Wounded Courage (Lucky Thirteen)

by S. M. Butler

  He chose a military career…

  Navy SEAL Eamon Murphy regrets not kissing his best friend’s sister at graduation. Addison kept him twisted in knots growing up, with her vivacious smile and her gorgeous curves. He thought he was over her. But finding her at the wrong end of his gun three years later is only the beginning, and Murphy just might have to break all his rules to keep her safe.

  She chose adventure…

  Addison Hardy enrolled in her university’s exchange program to prove she wasn’t just the family black sheep. How was she to know her exotic French boyfriend would be the son of an international arms dealer? Or that his murder would land her in the custody of one brooding SEAL with a chip on his shoulder?

  Now it might be too late for them to choose love.

  Their chemistry is flammable–and potentially explosive–but there are complications, silly little things like Addison being arrested, Murphy’s unwavering devotion to duty, and all her dead boyfriend’s enemies out to kill her. But the final conflagration might not be at all what they’re expecting.

  This New Adult title includes adult situations and language and may not be suitable for readers under 18 years.

  S.M. Butler

  Previously…

  The courtyard was usually a beautiful sight. But I didn’t get to enjoy any of it. I was too busy running for my life.

  Rene Giroux had somehow recovered too quickly, and he tackled me down to the pavement hard, the air whooshing out of me with the weight of the man on top of me. His weight lifted, warm blood dripping from his chest onto me.

  I didn’t get how he was still conscious, let alone moving. I’d shot him in the chest once, already. He just wasn’t dying. I scrambled to get away, but he yanked me back by the leg, my body scraping across the gravelly path.

  I screamed and tried to kick him with my uninjured leg. He grabbed my wrist, holding my hand in an iron-clad grip, and his other slapped my face. “Fucking cunt! Tu es chiante.”

  My ears rang with the impact of his hand. I kicked up with my healthy leg, hitting him in the groin, and flipped over to crawl away. His hand wrapped around the thigh of my hurt leg and squeezed. I screamed, pain zapping me so hard I saw stars. He pulled me back, the ground scraping across the open wound.

  I flipped back on my stomach, ready to kick him again as soon as I had the chance, when I saw the red dot on his chest. It was only there for a second, and then a bullet ripped another hole through his chest, right alongside where mine had been. The force of the bullet pushed him back, away from me. As he fell, I scooted away, staring in shock as Rene dropped dead in front of me.

  Now why couldn’t he do that when I shot him earlier? Fucker probably wasn’t even dead. I didn’t have that kind of luck. Tears ran down my cheeks, my breath shallow and rapid. My leg shot shards of pain through my nerves, like I was pumping broken glass through my blood.

  Someone else shot Rene. Holy shit.

  I was going to die next.

  I shot to my feet, patting myself down to make sure there weren’t any red dots on me. I was not going to die in the courtyard at Alex’s house. I’d come too far, escaped too much. It was not going to happen. I turned to see the shooter and froze.

  It wasn’t just one shooter. There were three men, all carrying weapons fanned out across the courtyard, their faces masked by helmets with thick visors. And those men had their guns pointed at me.

  Oh, shit.

  “On your knees!” the man in front said.The male voice was cold, angry, commanding. I didn’t so much obey, as my legs crumbled beneath me. There was something in that voice that demanded obedience. It didn’t hurt that I just didn’t have the strength to resist anymore, and sitting was much easier on my leg. “Hands in the air!”

  I opened my hands and lifted them up, keeping my head down. My palms faced the newcomers in surrender. Suddenly, I felt the heat from the rifle’s barrel, close to my cheek. It must have been fired a lot to have been that hot. That thought was sobering, scary. I closed my eyes, waiting for the squeeze of the trigger that would end me.

  “Let me see your face!”

  Slowly, I lifted my eyes. The man in front of me was not small. He was scary as hell. He was lethal. His eyes were all I could see of his face. They were a piercing ice blue, staring coldly at me from behind the gun. But I knew those eyes. The rest of him was covered by his uniform and gear, but even then I saw the large physique. Where had I seen those eyes before? Familiarity niggled at the back of my mind. I knew this man.

