Wounded Courage (Lucky Thirteen)

by S. M. Butler

  “Paranoid isn’t bad.”

  “There might be something about the inheritance there. I have to face it eventually. I can’t hide here and hope it goes away.” As much as I wanted to do exactly that. I didn’t want to deal with this without Alex anymore.

  “It’s not safe for you,” Murphy shook his head.

  “It will never be safe for me,” I told him. “I have to live my life, right.”

  “So open up your email,” he said. There was a dare in his eyes when I looked up at him. He crossed his arms, not in an angry way, but expectant. But I wasn’t sure if he was expecting me to stop or actually open it. Bastard. He was manipulating me.

  So I did it.

  I scrolled through the older things. There were a couple of unread emails from Alex, which I skimmed over. I wasn’t ready to read Dead Alex emails just yet. A couple from my mother, including one with the subject line “I found the perfect guy!!!” which made me both blush and cringe. Why did she always want to set me up with all the redneck losers from Oak Creek?

  Finally, I made it to yesterday’s email, and as expected, there was the email I’d dreaded. Right there in black and white.

  From: Simon Giroux Subject: We need to talk.

  You’d think he’d be too paranoid to use email but he used it more often than his phone. Murphy saw my face, and glanced at the screen. His eyes widened, but only a little. Forever in control, that one.

  “Open it.”

  I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to talk to Simon Giroux. I didn’t want anything to do with him or his family anymore. My connection to them had died and I was not going to get sucked back in like Alex did.

  “Addison?” I glanced up at Murphy. He gripped one hand and squeezed gently. “I’m right here. It’ll be okay. Let’s see what he said.”

  Begrudgingly, I clicked the email. The system was running slow, so it took a moment to open the window with the email. I let out a shuddered breath.

  Dear Addison,

  Let’s talk soon. I’ll be in touch.

  Best, Simon

  ~*~*~

  My lungs had trouble filling with air. I gripped the armrests tightly. Meet with Simon? I’d met the guy once. He’d scared the shit out of me. He was intense.

  “Addison?”

  Slowly, I turned and glanced over at Murphy. He looked concerned, for which I didn’t blame him. I imagined I was acting pretty weird.

  “Yes, Murphy?”

  “You okay?”

  “No, not really.” I blinked, but I didn’t look away from him. “An international criminal mastermind just emailed me and wants to talk. I am anything but okay.”

  “Ignore it.”

  “One does not ignore Simon Giroux.” I swallowed. “Here’s the deal. He’s biding his time. He probably knows exactly where I’m at and exactly who I’m with. I have to get out of here, Murphy. It’s not safe.”

  “Don’t get hasty.” Murphy pushed the lid down on the laptop and moved around the table so he could sit in the seat next to me. He was close to eye level with me. “Listen, I will protect you. I promised you I would. You have to stick with me, though.”

  Stick with him? I wanted to cling to his leg like a koala bear.

  “You don’t know Simon,” I whispered. I said that, and really, I didn’t know Simon either. All I had were the stories Alex had told me, and the one time I’d met him. But even though I was terrified, I knew I’d have to meet with him. I was now the manager of his son’s money. “I’m going to have to talk to him.”

  “No.”

  I stood up and backed away from the desk, and Murphy. The plane, though super posh, wasn’t especially spacious. Murphy watched and didn’t move as I tripped over the nearest chair. Murphy was a blur of motion as he wrapped an arm around my waist and hoisted me back to my feet, keeping me from hitting the floor. My hands gripped his shirt, holding tight. How was I going to handle this?

  My heart pounded, my breathing was shallow. His eyes mesmerized me. “Murphy…”

  His fingers dug into my waist as he held me. I could have stayed there forever. He didn’t release me, didn’t even loosen his hold on me. I was glad. I was pretty sure that if he did, I’d have melted to the floor. The heat from his body warmed me, his chest hot under my palm.

  “Simon will kill you.”

  “He won’t.”

