Criminal

by Henry, Jane

  “You fucking touched her,” he says. “How dare you touch her.” He cracks the man’s skull against the wall, and with a moan, the man slumps to the floor, bloodied and bruised. Panting, my captor looks to me.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asks. I swallow hard and nod, still stunned by what’s happened in such a short time. He takes a furious, tortured step closer to me. “Did he rape you?” he grinds out as if the very question pains him. I shake my head.

  He closes his eyes briefly and inhales through flared nostrils, then he takes his phone out of his pocket and pushes a button.

  “Get your fucking henchman out of here,” he growls into the phone. “Thought I was gone, tried to rape my girl. He bloodied her up some and he paid for that. But if you don’t collect this piece of shit in one minute, you’ll be carrying him out of here in a fucking body bag.” His hand shakes with fury.

  My girl? What is that supposed to mean? Is that what the traffickers call the girls they’re preparing?

  He lifts the man, scowls at his half-naked body, and drags him to the door. He holds the man by one hand, opens the door with his other hand, and literally tosses him outside the door like he’s dropping a garbage bag in the bin.

  He slams the door behind him, hits the deadbolt, and I hold my breath when he stalks over to me. But to my surprise he uncuffs me from the bed, then walks away from me right through the kitchen and into the workout room. I hear him pounding something. He’s grunting and swearing and hitting it so hard I can hear it swinging. A punching bag?

  I step out of bed gingerly, surprised at his reaction, and walk quietly to the entrance to the workout room. He’s slamming his fists into the punching bag so hard his knuckles are swollen and bloodied. He looks at me, panting, his eyes still furious but no longer murderous.

  He turns to face me, fists clenched. “I needed to get myself under control.” His chest heaves. “Tell me if he hurt you.”

  I stare at him, not sure what to say. “I’m fine,” I say stupidly, before he hurts himself. Why do I care if he does? “I’m okay,” I lie. But I’m not. It’s a goddamn lie I force out so he stops the savage violence and I can’t help myself from trying to stop him in desperation. “Step away from there.”

  He blinks as if waking from a stupor and looks around him. “Come here,” he grits out. “Let me see what he did.”

  Trembling, I obey. I’m not afraid he’ll hurt me. Not now.

  I’m afraid I like this.

  Something in me stirs when he draws close and brushes his thumb along my cheekbone. “We need to ice that,” he murmurs, touching the tip of his finger to my lips so softly I barely feel it. He swallows hard and brushes hair off my forehead. “I should have killed him,” he says, his voice edged with real regret. “His heart still beats, which means he could touch you again. If he ever does…” his voice lowers and hardens like ice. “If anyone does, I’ll end them.” He seals this threat by lowering his mouth to mine. I’m in so deep I can’t stop him. My knees buckle but he holds me close, asking forgiveness for letting the man live with a kiss that’s so tender it frightens me.

  I should run. I should hide.

  Instead, I kiss him back.

  Chapter Eight

  Colt

  Slowly, I break the kiss, look down into her eyes. I shouldn’t be hitting the bag. I should be looking after her. Cleaning up her lip which is swollen and bleeding.

  The sheer rage I feel seeing her this way can’t really be described. It pumps through my veins. It makes me burn. When I saw him touch her. Hit her. Hurt her. There were no thoughts anymore. There was no me. No him. There was just the urge to kill. I lost every bit of personal distance I was fighting to keep in this situation. Even now with the asshole gone, every muscle in my body is engaged, ready to wreak havoc on anyone who touches her.

  I hold her close, wrap my arms around her and hope that she can feel safe, even though I’ve given her basically no reason to. The worst part of this aside from what she’s been through is the fact that it is my fault. I should have known she wasn’t safe down here. I left her cuffed for these fucking sickos because I didn’t think. Work got in the way, and I was so certain I had everything under control that I didn’t even think about the scum above us.