  “Fuck. Hold your fire! She’s not one of them.”

  Oh, God.

  Dread filled me. The panic rose again.

  Oh, God, no.

  I knew that voice. Of all the fucking places in the world. Of all the countries and places he could have stepped into…

  “Hands!” the man before me screamed again. I raised my arms back up. That’s when I realized who the guy in front of me was and why he was familiar. “Keep them there!”

  “Dude, that’s Addison. That’s my sister!”

  Oh, fuck it all. It was Chris. And that meant… this man, the one pointing his rifle at me, was Eamon Murphy.

  Murphy

  Two days later…

  I leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, watching Hardy pace the length of the observation room. I supposed it was hard when you found your twin sister deep in the depths of an international arms dealer’s house, and not to mention, it was willingly.

  Our mission had been to recover our teammate and his wife. That was all. We’d been on our way out when I’d heard her scream. A Blood-curdling, terrified, hurt-filled scream.

  I couldn’t regret killing Rene Giroux, even though we needed him alive. It was sheer instinct, as soon as I realized he was attacking her. But according to the corpsman, he was on his way out anyway. He just hadn’t given up yet.

  White was inside the interview room with Addison right now, checking on her wounds again. She’d had a bullet in her leg, some scrapes and scratches across her body, and a huge shiner on her face. Hardy stopped beside me, breathing out. I glanced at my best friend, noting the worry and anxiety in his eyes. He hadn’t gone in there for hours, not since she’d come back from the surgery on her leg. But he hadn’t left her, even if she didn’t know he was there.

  “You gonna talk to her?” I asked him after the third breath he’d let out.

  Hardy shook his head. “I can’t. Not yet. I’m just… I don’t know what to say to her.”

  “It’s been two days.”

  I glanced back at Addison through the glass. White was almost done with her. He was cleaning up her face now, which was several shades of purple on the right side of her face. The idea of Rene hitting her burned deeply inside me. I wanted to kill him all over again.

  “I don’t know who she is now.”

  “She hasn’t had the opportunity to tell her side, Hardy.”

  He didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows pinched together more tightly.

  She’d been terrified when we’d found her. I hadn’t even recognized her at first. She’d lost her baby fat cheeks, grown curves where she’d been a stick figure before, and her hair was highlighted to a platinum blonde, instead of the dark blonde like her brother. Three years made a world of difference in her, a difference I’d noticed immediately.

  Her eyes still had that weird blueish gray, where one moment they were blue and the next gray. Right then, they were gray, mostly like because of the walls that surrounded her.

  “You’re going to have to talk to her eventually.”

  “I know. What the hell, Murph? What was she doing there?”

  I shrugged. I wished I had an answer for him. “There could be half a d
ozen reasons why she was there. Maybe she didn’t know.” Even as I say it, I didn’t believe it. Addison was smart. She knew the signs. She had to know what Alex Giroux was, even if she didn’t know the extent of his involvement with his family. Which made this whole situation even harder. We were faced with the real possibility of Addison not actually being innocent.

  Hardy rubbed both hands down his face, stress radiating from his body. Neither of us said a word for several minutes. He seemed to be gearing up to it, giving himself time to gather courage to enter that room. We weren’t normally the ones who interrogated people. Usually we turned them over to other agencies, but this was Addison. Master Chief had promised us some time while he debriefed Brody and Devyn in San Diego to get to the bottom of it. Today was the first day that she was really coherent.

  Finally, he blew out a breath and nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  “You want good cop or bad cop?”

  At the door, he paused, his jaw clenched. He glanced at Addison inside the other room. “I’ll decide when I get in there.” His voice was curt. I grabbed the file we’d started on her, and followed Hardy. It was going to be a long day.

  ~*~*~

  Addison

  Hours.

