Badass - The Complete Series: A Billionaire Military Romance

by Leslie Johnson

  It’s slick with the red of her blood.

  Badass (Book 3) — Hidden Danger

  Chapter 1 – Duffy

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  My pager and cell phone continue to provide background noise as the boat engine fades in the distance.

  Grace moans.

  Thank God, she moans again and her face contorts in pain as her hand raises to her head while I continue to search for the source of the blood.

  “Happened?” she asks me and arches in pain as my fingers find the wound on her shoulder. I pull her robe away and sag into her, the relief causing my muscles to fall slack. A clean in and out through the trapezius. It will hurt like hell, but she’ll live. Thank God she’ll live.

  “Why did you do that? You could have been killed?” Fear turns to fury in an instant. I could have lost her. An inch to the left and she’d been hit in the throat. Gone! Dead in my arms.

  And it would have been all my fault. My fault!

  Again.

  “Who—?”

  I put my fingers to her lips as I hear it. The unmistakable thwack thwack thwack of helicopter blades.

  Fear returns, cementing in my veins. Getting up from the ground with the prosthetic is still a challenge I haven’t mastered, but I make it to my feet and look into the distance.

  I see it. A dot on the horizon.

  Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

  I listen closer. Not military, thank god. Civilian. Still, my gut tightens and the hair stands up on the back of my neck.

  This isn’t over. I don’t know how I know, but I’ve learned to listen to my gut. We have to get out of here. Now.

  I reach down as gently as I can and pull Grace to her feet.

  “We’ve got to go. I know this hurts, but grab what you can. We have less than one minute.”

  I propel her toward the house.

  “What’s happening?”

  Tears are flowing down her face, but she’s moving. She’s keeping pace with me, clutching her right arm to her chest. The bright red against the white robe sickens me, but I stare at it, letting her blood bleed into my fury.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Inside the house, I scoop up the pager and my cell, tossing them both in my pockets and I continue to propel her to the bedrooms shouting instructions as we go.

  “Bandages. Grab all the meds. Antibiotics. Anti-inflammatory. Pain. Grab everything. Then only personal essentials. Hurry. Whatever you can in fifteen seconds.”

  She moves and I head to my bedroom, into the closet to grab my ‘go’ bag—years of habit don’t change easily. Pulling a handful of long sleeves shirts from the rack, I rush out, locate my wallet on the bedside table before moving to the therapy room. I toss all the prosthetics in a large satchel and grab a stack of towels while I’m there.

  “Hurry, Grace!” I yell at her. “Two seconds! Kitchen!”

  She’s crying hard now, but moving, racing to meet me in the kitchen, cradling a large duffle to her chest. I grab it from her. “Go. Go. Go.” She follows me through the kitchen and out the back door.

  I have an advantage. I know this property and I’m pretty sure I know what is about to happen next. I could be wrong. I could be over-reacting. But, a barrier. I’ve got to get her to the farthest barrier while staying out of line-of-sight. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize later.

  Ten seconds. Maybe less. The sound of the copter is nearly upon us.

  “Go. Go. Behind that wall!”

  She cries out as she steps on a rock in her bare feet, but she doesn’t stop running. I get behind her. Maybe I can provide some type of shield. The brick retaining wall is too far away.

  Five seconds.

  We’re not going to make it.

  “Run!”

  She goes faster, stumbles, rights herself…

  Two seconds.

  “Get down!”

  She dives behind the brick wall, crying out when she hits the ground. She’s rolling. Screaming. Pulling herself into a ball. I throw down the bags and….

  BOOM!

  The blast tosses me through the air and I land in a bush, sharp branches cutting through my skin. Heat sweeps over us and debris fills the sky. I have no air, the breath is knocked from my lungs, but I scramble to her and pull her as close to the brick barrier as possible, throwing myself on top of her, waiting for the debris to fall.

  I listen, trying to hear over the inferno that’s served as our home this past month. The roar of the fire drowns everything out.

