Beard Up

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “You talked to the other Wardens,” she guessed.

  I nodded once.

  Her mouth twitched.

  “You know you deserved that, don’t you?” she whispered.

  “I would’ve done it to him, too, if I thought I could do it without breaking my hand.”

  That was from Audrey, who had made herself a permanent fixture in our home.

  Though, I couldn’t say that I didn’t like it. I liked knowing that she was safe. I liked having my entire family under my roof. And I liked knowing that they would have each other if they ever needed anything and I wasn’t around to provide it for them.

  “So what was decided?” Mina finally broached the subject.

  I kissed her on the cheek, and then walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer.

  I pressed it against my face for a few long seconds before opening it and taking a long swig.

  “It was decided that we’re moving in on my parents next week. They hired movers; we’re replacing them with our guys,” I answered her honestly. “The movers are expected to arrive Monday morning at eight. Lucky for us, one of our guys intercepted the outgoing call. He was able to act as if he was the manager of the moving company, and gave them a good enough price quote to satisfy them.”

  Her brows rose. “That was lucky. But what are you going to do once you get in their house?”

  “We’re going to search it,” I answered with a shrug. “We’ve been ‘hired’ to pack all their shit. It’s our hope that they get careless and let us pack something that we can use against them. If it doesn’t work, then we’re going to do it the good old-fashioned way.”

  “And how is that?” Mina whispered, trying not to bring Audrey into this conversation.

  I looked over at where Audrey was sitting on the couch next to Sienna, who was quietly playing on her iPad, and lowered my voice.

  “We’ll take them out, and make it look like their own turned against them.”

  Mina’s jaw tightened. “Do you really think that’s going to work?”

  I shrugged. “It’ll have to.”

  Chapter 25

  Living with her was like being in jail. I never knew if I was going to get shanked in the shower or fucked.

  -Ghost’s secret thoughts

  Ghost

  “You know why I named you Tunnel, don’t you?” my father hissed as he pressed me harder into the ground.

  “N-n-n-no,” I stuttered.

  “Because I raped your mother in a tunnel that was partially underground. Forced her face into the mud and rode her hard while she…”

  I woke up with a gasp.

  Just a dream.

  Fuck!

  “Then, low and behold, nine months later you come along. I took you from your mama because she wouldn’t have been able to take care of you,” he informed me.

  I shook myself off and attempted to roll over to get out of bed, my head a fuckin’ mess just like it always was. This was new, though. I hadn’t had a dream like that before. Though, it would explain a whole fuckin’ lot.

  When I couldn’t roll all the way over, I lifted my hands to my face, and jolted when the ropes around my wrists forced me to stop.

  Ropes? What the hell?

  I sat up, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  Nausea rolled in my belly, and I barely contained the urge to vomit all over the plain concrete floor that I could now see.

  I really did throw up when I saw what was waiting for me in the corner of the room.

  My sister was there, naked, tied with ropes, also and staring at the wall as if something inside of her was broken. The pain in my chest became more acute when I saw that her legs were stained with blood.

  The moment I vomited, she turned her head and stared at me blankly.

  “Audrey,” I growled. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Better than you,” she answered.

  Her voice didn’t sound right.

  It sounded as if she’d spent the last few hours in a perpetual state of screaming, and her voice was now hoarse due to the damage she’d inflicted by her constant screams.

  I didn’t bother to look to categorize my injuries. I could feel every single one.

  Left leg. Right foot. Right knee. Left kidney. Right ribs. Left hand. Right side of my face.

  There was a very good chance that I had quite a few broken bones, too.

  “Are you…did they…are you…”

  She smiled sadly.

  “No. Not yet, anyway,” she answered quickly. “But…they made me watch while they…they tortured you.”

  I nodded mutely.

  “Who are they?”

  She looked down at her feet. “My mom. Our dad.”

  My brows furrowed, then the words from the dream came back to me.

  “Because I raped your mother in a tunnel that was partially underground. Forced her face into the mud and rode her hard while she…”

  “Audrey, start from the beginning. I’m drawing a complete blank.”

  She smiled sadly. “Okay.”

  The more she talked, the more I remembered…and wished I hadn’t.

  ***

  Twelve hours earlier

  “We have about two hours until we’re leaving, baby,” I told Mina.

  She looked over at me.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked warily.

  I shrugged.

  “Honestly?” I asked. “No. It’s probably a terrible decision. Likely, the moving thing won’t turn up anything significant, and we’re going to have to do it the hard way.”

  She frowned. “Then why go through the pretense?” she questioned. “Seems to me, if you think you’re going to have to do it the hard way, then you might as well just start with it. Plan for it. And prepare yourself.”

  I pulled her into my arms.

  It was two hours before it was time for me to get on the road, and I’d been instructed to wake her so I could say goodbye.

  Now, here we were, arguing about the same thing that we’d been arguing about for the last two days.

  “Baby,” I said, dropping a kiss to her lips.

