by Sybil Bartel
She glanced at his arms. “You grow more muscles every time I see you.”
“You get more complicated,” he countered.
Kendall smirked. “Same old me. Tell Layna I said hi.”
Neil cut in. “We are ready.”
Tyler and Collins hefted bags loaded with ammo into the two armored SUVs, then we all stood in front of the map Neil had.
Neil glanced at the group. “Lead vehicle is Luna, Marek, and Stephens’s daughter. I will follow in the truck with Talerco. Tyler and Vega are in the second armored SUV behind the truck. Brandt and Collins go in first on perimeter while Tyler scopes the front gate. Vega stays with the vehicles. The triplets are on the access road, two klicks from the compound gate, covering our retreat. Johnson is on wide perimeter. Six vehicles, only three approaching the gate. Marek, Talerco and I will unload. Stephens’s daughter stays in the vehicle unless we have to produce her, then every position turns guard. Return fire only, no hostages, in and out. The triplets hold position until we all clear the property. Questions?”
I was already shaking my head. “Kendall shouldn’t be in the lead vehicle.” I wanted her as far away as possible from Stephens.
“It is what will be least expected.” Neil glanced at Brandt and Collins. “Head out.”
Hating that Neil was right, I pulled Kendall a few feet away and cupped her face. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll take care of Stephens and you can stay here.” I’d make it work, one way or another.
Her shoulders straight and proud, she didn’t even consider me. “I’m not afraid.”
I wanted to both shake her and kiss the fuck out of her. “I know you’re not, chica, but you’re safer here. Come on, don’t do this. You’ve got nothing to prove.” The second I said it, I realized it was the absolute wrong thing to say to her.
Her face twisted as she leaned back from me. “You think I’m doing this because I need to prove something?” Incredulous, her eyes narrowed. “Do I look like I give a fuck what anyone else thinks?”
Dios mio. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t know what you meant.” She spun.
I caught her arm. “Chica—”
“I don’t know what you meant because I don’t know you, and you clearly don’t know me.” She yanked her arm away and stalked toward the SUV Dane was getting into.
Neil and Talon got in the truck. The triplets got in a Range Rover. Tyler and Vega got in my second armored Escalade, and I stood there like the fucking idiot I was.
Blaze slapped me on the shoulder as I stared after Kendall.
I shook my head. “You see that shit?”
“Saw it, heard it, live it.”
“You’re not fucking helping.” A chorus of vehicle engines turned over in the underground parking of my building.
A rare smile hit his face. “No, I’m not. I’m just glad it’s not me on the receiving end today.”
Christ. “Me too.” He’d been through hell and back to get his woman.
Blaze glanced at me, and his expression sobered. “You wouldn’t love her if she didn’t push back.”
There was that word again. “For once, I’d like her to listen to what the fuck I say.”
Blaze’s smile returned. “Where’s the fun in that?” He walked toward his Yukon.
MY LEG BOUNCING, MY NAILS tapping on the windowsill, I fumed. What the fuck did André know about proving anything?
Sitting in the driver seat, Dane adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at me. “Unless they shoot an RPG at the vehicle, you’ll be fine.”
“Great.” Awesome. “Fucking perfect.” A cage on wheels. “I’ll sit in the fortress while you all wash his feet.”
“Stephens isn’t the messiah. No one’s washing any feet.”
“The point—” I sighed, not even knowing why the hell I was talking to Dane, except that if I wasn’t talking, I’d be busy being scared as fuck of him “—is that this is a bullshit idea, for a bullshit asshole, to get a bullshit promise.”
“Agreed.”
“Then why the hell are you here?” Besides the fact he looked crazy enough to enjoy this sort of suicide mission.
Dane didn’t hesitate. “Because Luna saved my life.”
I paused. Was there anyone in that garage André hadn’t saved? “Pretty sure he didn’t save it just so you could throw it away.”
“No, he didn’t.” Dane turned in his seat and his fuck-you-up-in-a-heartbeat stare landed on me. “I offered to take care of this. Luna declined. He does things as close to legal as possible. This is his gig, his resources and you’re his woman. At the end of the day, he has to live with himself, so this is how it’s going down.”
Well shit. I crossed my arms and leaned back, staring out the window. “Pretty sure you just told me you offered to kill my father and you don’t give a shit about collateral damage.”
“I did and I don’t.”
“Then how do you live with yourself?” I threw his bullshit speech right back on him.
“I don’t.”
I looked up at a man I was sure killed for sport.
The corner of his mouth moved almost north. “I don’t live alone.”
André yanked open the front passenger door.
His scent filled the car as soon as he slid into the seat, and I was reliving this morning all over again. Him rolling me to my back and shoving my thighs apart as he unceremoniously thrust into me. Then he’d cupped my face and slow fucked me without ever taking his eyes off me. He didn’t speak, he didn’t make a sound, and he didn’t kiss me until after he’d come inside me. My stomach fluttered and my chest tightened at the memory. It’d been the single best moment of my life.
“Kendall.”
I looked up.
Holding a phone out to me, André studied me with a stern expression. “You remember what to do?”