  What the hell is happening?

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Silencing the pager, I continue to listen, trying desperately to hear over the raging fire. In the distance, sirens. No sight or sound of the copter.

  “What’s—?”

  “Ssshhh.” I press a finger to her lips and roll to the side, taking my weight off her. Pulling the robe to the side, I check her shoulder. She’s bleeding harder through the exit wound in the front. Her face is pale and her lips are tinged in blue. I crawl over to where I tossed the bags and dragged them over to her, digging through for the medical supplies.

  Taking a towel, I stuff one of them between her teeth. “Bite on this.”

  As quickly as I can, I pour betadine in both of the wounds, then stuff gauze into each of the holes. Her cries are pitiful. She’s nearly unconscious by the time I take two of the towels and place one in the back and one in front of her shoulder before using tape to strap them on tight. Taking one of my long sleeve shirts, I force it up her arms and button the front, tossing the bloody robe in the bag. Then I take another of my shirts and fashion a make-shift sling, drawing her arm snugly against her chest before I force an antibiotic and Percocet between her lips.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  I pull the pager from my pocket. Code Winter.

  Shit.

  I pull out my phone and curse when I recognize the number for the voice mail I received … Captain Fink.

  Still deadly pale, Grace turns to her side and pulls a bag to her while I tap buttons to access the message. I watch her pull out a pair of shorts with fingers shaking so badly, I’m not sure how they grip the material. I press the phone between my shoulder and ear before taking them from her hand, slipping them over her feet and pulling them up her legs.

  “There’s been a breach,” Captain Fink’s voice pours into my ear, the words staccato and sharp. “If you’re alive and hearing this, go offline. Code Winter. Code Win—”

  Gunshots reverberate across the line. The rat-a-tat of an automatic weapon.

  “Trust no one,” he says. “We don’t—”

  Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat.

  I wait, but there’s nothing more.

  I listen. Wait longer. The line didn’t disconnect and I can hear footsteps echoing in the room. Rubber soles. Several pair of them. There’s a rustle, sharp clicks and then the sound of breathing crosses over the miles and flows directly into my ear.

  Then nothing again.

  Pulling myself to my feet, I edge to the opening of the wall. I don’t see anyone, so I step back and throw as hard as I can, sending the phone sailing into the flames.

  “What—?”

  Holding up a finger, I silence her. I have to listen. I have to think.

  Voices.

  I step back into the shadows and watch my mother come running down the path. She’s screaming, running with her hand pressed to her chest. As I watch, she falls to her knees, grief living on her face.

  My heart hardens. It has to. I have no choice.

  I turn from her and begin gathering bags before clumsily kneeling next to Grace.

  “We’ve got to get out of here. Can you walk?”

  She looks up at me, her face filled with confusion and pain, but she nods and sticks out her hand. She stifles a cry as I pull her to her feet. She steps close to my chest, pressing her face against my shoulder, shuddering out a deep breath.

  I kiss the top of her hair, then adjust the weight of the bags across my back before taking her hand in min
e. I don’t glance back as we run, keeping to the shadows of the landscape all around us.

  She follows, in pain and not asking questions.

  I’m glad.

  Because right now, I don’t have the heart to tell her we’re both, as of this moment, officially dead.

  Chapter 2 – Grace

  I keep waiting to wake from the nightmare. Keep thinking it will all be over soon.

  Link speaking to me so horribly, trying to push me away.

  The red dot. Knowing what it was as it circled his chest and landed over his heart.

  Trying to push him away.

  Pain.

  Hitting my head.

  Waking back up to more pain.

  Gathering what I could. Trying to think. Trying to understand.

  Running even though each step caused explosions of pain in my shoulder.

  Then a true explosion. The hot blast, the sheer noise.

  Running again. Not knowing why I was running. Just trusting. Trusting Link.

  My bare feet are bruised and bleeding. His good foot seems to be in as bad a shape.

  Shoes.

  I couldn’t have grabbed shoes?