  I’m distracted. And that’s going to get us both killed if I am not very, very careful. Things are coming to a head with Brava. There’s a shipment of young women coming in the next few days, and my job is to ensure that they never, ever see the inside of a place like this.

  In a very real way, I did this to her. Every decision I’ve made has been one I made for her. And if I’d gotten here just thirty seconds later… I can’t even think about it. The truth is, from the moment I first laid eyes on her I’ve been making some dubious choices.

  I had to get her out of Brava’s place when I saw her. That was a no-brainer. But everything I’ve done since then has been highly questionable. She needed to learn a lesson about messing with the wrong men. She needed to learn a few harsh truths about the job she does, and the people she works around. I took advantage of the situation to do those things, and I won’t apologize for them. But I will apologize for leaving her in harm’s way. That asshole was the real deal. I’ve been playing the devil, but I let a demon come for her and he must have scared the hell out of her.

  “I’m okay,” she reassures me. But she’s not. She can’t be. She was attacked, and she was cracked across the head hard enough to potentially put her at risk for concussion. She’s going to need to see a doctor.

  I need to get these damn cuffs off her, and I need to get her out of here. Goddamnit. This is a clusterfuck and it’s happening on my watch. What am I now, Brava?

  “Come on, baby,” I murmur, swinging her up into my arms. I carry her over to the bed, find the key and get the cuffs off her wrists. Then I sit her down and dress her gently, making sure every inch of her body is covered. That asshole got to see more than he should ever have been allowed to see. He got to touch more than he should ever have been allowed to touch. Never again.

  She sits there and lets me do what I want to do. For the first time, I miss her mouthiness. I’m hoping she cracks wise just to show me she’s still in there. But I don’t see it. Her pretty eyes are dark and quiet in a way they never were when I was handling her. She’s retreated into herself. I hope that this hasn’t broken her. I’ve put her through a lot. That asshole might have been the final straw.

  I take her by the hand and lead her gently out of the basement, up the stairs, and to my car.

  “You get to sit in the passenger seat this time,” I quip, opening the door for her. The ghost of a smile passes over her lips. Not good. I want some insubordinate wisecrack. I want her to give me some shit. Hell, at this point, I’d take her telling me to go fuck myself.

  I shut her door, walk over, get into the driver’s side. There’s a friendly clinic not too far away. I want to get her looked at, make sure she’s not seriously harmed. She’s such a little thing, and that asshole smacked her across the face hard enough to leave a bruise and bloody her lip.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  She lets out a little snort. I don’t blame her for being skeptical. I haven’t exactly kept her safe so far.

  A couple minutes later, we arrive at the local medical center. I get her out of the car and usher her toward the doors. She’s still compliant, but this isn’t the kind of compliance I like. This is a muted, broken silence which I can only hope is down to shock and not something more permanent.

  The looks you get as a man ushering a small, obviously beaten woman into a medical clinic are scathing. I deserve them, even though I wasn’t the one who did this to her. I have a word with the nurse, and we’re taken back to a private room.

  A doctor arrives a couple of minutes later. She’s a motherly looking woman with nice eyes and curling gold hair. She takes one look at Sonya and glares at me. I’ve been playing the part of brute so long that people don�
�t even question it anymore.

  Before she calls the cops, I reach into my coat, and flip out my ID. “I’m special agent Colt O’Connell. This is Sonya Lee. She got a pretty good crack across the head from a perp. I’d like her checked out, please.”

  The doctor’s demeanor changes in an instant. From anger at me, to focusing entirely on Sonya, as she probably should have been from the beginning, but I’ll give her a pass for being human.

  “Oh honey,” she says. “Did you get hit in the head?”

  “Uh huh,” Sonya says. She’s not looking at the doctor. She’s staring at me. Yeah. Surprise. Not exactly the way I had planned it, but it had to come out sooner or later.