I cleared my throat and took the phone. “Answer when you call.” He was Skyping or FaceTiming or some other fancy shit to get me into his conversation with River. Why River would care if I was alive or dead if he was getting the guns, I didn’t fucking know. But André seemed like he knew what he was doing, and at this point, the train was moving so fast, I was only on for the damn ride.
André turned to Dane as he drove out of the garage and pulled onto the still darkened streets. “Anything goes south, get her out.”
Dane nodded.
Scared, stressed the fuck out, I opened my mouth. “What’s going to go south? You said you had this handled.” The intermittent glow of passing streetlights hit his profile, and I saw his jaw clench.
“Not arguing with you, chica.” He checked the magazine on his 9mm.
Chastised, I didn’t say shit.
The city lights gave way to county roads as we sped toward the edge of civilization. Growing up, I never knew the River Ranch property was so close to a major metropolitan area. I didn’t even comprehend what that meant. I’d been told stories by some of the women about what life was like on the outside. They’d always painted it in such a dour light, I’d never wanted to live in a place with sidewalks and fire hydrants instead of pebbled paths and spring flowers.
Too soon, Dane had pulled onto the long access road for the River Ranch property. A few miles in, he slowed.
André touched his ear mic. “Collins, Brandt, report.”
I pushed the button to turn on my comm, and I remembered his fingers brushing my hair aside as he’d gently put it in my ear.
“In position,” Jared’s voice came through my earpiece.
Nausea crawled up my throat.
“No activity,” Collins added quietly.
“Jarek, report,” André demanded.
“Taking position,” Jarek replied.
My mouth went dry as my heart rate sped up.
Dane slowed and pulled to the side of the road a mile out from the front gate. I glanced behind us and saw the truck and another Escalade.
“Blaze, ETA?” André asked.
His breath fast, as if he were running, Blaze answered. “Hundred yards out, southwest approach. No activity.”
André looked at his watch but didn’t say anything.
Holding my breath, I started counting.
I got to fifty-eight.
“Hold positions, two minutes to gate,” André commanded.
My stomach dropped.
“Let’s do this. In and out.” André nodded at Dane. “Go.”
Dane floored it.
“Let’s fuck some shit up,” Talon drawled through my earpiece.
The SUV flew down the dirt road and careened around the last bend. My heart in my throat, my pulse pounding in my ears, a place I never thought I would see again came into view. The high chain-link fence with rolling gate and wooden guard house was exactly as it had been, but everything looked different.
Dane slammed on the brakes and the truck and other SUV fanned out, both pulling up along the side of us.
My stomach lurched, and I forced bile down as my childhood reared up. Looking physically smaller than it ever had, it still loomed larger than life.
His rifle in one hand, André reached for his door as Dane threw the SUV into park.
I panicked. “André.”
Gorgeous brown eyes full of determination cut to me. His voice dropped and he took two precious seconds he didn’t have. “I got this, chica. Stay here.” He jumped out of the SUV and slammed the door as a scared-looking teenager stepped out of the guard house, weapon drawn.
His rifle held up in one hand to show he wasn’t going to shoot, his phone in the other, André bellowed, “River Stephens, get out here now!”
A DOZEN HALF-DRESSED MEN SPILLED out from a building set twenty yards back and took up positions in the tree line.
“You’re trespassing,” the kid behind the AR-15 squeaked. His hands shaking, his voice breaking, he couldn’t have been more than fifteen.
Ignoring him, I focused on the dozen cult fucks fanning out with their aim trained on me, but none of them were Stephens.
“River Stephens!” I yelled.
An older fuck, sixties, his hand on his weapon but not drawn, approached the gate. “This is private property and you are trespassing. I suggest you return to your vehicles and go back to where you came from.”
Scanning the compound behind him, I saw women and kids spill out of a low wooden building thirty yards behind the building in front. I spared the older asshole a glance. “Tell Stephens he has two million reasons to talk to me. You have three minutes.”
Casual, as if I was bullshitting about the time, he nodded. “I see. And what reasons are those?”
“Two minutes, forty-five seconds,” I warned, looking past him.
“Four perimeter guards taking up positions, two west, two east of the gate,” Blaze whispered through the com.
“In sniper position,” Collins said quietly.
“Brother Stephens does not take meetings with strangers,” the old asshole said.
Fucking hating what I was about to do, I hit the dial button on the phone with my thumb.
“I’m answering,” Kendall whispered nervously.
Her face popped up on the screen and I held the phone toward the asshole. “Tell Stephens we have his daughter. Two minutes, fifteen seconds or we leave.”
The asshole had enough sense to look surprised. Then, without a word, he turned like he was going to get Stephens.
“I’ve got visual,” Collins said through comms. “Stephens and four guards coming your way.”
Thank fuck. “Kendall,” I warned in a whisper. “Do not engage.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t have a chance to. Stephens came around the front building wearing a fucking white frock like he was Jesus himself. Flanked by four guards in fatigues, he smiled like he had complete control of the situation.
Kendall’s sharp intake of breath echoed in my comm and from my phone.