  I’ll need to practice my ‘think clearly in a crisis while shot and bleeding’ procedures later, I think grimly to myself.

  Every time I try to speak, Link hushes me, so I’ve just stayed silent and followed his instructions. I don’t know why we don’t try to hail down one of the fire trucks or the numerous police vehicles screaming up the road. I don’t know why we didn’t take my car. I don’t know why we’re running to this parking lot, or why Link is using some multi-tool thing he pulled from a bag to unscrew a tag from the back of an old truck that’s sitting behind a service station.

  I’d like to ask. I’m super curious. But my throat is too busy sucking air in and out of my tortured lungs. Link had forced me to dry-swallow a pain pill, but I might as well have taken candy. When the adrenaline wore off about twenty minutes ago, all thoughts of trying to speak went with it. Right now, I’m just trying hard not to cry like a baby.

  Baby.

  Oh no!

  I left Ryland’s pictures. They were on my bedside table and I forgot.

  Fresh waves of sorrow and pain shoot through me as I sit on the ground next to that old truck, watching Link pull the tag from the back. He stands and reaches a hand out to me. Then he crouches down, shoves the hair back from my face and kisses me. Hard. Then soft. Then hard again.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he says and stands. I accept the hand he extends to me and try not to groan too loud when he pulls me to my feet.

  Then we’re off. Keeping to whatever shadows are available. Trying to blend in, I suppose. I look at us and nearly laugh. Big man in shorts and t-shirt with a prosthetic leg carrying four big bags. Me, in a long sleeved dress shirt with a tiny pair of running shorts peeking from under the hem. Me in a sling made from a shirt. Both of us dirty and sweaty. Both of us barefoot. Both of us trying to look like we’re going for a Sunday stroll.

  When we come upon a grocery store, Link pulls me to the back lot and we stand in the shade of some flowering bushes. He’s looking up, searching for something, then crouches again and opens a bag, then pulls out a gun.

  Fear kicks in the adrenaline again. Did he see another helicopter? Was another one coming? Were we still in danger and why?

  I searched the air frantically while he screws something on the end of the gun. He senses my worry. “It’s okay. Watch.”

  Trying to steady my breath, I watch him aim for something high on the building. I see it now. A camera.

  Ping.

  Not a camera anymore.

  “Nice shot.”

  He grins at me and tucks the gun back in the bag before picking them all up. “Let’s go. Walk naturally.”

  I try.

  Following him to a black Explorer, I watch him pull some other device from his bag that he proceeds to slide between the window and door. Shit. We’re stealing a car. Stealing. A. Car.

  I glance around. I might as well be the look out.

  In seconds, the door is open and he’s diving into the floorboard, pulling down wires and snipping one just as the first sound of an alarm makes itself heard. It dies quickly, then he snips something else and moments later, the engine roars to life.

  “Get in,” he instructs and opens the back door, tossing in bags before taking the license plate he’d stolen from the truck and going to the back to do a switch. I stand there, not sure which door to use. I’ve been driving us everywhere the past month, but I’m not sure I’d be a good driver right now.

  Suck it up, Grace, I tell myself and head to the driver side door. I practically fall into the seat, then reach over and turn on the air. I’m burning up. And oh my god! There’s a package of chewing gum!

  Dear owner of this Explorer. I’m so sorry we’re wrecking your day, but thank you for the gum.

  I pop a stick into my dry mouth.

  “No, sweetheart. I’ll drive,” he says gently as he appears at the driver’s side door.

  “You sure?”

  I blink at him. He’s growing fuzzy. He slides a hand under my legs and behind my back, pulling me from the vehicle. I protest. I’m too heavy. Big boned, I snicker. Then, somehow I’m in the passenger seat and he sweeps a finger in my mouth and takes away my gum.

  “Hey, I want…”

  That.

  I meant to say ‘I want that.’

  Instead, I’m saying, “Where are we?”

  I don’t remember passing out.

  Blinking against the harsh sunlight, I look around.