  “And how do you know that?” The disbelief in his oceanic eyes couldn’t be hidden away.

  “Because Alex prepared for that.” An uneasy smile slipped from me. I had a hard time concentrating with Murphy’s arms around me. All I wanted was to kiss him, strip him naked, and have my evil way with him forever.

  “Alex.” The way he said the name was dead. He set me to my feet, and then Murphy stepped back from me. Cool air replaced his warmth. “How?”

  “If anything happens to me, the money gets tied up in legalities for years. And our personal files we collected on Simon hit the press and Interpol. It’s all bad news for him.”

  “But there was nothing for Alex’s protection.”

  “Alex never thought his own brother would shoot him. It never ever crossed his mind… But the idea was always to fake his death, so no, there was no protection for him.” I bit my lower lip, hesitating to ask my next question.

  “What is it?” Murphy, of course, would catch on to any change in my demeanor.

  “Does it bother you that I was going to marry him?” I pulled my hands in close to my body, picking at the tips of my fingernails. “I mean, do you think less of me?”

  His face blanked for a moment then he seemed to get angry. “What?”

  “I mean…” I paused, unable to think of the right words.

  “I know what you mean,” he snapped. He strode toward me, and like a coward, I backed up, straight into the wall behind me. He planted his arms on either side of my head, like hard, iron bars on a cage. Even if I could have broken his hold, I was held immoveable by the intensity of his eyes. “I am incapable of thinking less of you.”

  “But…” I stopped, feeling the hot sting of tears approaching. I wasn’t in any shape to handle this conversation. Instead, I said nothing, and rested my hands on his chest. He dropped his head to the crook of my neck, his breath and his firm lips hot on my skin.

  His lips made contact with my neck, brushing gently over my skin, and leaving me feverish. “Did you think that I would be done after one night of making love to you?”

  Made love? That was what he was calling it? I halfway expected him to call it a simple fuck. It lifted my heart’s weight from my gut to hear him say it that way. It gave me hope that I wasn’t just… convenient.

  “I realized that you are the only thing in my life that I wanted and didn’t go after.”

  “I… Don’t say that.” My voice cracked.

  “Remember the graduation ceremony after BUD/S?”

  “Yes.” I remembered seeing him standing next to my brother in their class of twenty-five out of eighty-five that made it through. Tall, proud, and irresistibly sexy.

  “I left right after.”

  “I remember I didn’t see you after the ceremony.” I’d been super disappointed. I’d hoped that I could finally tell him how I felt, at least before I left for the exchange program.

  “Yeah. I knew then that I wanted you, but I was too afraid to take the chance. I let you go, and you found your way into the worst family ever.” He sighed and brushed my cheek with rough fingertips. “I feel like that is my fault. That you’re involved because I didn’t tell you the truth. Because I was too scared to love you.”

  “Don’t. Eamon Murphy is never scared. You’re my rock. The brick wall that keeps out the bad guys.” God that sounded corny coming from my mouth, but it was true. For all the flightiness in my personality and my life, and having to constantly live up to the perfection that was my brother, Murphy had always been there for me to lean on. He’d always seen me.

  “I was scared. I am scared. I need you, Addison, and I can’t s
tand the idea that you could just not be there. I need to feel you, to see you, to hear you laugh.”

  “Stop!” I sobbed, my heart breaking inside my chest. Not from misery. From fear, because I didn’t know if he was truly feeling that way, or if he was saying what I wanted him to say. “Please. I can’t listen to this anymore!” I was so addicted to Eamon Murphy that I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it anymore. But Simon Giroux had me pegged for a conversation real soon, and I wasn’t sure that I’d come back from it. I couldn’t afford to let Murphy love me, though every fiber of my being loved him.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “I will protect you. I told you that.”

  “But who will protect you?”

  I hissed as his lips touched the lobe of my ear, nibbling gently. A sharp arousal went straight between my legs. “Don’t worry. I am a United States Navy SEAL. Between you and me, I can handle myself.”