  “Well, let’s get you checked up and cleaned up,” the doctor says, starting her work. I get out of the way to let the woman do her job and stand back against the wall, near the door, my arms folded over my chest.

  “What the fuck?” Sonya mouths the words at me over the doctor’s shoulder.

  I raise a brow at her. I’m glad to see her more like her old self, but even mouthed swearing isn’t allowed. Especially at a superior. She closes her lips but keeps staring at me and I can tell if the doctor wasn’t here right now, I’d be getting an earful of questions and probably more.

  “I’m fine,” she tells the doctor.

  “Mhm,” the doctor says. She’s cleaned up the blood from the lip. It’s swollen but otherwise not too bad. She’s also checked Sonya’s pupils, and seems to think they’re doing what pupils should do.

  “Any dizziness, nausea? Any loss of consciousness?”

  “None of that,” Sonya says. “I’m fine, he barely hit me.”

  That’s not true. He cracked the hell out of her. And she’s such a little thing. Right now, I don’t care how chauvinistic it is to wish we didn’t have female agents. I don’t want this girl in a position where she can be brutalized by some sub-human scum. I want her safe, out of harm’s way. I don’t ever want to see her in anything remotely approximating danger ever again.

  Once the doctor gives her the all clear, I pay the bill and get her back in the car. And that’s when the haranguing starts. She’s been bursting with questions the whole time. She unloads them on me in a torrent.

  “You’re an agent! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

  “I’m undercover.”

  “But you… what you did to me… that’s illegal. You could be fired. You could go to jail. You could…”

  “Uh huh.” She’s right. Nothing about the way I’ve treated her over the last twenty-four hours has been legal. Maybe the criminal world has been rubbing off on me a little too much. Maybe I realized that the only real rules in this world are what you can get away with, and what you can’t.

  “Jesus fucking Jesus!”

  She’s swearing. That means she’s feeling better.

  “I did what I did because I found your little ass in the most dangerous place in the city,” I remind her. “And if I’d sent you home and reported you, like I should have, you’d be out of a job right now and possibly under investigation yourself.”

  That shuts her up for all of five seconds.

  “You whipped me!”

  “You deserved it.”

  “You…” she lowers her voice, even though it’s only the two of us in the car. “Fucked me.”

  “You wanted it.”

  She can’t argue with that either. Yes, I took advantage of my undercover role to scare her straight, as it were, but she was complicit every step of the way, even if she didn’t know it. The only thing she can’t be blamed for, and the only thing I can’t forgive myself for, is what happened earlier today.

  “Wait, where are we going?” She looks out of the window and then scowls at me. She must already recognize where we’re headed.

  “I’m taking you home to your apartment.”

  “Why?”

  Why? I shoot her a look. What does she mean, why?

  “What about Brava?”

  “Brava’s not your concern. Not your case. I’m taking you home, I’m looking after you, and then we’re going to sort the rest of this out when you’re feeling better.”

  “I want to take him down too,” she says. She’s so determined and fiery. But she’s not going to get within a mile of Brava if I have anything to say about it. I let the matter drop for the moment. We’re not too far from her place, and I’m keeping an eye on the streets, seeing if there’s anything out of place, anyone here that shouldn’t be here.

  Her apartment is in the less expensive part of town. It doesn’t have great security, a fact I immediately pick up on as I pull up behind the building.

  “Does this place have even a single security camera?” I ask the question as we head into the foyer. The security door at the bottom is supposed to be one of those push to open ones you have to be buzzed into, but it’s been propped open with a brick.

  “No,” she says. “But it has guard raccoons.”

  We head upstairs. It’s not a complete dump, but it’s not far off it. There’s paint peeling in the halls, and a faint smell of urine covered ineffectively with bleach. Rookies don’t earn the big bucks, and in this city, living is expensive. It’s gotten harder since I was a rookie too. Even fifteen years ago, your money went a lot further than it does now.