  “LAX.”

  I roll my head over to look at him. “Tell me we’re flying to Hawaii.”

  He reaches over and squeezes my hand. “We’re flying to Hawaii … someday. I’ll take you there. You’ll love it.”

  I see a sign. Long-term parking.

  “Then where are we going?”

  He ignores my question, circling the dim parking garage, looking for something.

  “There’s an empty spot,” I tell him, trying to be helpful.

  He grins. “Thanks, sweetheart. That’s not what I’m looking for.”

  Rolling my head forward again, I watch a couple pulling bags out of the back of a big, older looking Tahoe, yelling at each other so loudly I can hear their voices inside the Explorer. Two bored looking teenage boys with earbuds stuffed in their ears are standing nearby, pretending not to belong to the couple.

  Link drives by them, then backs into an empty slot. I cringe as he fits us into the tight spot. “That was very very good,” I tell him. “I hate backing up and parallel parking … blah … it sucks worse. I avoid it whenever possible. And left turns across traffic. They suck too and …” I blink. I was going to tell him something important, but I can’t remember what it is.

  He laughs. “You’re funny when you’re on drugs.”

  On drugs?

  Oh yes. I was shot.

  I try to lift my arm and shit shit shit … I was SHOT!

  I’m awake again. Fully and glaringly awake again.

  “What’s happening, Link?”

  His jaw tightens and he points. “We’re waiting for that family to leave, then we’re going to change vehicles. Then we need to get across the Nevada border. We’ll stop and I’ll take better care of your shoulder.”

  I look. The man and woman are still yelling at each other. The boys are still looking embarrassed and annoyed.

  “I wonder why they’re fighting,” I say, although I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

  Link shrugs. “A million little things that don’t mean shit in the long run.”

  He’s probably right.

  I force all the fights with Rob from my mind.

  “How’s your pain?” he asks and turns around and grabs one of the bags.

  “Bad enough that I feel guilty for calling you a baby assed pansy when I first met you.”

  He grins at me and lifts a hand to stroke it
through my hair as his face grows serious, his eyes taking on a haunted look. “I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t shoot me.”

  “But you were in danger because of me.”

  I touch his hand, press my cheek into his palm. “I have a feeling you didn’t know you were in danger. But will you tell me why we’re running instead of going to the police? I’m very confused.”

  He moves his head in a slight nod. “I’m sure you are. I’m confused too. All I know is that I’ve been ordered to go underground. I’m not the only target to whoever is doing this. I’ve thought it through and I want you to be safe—”

  “I’m not leaving you!” I sit up straighter in my seat and cry out as my shoulder protests the movement.

  “Ssshhh,” he soothes me. “Right now, I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know why special force operatives are being targeted. I don’t know anything. Until I do, I think we’re better off staying together.”

  I relax into my seat, glad I didn’t have to argue with him about it.

  With the bag he was reaching for on his lap, he unzips it and digs through the contents. He pulls out a little bag, opens it and starts fiddling around. He slips on a pair of what looks like reading glasses, then presses a mustache to his upper lip. He digs around a bit more, and pulls out a cap and slides it on his head.

  “How do I look?” he asks when he’s completed his transformation.

  “Like a pedophile,” I tell him, leaning over to look in his Mary Poppins bag as he throws back his head and laughs.

  My stupid hair falls into my face and I try to blow it back. “Do you have some miracle thing for my hair in there?” My voice is whiny; I can hear it in my own ears. I need to suck it up.

  “Scissors,” he says, then laughs and I blow out another breath. I thought he was about to start chopping it off.

  “That’s not funny,” I pout. “My hair is the only thing that makes me look like a girl.”

  He glances over at me. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope. Nope. Nope. Not kidding one little bit. This slut woman named Marilyn who was screwing my ex-husband used to call me a boy giraffe in middle school and all through high school. For years! I got it cut once and the bitch took my picture and made copies. She substituted my face with a giraffe face and, you know what?”