  Then another, and another, until my total was the sum of seven.

  “What?” she frowned, looking at me through the darkness.

  The only thing lighting the room was the glow of the night light that was in the hallway.

  I could just barely make out the glittering of her eyes signaling Mina’s impending tears.

  “Baby,” I repeated. “Nothing will happen to me. I promise. I’ll make it out of this alive.”

  Then I kissed her with everything I had in me to give. She moaned into my mouth, and her legs shifted restlessly underneath me.

  I fell in between her spread thighs and moved my arms so I could cradle her face with my hands, and the length of my cock was pressed against her core.

  She moaned into my mouth the moment that she felt my nakedness against her.

  “Told you to wear nothing to bed,” I muttered in between lingering kisses. “Makes life a whole lot easier…and I wouldn’t have to do this.”

  She gasped when I ripped the flimsy piece of lace from her body.

  “Those were twenty dollars,” she hissed.

  I grinned, and then went up to my knees, spreading her thighs even further with my legs.

  Since I couldn’t see much of her, I used my hands to re-memorize her body. Her thighs were silky smooth, and felt so soft against my rough hands.

  My thumbs skimmed over her core as I made my way up the still flat skin of her belly, pushing her oversized shirt—my shirt—up over her unbound breasts as I moved.

  The moment it reached her neck, she lifted her arms, and I tugged it all the way off of her, tossing it on the bed beside her head.

  I ran my hands back down her body, spreading my fingers wide as they covered her breasts.

  “You’re
killing me,” she growled.

  I grinned and closed my fingers, trapping both of her nipples between my knuckles.

  The minute they closed, she started to wiggle.

  Her breasts were extremely sensitive now.

  So sensitive, in fact, that I wondered if I could get her to come just from nipple stimulation alone.

  Holding her nipples firmly in between both knuckles, I pulled up slightly, and her body bowed, coming along with the movement.

  I let go, and dropped my mouth down to her chest, trailing my lips and the tip of my tongue along the smooth skin between her breasts.

  I encircled the first nipple I got to with my tongue, getting it nice and wet before I drew it into my mouth.

  She gasped, and her hands went to my hair, pulling it roughly as she panted into my ear.

  “I can’t tell if that hurts or feels really, really good,” she moaned.

  My grin was anything but nice as I switched to the other breast, repeating the same process.

  “Take me already,” she pleaded. “Hurry up!”

  Though our words were desperate, they were also quiet. Neither one of us wanted to wake up our sleeping daughter, or my likely wide-awake sister, who was just down the hall from where we were.

  In order to keep her quiet, I raised one hand and placed it over her mouth while I situated myself between her splayed thighs once again.

  The moment my cock head touched the entrance to her weeping core, she gasped, causing me to press down even harder on her mouth.

  “Shh,” I ordered at the same time I pushed inside. “Can’t be making all those loud noises.”

  She shook her head as I continuously pushed inside of her, not stopping until I was fully sheathed to the hilt.

  The moment I was firmly surrounded, I closed my eyes and moaned into the skin of her chest. “You feel so good, baby.”

  She licked my hand, and I removed it from her face.

  “Hurry.”

  One word, quietly whispered, but with enough emotion to force me to start moving.

  I took her in long, hard thrusts. Filling her and withdrawing in a cadence that had my orgasm clawing its way to the surface.

  I knew Mina would come quicker if I took her in a steady rhythm, running the head of my cock along that hidden spot inside of her. If I made her come first, then I wouldn’t be so embarrassed that she made me come in less than five minutes.

  And she didn’t disappoint. Only thirty seconds into it, she was there, erupting around me, and I loosened the tight stranglehold I had on my control.

  My release poured out of me, jetting into her with a blast of such intense heat that I got light headed as it took me over.

  I grunted, my hips jerked, and she gasped.

  There was no screaming, though, which was good.

  I fell down on top of her, my arms giving out, and I panted as I tried to catch my breath.

  She groaned, and I grinned, rolling to my side and taking her with me.

  She hitched her leg up over my hip, and we stayed like that, connected, for long moments.

  It was when my cock was softening inside of her, and she started to squirm, that I finally let her go.

  “This is going to get all over the sheets,” she muttered. “Seriously, we need to start remembering to put the clean towels away. I can’t keep washing sheets every time you forget and get frisky.”

  I chuckled almost silently and rolled out of bed, heading straight for the bathroom.

  I turned on the light, and picked up the first towel I saw, which was one of her hand towels that was hanging right inside the door.

  I threw it at her, and it smacked her in the face.

  “Thanks,” she said as she pulled it off of her. “You’re so thoughtful.”

  Grinning, I turned on the shower and stepped in without waiting for it to get warm.

  The chilly water hit my skin, and my nipples got hard as goosebumps started to crawl all over my chest and legs.

  “Jesus,” I felt Mina get into the shower behind me. “Seriously?”