  I’d been in this room for hours. I hated it. It was cold and impersonal. It was a prison. They hadn’t said it, but I knew it. I felt it. The walls were concrete, smooth and blemish-free. The concrete floor was cold. The blanket they’d given me made it marginally better, but there was a guard outside the door, and every time I opened the door to talk to him, I got the world’s dirtiest glare.

  Apparently, I was the enemy. I batted my eyelashes at the guy outside the door. He was as tall as Murphy was, a little skinnier and definitely much younger. “Can I have some water?” I paused, thought about it and added, “And a bathroom break?”

  He was several years younger than me, stood like he was God’s gift to the entire population. “I’ll check with my team, and let you know.”

  He started to close the door, but I stuck my leg out to stop it. “Well?”

  “I’ll let you know what he says.”

  “You’re not going anywhere are you?”

  “Not with you hanging half out the room. Inside,” he ordered. I met his dark eyes, and didn’t move. He sighed. “Look, lady, you want to pee? You go inside that room.” As punctuation, he stepped toward me, using his height, and I stumbled back a step out of instinct. He smiled and shut the door in my face.

  “Asshole,” I muttered. I hopped back to my chair and gently lowered myself back into it. I had a crutch, but I didn’t want to use it, but damn… gunshot wounds hurt like a bitch.

  The first few hours here had largely been about getting my wounds treated. I felt like a trussed up mummy. My wrists had been bandaged. I had rope burn so bad on my wrists that I’d cut into my skin and made it bleed. I blamed Rene for that, for not dying when I wanted him to. How he’d managed to hold out for so long with a hole in his chest like that. I could barely manage putting weight on my leg. Adrenaline was a funny thing.

  The rest had been smaller nicks and bruises and scratches. My thighs and knees had bad gravel burn where Rene had dragged me back but once we’d gotten them cleaned, it wasn’t too bad. They were wrapped anyway, and they had given me a change of clothes—paper scrubs—to wear instead. I would have killed for a bra right then.

  At least I was bandaged, and I had an ice pack to my face to help reduce the swelling on my cheek and eye where Rene had punched me. And the time alone gave me the opportunity to think about Alex. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him, to have his own family gun him down like that.

  But it was like no one was allowed to speak to me. The corpsman had been mostly silent, though he was nice enough. My brother had vanished. Actually, he’d been the most silent on the chopper ride, and the subsequent walk through the elaborate tunnel system that had me completely turned around until I’d almost passed out. Back on the grounds of Alex’s house, I’d thought I’d seen the questions he wanted answers to. But nothing. Maybe he’d given up on me.

  After all, I’d left home three years ago, and I’d left my school and the exchange program I’d been enrolled in almost a year ago. I hadn’t seen any of my family in that time. And I hadn’t even spoken to my brother since he graduated BUD/S nearly two years ago. It had been longer than that for Eamon Murphy. I couldn’t remember why I didn’t speak to him at their graduation. I didn’t recall even seeing him.

  I’d been alone for a long while now. I wasn’t sure how long anymore. I sat at the metal table, in the chair, waiting. They were waiting too. They were watching me. The big mirrored window and the cameras in each corner of the room were proof of that. And I could feel their eyes on me, particularly Eamon Murphy’s, just because the intensity of his gaze always had the same effect on me.

  This facility didn’t seem like a regular government facility. It didn’t have that feel. It was dark and dreary, all kinds of secretive nooks all over the place. If my brother hadn’t been here, I’d have sworn they were all full of shit. I also knew we weren’t back in the States yet, which meant I was still in South America, maybe still in Aruguay.

  I was so tired. I laid my head on the table, using my arm as a pillow. I was no longer safe anywhere. Not after this. Even though my brother was here, somewhere, I didn’t feel safety. I was a target. Simon Giroux would come for me. He’d never stop. Not him. Giroux had a long memory… and he had people everywhere. As soon as Alex’s will turned up and Giroux found out what we—I—had on him, I’d be in real trouble and not even bad-ass SEALs could keep me safe from that.