  “Giroux is not the typical grunt you’re used to fighting. He’s dangerous. He’s smart.” My body ached for him to touch me more. “So don’t ask me not to worry.”

  “Maybe I like that you worry,” he replied. “I love you, Addison. There’s no getting around that.” His eyes searched mine, pulling apart the layers of masks I’d tried to wear over the years until I was that silly little five-year-old girl who played with the boys and followed them around like a lovesick princess.

  His lips went back to my neck, gentle little touches across the skin there. I closed my eyes, losing myself in the sparks of sensation his touch granted me. “I decided something today, Addison. Actually, I decided it the other night.”

  “And what’s that?” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It was saturated with arousal and the strain of holding it back.

  “I’m done letting you go. I’m done letting you walk away from me. I want you, and I will have you.” His tongue slid along my jugular. Tingles of excitement shuddered through my body. “If that means I keep your secrets, then okay. I will keep your secrets.”

  His statements were powerful. Murphy never said anything he didn’t mean. He’d never lied to me. I was pretty sure he’d never lied to anyone. “I can’t ask you to do that. I won’t ask you to lie for me.”

  “You’re not.” His hand slid around my waist, his arm tightening, bringing me closer still. I clung to his shoulders because that was all I could do. He had me pressed against the wall, his hard body flush with mine. “My number one priority has always been you. I went into the Navy with Chris because I knew if he was killed, it would devastate you. I wanted to protect you, and at the time, it meant keeping Chris safe.”

  I met his eyes. Clear, baby blues that held an entire world within them. There were no lies in his world, no criminal mastermind parental units, no family murders, or secret blackmail to keep people safe. “You wanted to protect me?”

  “I thought that if you could be proud of me, then maybe you’d want to be with me. That you could love me.” One corner of his lips rose. He looked down and interlocked his fingers with mine. “That you would realize we fit.”

  My eyes traveled down from his eyes to his high cheekbones with the perpetual blush on them to his lips, two gorgeous, full lips I just wanted to caress with my tongue. I licked my lips, then realized, gasping, what I’d done. Those beautiful lips turned up in a knowing smirk.

  He leaned in, so he was only centimeters from me, and I was sure he wanted to continue. I could already taste his lips in my mind. “Tell me the truth. No more secrets with us.”

  The truth? The truth was that I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. He stole all the oxygen in the room, and my body ratcheted up its heat to a hundred times what it normally was, being that close to him. And at some point, my leg had wrapped itself around his, pulling him that much closer to me.

  “I love you, Eamon Murphy.” The words came tumbling from my mouth before I could stop them but I meant them. My face warmed, the blush rising high on my cheeks. Fear of the way I was exposed to him pounded through my veins. His mouth slid up into a huge grin. His lips brushed the side of my mouth, a soft, affectionate caress. “This whole thing is new for me.”

  “What?” He pulled back just enough to see my face, though his body remained flush against mine.

  “Being with someone who considers me an equal.” His smile slid a smudge so I hastily explained. “I mean, Alex wasn’t bad, not to me, but I was always the arm candy, you know? I played that part so well I believed it was real myself. I used to be that girl, and maybe I still am some.”

  “You were always more than that girl. I couldn’t love you if you weren’t,” Murphy replied, and then he kissed me and made me forget completely that anything other than him existed in this world.

  Murphy

  We pulled into the small storage lot in Chula Vista in the middle of the afternoon. I was tired. I didn’t sleep well on planes. Flight time usually meant missions, so my body was trained to get keyed up during flight. And after Chris woke up, he and Addison spent the rest of the trip bickering with each other. When they weren’t arguing about something or another, I would close my eyes and see Addison happy with Alex Giroux, and the anger I felt would bombard me so loudly I couldn’t sleep.