Mierda. “Stephens, I have a deal for you.” I took a step toward the gate, and his four guards drew on me. “You release your bounty on your daughter and you get sixty crates of AK-47s. You take possession immediately, your daughter is never threatened again, and I forget where you live. You have two minutes to decide.” Because I was being fucking generous.
“Hello.” He smiled like a manipulative fuck and pretended not to look at my phone. “And who might you be?”
Your worst fucking nightmare, asshole. “One minute, forty-five seconds.” I didn’t give him a goddamn inch.
He rocked back on his heels and took his sweet time glancing at my phone. “Hello, Decima. We’ve all missed you.”
She didn’t respond.
“Not a reunion,” I warned. “One minute, thirty seconds, then I leave. And when I come back, it won’t be with a deal.”
“Mm-hm.” Stephens studied me. “Former military?”
“One minute, fifteen seconds.”
A fake bird call sounded from the south perimeter and one of the men stepped forward and whispered in Stephens’s ear.
“Shit,” Brandt whispered. “I think I’ve been made. Falling back.”
Stephens dropped the pretense. “I don’t know who you are, or if you have the product you say you have, and I am only assuming you aren’t Feds trying to set me up because they have never been this creative. Regardless, you clearly have my daughter, and I want her back.”
“Not happening,” I ground out.
Stephens stared at me for five fucking seconds. “Then I decline.” He turned to leave.
I threw down the one bone I had. “Then I report the shallow graves in your killing field.” I rattled off the latitude and longitude I’d remembered from the satellite images.
Stephens turned back around. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I ended the call with Kendall, pocketed my phone and started back toward the SUV. I was two paces away when he caved.
“Show me the guns,” he demanded.
“Call off the hit,” I countered.
He didn’t budge. “Show me the guns first.”
I gave Neil a hand command to turn around. Neil backed the truck up, turned, then reversed to my position. A few seconds later, Talon got out and opened the lift gate.
“Sixty crates,” I confirmed.
Stephens eyed the truck. “Open one.”
I nodded at Talon. He pried one open and held up a AK-47. One of Stephens’s guards whispered in his ear again.
“Where did they come from?” Stephens asked.
“A dead arms dealer.” That was as much as he was getting. “Make a decision.”
Stephens studied me again. “I will make the trade.”
I exhaled.
“On one condition,” he added.
I grit my fucking teeth. “No conditions.”
The asshole ignored me. “Decima remains on compound while the guns are unloaded.”
“No deal.” No fucking way.
“She is missed. Her brothers and sisters would like to see her. Surely you can spare her for a few minutes.”
“I said no. You don’t get to see her.” He wasn’t gonna get his claws in her again or have the opportunity to kill her.
Stephens smiled evilly. “I have already seen her.”
“Easy,” Blaze whispered through the comms. “He’s trying to bait you.”
“Counteroffer or retreat,” Neil instructed.
Fuck this. I called his bluff. “Deal’s off.” I turned to nod at Talon to close it up, only to see Kendall striding right toward me. “Chica,” I hissed. “Back in the car, now.”
“Deal’s on, River.” She ignored me. “If you want the guns, call off the hit.”
Motherfuckingfucker.
Two of Stephens’s guards trained their aim on Decima, and I aimed at Stephens. “Something happens to her, you’re dead.”
Stephens put his hand on one of his guard’s weapons and lowered his aim. “Stand down, brothers.” He smiled at Kendall. “Decima, I see you haven’t
changed.”
“Make a decision, River,” she demanded.
Stephens’s smile turned patronizing. “First-name basis, are we now?”
“Chica,” I quietly warned, only half dropping my aim.
Kendall ignored me. “Call off the hit, River. You know you want the guns.”
“I always knew you would make a fruitful sister, Decima. God doesn’t burden men with such disrespectful charges unless he plans to reward them.” Stephens nodded at the teenage gate guard. “Open it.”
I raised my aim back at Stephens. “She said call off the hit.”
Stephens’s gaze swung to me. “Consider it done. Unload the crates.” He looked at Decima. “There is someone very eager to see you.”
The teenager opened the gate.
“Where is Alathena?” Kendall asked.
Who the fuck was Alathena?
“Unload,” Neil issued the command through comms.
“The women and children are in the safehouse. Come.” Stephens held his hand out.
I stepped in front of her, blocking her from Stephens’s view. “She stays.”
“I want to see my mother,” Kendall whispered into the comm in a rush. “He wants the guns, he won’t shoot me. Half the men don’t even have rifles. Trust me, I can see it in his eyes, he won’t risk losing the weapons.”
Stephens looked at me like I was the fool. “She was a willful child. I am imagining not much has changed. Tell me, are you being rewarded for your burden?” He chuckled. “I hear she has certain… proclivities.”
My jaw clenched, and I forced myself not to kill him as Neil, Talon and Dane started unloading. Focusing on not saying a goddamn thing, I didn’t see Kendall move until it was too late.
She stepped around me. “I’m going to see Alathena.”
Motherfucking shit. “I’m coming with you.” I made it one step toward the gate and four guards drew on me.
Stephens dropped his smile and pure menace spread across his face. “You step foot on my compound, and I will kill every one of you. Decima first.”