  The loud, echoing clang of the door signaled someone’s entrance. I lifted my head quickly, too quickly, regretting it as my vision swam. Two men entered, one of them my brother. The other was Murphy, with the icy blue eyes that haunted me since I was a child.

  Neither wore their Navy uniforms, which surprised me. They should have been, I thought. Maybe they didn’t wear the uniforms when they were out of the country. Who really knew how they worked?

  Not that I could complain about the change. I had a good view of Murphy’s upper body, something I’d always had a thing for since his kickboxing days with my brother. His brown tee stretched across his chest like a canvas. This man was lethally gorgeous. I hadn’t had much of a chance to see him before. The tactical gear they had worn hid many of his best features. Like the broad shoulders. The rock hard abs even his t-shirt couldn’t hide. The finely sculpted biceps.

  He had a square jaw lined with day-old stubble. Raven-colored, shortly-cropped hair sharply contrasted the lightness of his eyes. His height was intimidating. He towered over my brother even, which meant he was over six feet tall. Gorgeous, but terrifying. There was a singularly frightening vibe this man put off. And yet, my body couldn’t decide whether I should run like hell or be turned on. But it was Murphy, which meant he’d never hurt me.

  “You’re feeling better?” Chris asked as he sat in the chair across from me. No emotion showed on his face. Nothing to even betray that he had feelings at all. Murphy stayed behind my brother, standing, his hands clasped in front of him, only inches from a 9mm pistol. My brother used to quiz me on handguns, but it had been years since then. I didn’t remember much of it anymore. I felt like a decade had passed me by since I’d seen my family. I was only twenty-four, and yet, I felt so tired and rundown, old beyond my years.

  “The corpsman was… helpful,” I replied evenly.

  Murphy sat down beside my brother and clasped his hands in front of him on the table. It was nerve-wracking, seeing as they weren’t saying a whole lot and neither were they acting like this was a happy family reunion. I didn’t blame them for that, but it would have been nice to get a hug from my brother.

  “Chris, what’s going on? That guy outside glares daggers at me every time I open the door.”

  “We just have some questions for you.” Chris didn’t look at me. “Answer to the best of yo
ur ability, and we can see about making you more comfortable later.”

  Comfortable. They were going to keep me there. And on top of that, my brother was interrogating me. Wasn’t there some kind of protocol that said this wasn’t okay? The professional tone, the stiff back. The lack of emotion. He didn’t trust me. That was okay. I didn’t trust him either. Not with my secrets. And certainly not with Alex’s.

  “State your name.”

  “You know my name.”

  Chris lifted his eyes to mine. His silvery eyes were flat, dull. “For the record, please.”

  Okay. I could play that game too. “Addison Hardy.”

  “With your middle name.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Chris—”

  “Answer the question.” There was a stranger sitting in front of me. I stared at him, but he didn’t budge, didn’t even blink. I glanced beside him, but Murphy was in the same mode. His face was impassable. I might as well have been a perfect stranger.

  “Addison Eleanor Hardy.”

  “How do you know Alex Giroux?”

  I hesitated. Until I’d seen Devyn at the house, my relationship with Alex had always been something good. I’d loved him, adored him. And he’d lied to me. I still didn’t understand why he didn’t tell me Devyn was there, or why she had been brought there. I sure as hell wasn’t going to talk to his sister about it. She was a crazy bitch.

  “Addison.”

  I glanced up at Chris, meeting his eyes. So cold. It was like I didn’t know him at all. “What?”

  “How do you know Alex Giroux?”

  Alex and my first date had been drinks at this fancy place in Paris. I couldn’t even remember the name of it anymore. I’d been on vacation from school and the girls and I had decided to take a trip to Paris. I’d met him by chance.

  “I had a… relationship with him.” The blush crept up over my cheeks as I felt Murphy’s eyes on me. I didn’t dare look at him. That was the guy I’d always wanted growing up.

  “What is the nature of your relationship with Alex Giroux?” Murphy asked.