

  Desperate, anguished, she looked up.

  I want the sun. I want the sun…

  Samantha closed her eyes, lifting her face and her arms, willing her body to rise against the restraints.

  Up, she commanded silently, feeling the ropes loosen fractionally. Take me up…

  Her foot slipped from the first binding. She felt her body pull against the second binding as the surface beckoned.

  She opened her eyes, searching again for the sun. She willed herself to rise—rise—

  She felt the sweet relief of the tether fall away, slipping back down into the darkness beneath her.

  Her body floated up, drawn to the surface, higher and higher, until her face broke through the water on a gasp. She took in great, heaping gulps of air, starved for oxygen for too long.

  She opened her eyes, and when she looked up, she saw Jack smiling down at her, his arm reaching for her in the water.

  “I’ve got you, tesoro. Just take my hand,” he told her. “I’ve got you…”

  Chapter 20

  April—Late Night

  Port of Ashdod, Tel Aviv, Israel

  R O X A N N E

  Deep in the docklands of the Port of Ashdod, Rox waited in the rafters of a darkened warehouse stacked high with rusty containers. From her perch, she gazed through the night scope of a Tavor rifle at the hyper-vivid image of a small group of men packing weapons into wooden crates. She listened to the click-clack sound of pieces being disassembled, checked, and reassembled before they were carefully nestled within wooden shavings beneath false bottoms, which were then covered by artifacts. It was like a soldier of fortune’s Christmas, Hanukkah, and birthday rolled into one—pristine pine crates filled with Russian-made amphibious assault rifles, Chinese armed drones, and Israeli-made Uzi’s painted matte-black, hidden under replicas of priceless religious antiquities and works of art.

  Avi lay in wait somewhere across from her, though she wasn’t entirely sure where he’d hidden among the containers. Talon took the highest perch in one of the warehouse’s corners, tucked in the pitch darkness like a raven, if indeed that raven could operate a Springfield Super Match MIA rifle loaded with custom cartridges that he’d polished himself the night before.

  “My favorite,” he’d told her with a grin. “For short-range shots like this.”

  “What’s short range?” she’d asked as she loaded her own weapon at the kitchen table beside him.

  “Anything less than 250 yards,” Talon replied, examining the reticle of his Nightforce NXS rifle scope.

  That’s two football fields, she’d marveled, shaking her head. Cocky shit.

  They’d leapt up through the roof of the warehouse like ninjas, moving swiftly and silently in the night. Henri had gotten them into Dichter’s warehouse quickly, the sound of the compact plasma laser slicing through the steel rooftop concealed by the sounds of the industrial fans whirling like contained tornadoes. She’d watched, astonished as he squeezed through first, his lean, long frame visible one moment, then vanished the next, as if witnessing a magician’s sleight of hand. Anand went next, his compact body disappearing down the rabbit hole. Talon followed. He had to wiggle and shimmy with his rifle since he was taller and more muscular than the other two, but he eventually slipped through.

  “You guys keep the high ground and provide coverage,” Avi had reminded her. “Henri and I will infiltrate from the sides. Anand will secure the back of the warehouse.”

  “Got it, handsome,” she replied with a levity she didn’t entirely feel.

  Avi looked at her, his hazel eyes barely visible in the night under his camouflage. He surprised her by running his fingertips along her cheekbone.

  “You know what my unit’s motto was?” he whispered.

  “Too fast for love?”

  “Pretty sure that’s Mötley Crüe, neshama.” His teeth glinted in the dim phosphorous light of the docks—the flash of a smile. “It was ‘Who dares, wins.’”

  “Yes—that’s much better.”

  “Dare, but don’t be too daring, okay?” he said to her in a quiet voice.

  She looked at him. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I know the look of someone who’s looked death in the eye and is unafraid of it,” was all he said before pressing a brief, hard kiss to her mouth.

  It was over before Rox fully grasped what was happening. He disappeared down the makeshift hatch, the feel of him tingling on her lips like a secret. She’d touched her mouth in surprise before she snapped out of it, gripping a rappelli
ng cable as she wedged herself into the opening and dropped down into the darkness, sliding fast down the line until her feet touched the rafters.

  Rox maneuvered as quickly and quietly as she could across the rafters while workers packed weapons below, guarded by large, uncompromising-looking men carrying bullpup rifles. She watched the dark silhouettes of her crew melt away as they scurried into their positions. Henri and Avi on the ground. Her and Talon in the rafters providing eyesight and coverage.

  Through the crosshairs of the reticle, she tracked six guards who were making concentric circles around the perimeter of the darkened warehouse, near the doors, each alert and methodical, exuding the kind of confidence and energy that came from the military.

  Uzi Dichter stood below, impeccably dressed in a suit, spot-checking other customers’ shipments before they were loaded into the containers. In exchange for confirmation that his daughter was alive, he’d guaranteed Lightner’s time table, showing Rox the encrypted correspondence confirming his arrival at 10:30 pm that evening, but she hadn’t bothered with more than that. He was slippery and desperate. If he knew anything about their whereabouts or plans to strike, he could have tried something stupid like two-timing them. Desperate times, desperate measures. So she’d said nothing when he begged her for information, offering anything in exchange for his beloved daughter.

  “Got a visual,” Simon’s voice came through the piece. “Three vehicles approaching, south entrance.” Rox checked her watch. She felt a current of excitement shoot down her spine. Go time.

  “Confirm target,” she murmured.

  “Negative. Only driver and guard are visible in the front of all three—none of them Lightner,” Simon answered. “Infrared shows two people in first truck, but I can’t see through the armor into the back. Four people in second sedan and two more in the last truck. Standard formation.”

  Rox redirected the night scope to see two of Dichter’s guards sliding back reinforced metal doors, allowing the vehicles to pull into unoccupied space. Doors opened and guards stepped out of the vehicles in a synchronized sequence. She held her breath as the driver of the sedan opened the back door of the sleek Mercedes.