  I shouldn’t have let it bother me. She had every right to have a relationship with whomever she wanted. I didn’t expect her to save herself for me or to not think about her future and marriage and family, but I couldn’t stop the possessive feeling inside me that didn’t want her to be with anyone else. I’d spent so long ignoring these stupid feelings for her that having let them surface for only a few hours was torturous. I couldn’t ignore them anymore. It was like trying to repack a suitcase after a long trip and not everything fit back inside the damn thing and it was a marvel that the suitcase closed in the first place.

  We stopped outside the unit Addy named, and got out of the government Suburban. Addison fingered the locket around her neck, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth. Her eyes darted around us, taking in everything, like she was expecting something to happen.

  Hardy frowned at his sister. “What’s wrong?”

  She cleared her throat. “It’s just… No one but Alex and I have ever seen what’s in here. It’s weird, I mean, that he’s not around anymore.” She swallowed hard, having obvious difficulty with it. “I wonder if that’s how he really wanted it.”

  Hardy glanced at me, and then back to his sister. “Do you love him?” Both of us whipped our heads around in surprise. How did he know? I couldn’t read him, couldn’t tell what was going through his head at all. Was he angry? Upset? Happy? Ecstatic? He cleared his throat and added, “Alex Giroux. Do you love him?”

  I resisted the urge to exhale in relief. He didn’t know. I turned away so I could give myself a second to recover without him seeing when I heard her voice. “That’s… complicated.”

  Complicated? Complicated why? Because she did love him and didn’t want to say that in front of me? Or because she didn’t and admitting it would be like admitting she’d made a mistake? It still surprised me that she was involved at all, and had been for a year, because she’d never made any of our watch lists. But I had a feeling that Master Chief had been the reason behind that. He’d known about her since she’d met Giroux.

  “Addison, can you never just answer a question?” Irritation pinched Hardy’s brows together.

  Her gray eyes flared with anger and she opened her mouth to retort. I stepped between them. “Let’s just get this thing open and see what we got, okay?”

  Hardy muttered an agreement, begrudgingly, and I was glad. I didn’t want to know the answer to that question he’d asked. I wanted to live in delusional happiness for just a little bit longer and believe that Addison really did love me.

  “How do you open this door, Addison?” I asked her.

  Her eyes narrowed at me, just slightly, acknowledging that she knew exactly why I’d cut them off. She huffed out and reached behind her neck to unclasp h
er necklace. “With a key.”

  She depressed the top right of the little square and the bottom left corner until the locket clicked. Her dainty fingers pulled up the middle that had come loose and twisted it so it laid flat on the stationary part of the locket she held. Then she held up the miniature key now revealed. “Let’s get this party started.”

  I grabbed her wrist as she turned and nearly cursed at her sharp inhale of surprise. She blinked and her slate-colored eyes stared up at me. “Is there anything dangerous in there?”

  “Depends on what you mean by dangerous,” she whispered. We locked eyes for a minute, and then she rolled her eyes. “Relax. It’s not actually wired to explode or anything. At least, not now.”

  She yanked her arm free, and this time, I let her go. Then she deliberately turned her back to me and inserted the key into the padlock. It popped open easily, and she slid it off with a loud clang. Then she pushed the door up and out of the way.

  I hadn’t thought I was going in with any kind of expectation, but I was kind of disappointed by the contents of the storage unit. On one side were a bunch of banker boxes, all duct-taped shut. Four rows of them, stacked four high. In the middle, against the back wall, were another set of boxes. Not as many. Maybe ten. The rest of the unit was clear of anything. Somehow, I’d expected a lot more stuff. But this… On quick appraisal, there were twenty-six in all, the majority of them on the right.

  I stepped past both Hardys. “What is this stuff?”

  “Records, mostly. Almost all digital files. Hard drives, flash drives. There’s at least one box of physical records though. Those are the ones on Simon. He never leaves anything on a computer. He scrubs them all clean as soon as he uses them.”

  “And those?” I pointed to the boxes on the right.

  “Cash.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  Damn. That was a lot of cash.

  Chris walked over to the middle box, cut off the tape and pulled the top off. He glanced inside. “What kind of records are we talking about?”