  She picks a key up from above her door frame. I refrain from having a fit there and then. Right now, we need to talk. I’ll deal with her incredibly lax attitude to security later.

  Her place is neat and tidy. Minimalist in style. There’s nothing here that doesn’t have to be, and everything is orderly. This is either the home of a neat freak, or the home of someone who cares so little about material possessions they can barely be bothered owning any.

  “Nice place,” I say.

  She doesn’t give a damn what I think about her place. She shuts the door and turns on me with a determined look on her face.

  “You’re going to let me finish the Brava case,” she says. “You’re going to get me on your team.”

  I do not like her tone one little bit.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” she says. “I want to be on the team that brings Brava down.”

  “That is absolutely out of the question.”

  Her mouth falls open. “What? Why!?” Her voice is pitched far too close to a whine for my liking.

  “Because you’ve been hurt enough already,” I say. “Because you don’t have the training or…”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?” There’s warning in my tone. Warning she completely fails to pick up on.

  “You’re just a sexist asshole and you don’t want me there because I’m a woman, well, fuck you, you’re going to put me on the team or I’ll tell…”

  I don’t hear what the end of her threat was going to be. I don’t really need to. It’s pretty predictable. Just like what I’d do to her should have been for her. I grab her by the arm, sit down on her couch, and yank her over my thighs. She squeals and complains, but I’m not listening. This behavior needs to be nipped in the bud. Now. Her leggings come down, her butt gets bared and I start spanking that little ass like it needs to be spanked. Most of the time when I’m handling her, there’s a mutual arousal at play, but there’s absolutely nothing sexual about this punishment. I’m more like a disappointed father right now, giving his little girl the discipline she so badly needs.

  “You do not speak to me that way,” I lecture her as my palm paints her ass bright red. “You don’t demand positions on my team. You don’t swear at me. You don’t act in an insubordinate way. And, little girl, you absolutely do not threaten me to try to get your way. If you want to report me, go ahead. We’ll see how it shakes out. Maybe we’ll both lose our careers. But I will not be blackmailed or bullied or disrespected by you, understand?”

  As spankings go, it’s a pretty stern one. My hand meets her ass in hard slap after hard slap, making those cheeks bounce and jiggle ever more red. What she just tried to pull on me will
never, ever fly. I get that she thought she sensed weakness and tried to exploit it to get what she wanted, but she’s picked the wrong guy. I’m undercover in a dirty world for a reason. I fit there. The agency badge doesn’t make me a good man. It makes me a bad guy on the right side of the law.

  “Owwwwwwie!” She shrieks adorably. I keep spanking until her ass is ultra-red, then I stand her up and march her into the corner of her lounge, nose to the wall. Standing behind her, I make sure the lesson has been learned, that she understands that no matter who she thinks I am, I’m in charge.

  “Do we have an understanding?”

  “No,” she sniffles.

  “No?”

  Am I going to have to whip her ass again? Did I really not get through to her?

  She turns around to look at me, those dark eyes so big. My stomach clenches at her swollen lip and bruised temple. Jesus Christ. If she thinks I’m ever going to see her in a state like this again, she has another think coming.

  “I want to be on the team, Colt,” she says. I like the way my name sounds coming out of her mouth, even though I’m about to correct her.

  “Sir.”

  “Sir,” she says easily. “I want to be on the team. I want to bring Brava down. If you won’t let me, I’ll find another way. I don’t care what you say or what you do.”

  I look down at this determined young lady, and I wonder what on earth I’m going to do with her. She’s stubborn and she’s brave. But this kind of innate disobedience won’t work.

  “If you don’t care what I say or what I do, then we have a problem. A big one. I can’t lead someone who doesn’t care what I say. I can’t trust someone who won’t follow orders. And I can’t stop in the field and whip your butt every time you need it.”

  Her lower lip quivers. “I’ll do what you say,” she says. “Just let me be on the team. I’ll do anything. I’ll be the most obedient…”