  I grinned into the water as I bent my head and drenched my hair.

  I felt Mina’s small hand slip around my belly and reach for the faucet.

  She cranked it to hot and shimmied her tiny butt in between me and the wall.

  The water was pouring down my chest and landing on her face, but she didn’t move. Only stayed exactly where she was as the water warmed up.

  Grabbing the shampoo, I poured a generous amount into my hand and then started to work the soap into Mina’s hair.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  I started to massage her scalp.

  “I know.”

  “Tell me it’s going to be okay,” she ordered.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to lie to her.

  This, more than likely, would turn out to be okay.

  But there was also a possibility that this could turn ugly. That I might be forced to do something in front of witnesses, and have to answer a few harsh questions. Or there was a possibility that I might get caught in the crossfire if things got out of hand.

  There were literally no guarantees in life, so I couldn’t very well make a promise to the one woman who always seemed to see straight through my lies.

  “I can’t.” I pulled her forward and placed her underneath the spray, working my fingers through the thick strands as I rinsed the huge mass.

  She was silent for the rest of the shower, and when she finally got out, along with me, ten minutes later, I wasn’t sure that she was very happy with me.

  But I never lied to my woman and never would.

  If I could give her anything in this life, it was my honesty.

  “You gonna give me the silent treatment?” I asked her bluntly.

  She turned only her face to me but didn’t say a word.

  “Okay then.”

  Stepping into my underwear, still wet as hell from my shower, I grabbed my jeans and stepped into them, too.

  “I love you, Mina.”

  She looked down at her feet, and before she could say anything else, I heard a knock at the door.

  Fender was here.

  Grabbing a t-shirt up before I left, I made my way down the hallway, turning on lights as I went.

  The moment I got into the living room and turned on the light, I saw the figure.

  Fender knocked again, and I grinned through the stained glass of the solid oak door.

  I’d just gotten it all the way open, my shirt in my hand still, when the gunshots rang out.

  Fender jerked.

  Glass shattered.

  I reached forward and hauled the body that was rapidly falling to the ground in front of me inside before slamming the door shut behind him.

  Fender’s limp body hit the floor with a solid thump, and I quickly locked the door, and then hefted the dead weight onto my shoulder before hauling ass to the panic room.

  Slamming my hand onto the scanner that barricaded the room from anyone that wasn’t approved, I tossed Fender’s body inside and went back down the hall at a full sprint.

  The next thirty seconds were spent snatching a still sleeping Sienna from her bed, and taking her down the hall to where Fender was finally sitting up and looking incredibly ill. Blood was pouring down his neck despite his hands clutching his throat.

  Sienna was on the floor, looking dazed and confused.

  “Mina!” I bellowed.

  The door cracked open with such force that I looked up.

  Audrey was in the hallway, dressed in nothing but a t-shirt.

  Mina was in the hallway as well, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

  Her wet hair was down around her breasts, staining the gray t-shirt with its wetness.

  Both of their eyes were on me, and they were scared.

  Footsteps echoed in the house on the laminate flo
oring.

  Then I made the hardest decision of my life.

  I closed the fucking door on Sienna and Fender…without my wife and sister inside.

  Chapter 26

  It’s okay if you don’t like me. Not everyone has good taste.

  -Fact of Life

  Lynn

  I walked into the room, no longer caring that I was about to blow my operation to smithereens.

  This day, along with that day, twenty-seven years ago, had been the worst of my life.

  I was a special agent with the FBI. I’d done so much undercover work that I couldn’t even begin to tell you the multiple aliases that I’d used throughout my career. I’d investigated murder. Rape. Kidnapping. You name it, and I’d been there to witness it. All the while having to stand around and watch so I didn’t blow my cover or the operation that I happened to be working on at the time.

  But this case…this was personal. It was one I’d been working on for a very long time, and no one knew my true motivation.

  No one but a dead woman.

  I’d made a promise to that dead woman that I’d keep her safe, and I’d broken it.

  I’d also failed the other promise I made her: keeping her son safe.

  Oh, I’d tried.

  I’d tried really fucking hard, but there was no way in hell a single man could go up against the criminal machine that was Van and Candace Morrison.

  I’d tried, of course, but I didn’t have the money to pay everyone in the world to do what I wanted them to do. To bring them over to my side.

  Sure, I had the backing of the United States government now, but I didn’t then. Even so, it wouldn’t have been enough. At least not in this case.

  Because had it been enough, I’d have nailed the two scumbags twenty-seven years ago after they killed my sister just hours after she’d birthed a child.

  But I’d been only seventeen then. Just a kid in the eyes of the law.

  I’d gone to the authorities, told them everything I knew along with my suspicions about who killed my sister.

  But Van and Candace Morrison, despite being serious assholes, controlled Benton, Louisiana. They were never earnestly investigated for the crime. Everyone thought they were perfect and kind. Everyone, that is, but their family and the people they’d screwed over on their way to infamy.