by A. J. Macey
"No," she whispered.
"Who was the target?" I heard her pained sigh. Glancing over at her I saw her face pale and the apples of her cheeks flush as she fought between fear and anger.
"My mother." Her words were barely audible, but I felt my breath fly out of my lungs and my blood run cold. I knew her mother had been killed by Frankie 'Smokes,' Kiera had even told me so, but this... this was something else entirely, that coldness seeping through me at the news.
I'm very much going to enjoy killing him.
Stone
Holy shit. I wanted to smack myself for pushing and prodding her. Forced to watch her own mother be murdered by her sick fuck of a father. My stomach rolled. It had been hard enough losing the soldiers in my unit, I couldn't even imagine it being my own mother. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Sorry seemed... inadequate. Luckily, Chase had no such issues, and in this moment I was glad for his gift of gab.
"What was she like?" Chase asked softly, his tender gaze looking over at Kiera before turning back to the binoculars in his hands.
"She was sweet and kind," Kiera started, her eyes glued to the camera screens as she talked. "She loved to read and would read me a story every night before bed..." She didn't say anything else, her words trailing off as she brought the tablet closer to her face. "We have a problem," she snapped. "Three Alloy Kings coming through North entrance."
She shot up from her prone position and took off. Chase and I followed immediately; the sound of echoing shouts rang through the building. My adrenaline pumped, and my vision tried to tunnel as I bolted down the stairs.
"Exit plan alpha," Kiera's cool, calm voice commanded through the tiny earpiece that I had almost forgotten about. "Charlie and Brett head East, evacuate premises. Chase and Stone with me to the West. We'll be bait."
I redirected where I was running to, jumping off the last bit of the stairs to the right where Kiera and Chase had just disconnected the pulleys from their bases as they stood on the main floor. I was a few steps behind them, Chase leading the three of us to the crash vehicle we had borrowed. Kiera hopped into the passenger seat, directing Chase into the back, with me as designated driver.
"Charlie, Brett, status?" she questioned, sticking her head out of the open window to look through the open warehouse doors at the other two Aces.
"In the car, leaving now," Charlie replied, his nasally voice breathless but steady.
"Stone, drive around the front of the building, give them someone to chase," Kiera directed. "Charlie, Brett, leave out the back. Head to the compound if you're not being followed. If you are, lose them."
"Roger." Brett's deep voice was a stark contrast to Charlie's, strong and commanding as he responded.
Adrenaline flooded my system, pounding hard and fast through my veins and making me twitchy. Flooring it, we shot around the corner of the large metal warehouse coming face to face with a beat-up pickup truck. Two Alloy Kings were in the cab with the third standing in the bed holding onto the floodlights on top. I smirked, peeling around them and backing out onto the abandoned road. Kiera started to laugh as she watched them whip around, the guy standing within the bed nearly tossed out of the truck.
"Let's show them who owns this town," she commanded with a crazed smile, her gaze turned and locked on my face. The mossy irises were filled with excitement, her cheeks flushed with the exhilaration of the chase. I found myself smiling back, the pumping adrenaline giving me a high and Kiera's excitement only fueling my own.
"Fuck yeah!" I hollered, nodding and pushing our vehicle faster. Chase whooped from the back bouncing in his seat. The wind whipped through the open windows loudly drowning out almost all of the noise around me except for the earbud which allowed us to communicate. The road was empty except for our exceedingly fast car chase, the needle slowly reaching the peak of its speed limit.
"Buckle up!" I shouted, and Kiera and Chase immediately followed my directives buckling their belts right before I took an unpaved road that branched off of the paved stretch of road ahead of us.
The bumps were sharp, but not enough to damage the car or make me lose control. Both us and the Alloy Kings had to slow slightly but still continued to speed at an incredible pace. There was a pothole in the road coming up, so I drove as close as I could to it, only swerving at the last moment causing the truck behind us to hit it at full speed.
"Oh fuck," Kiera cursed, staring out the back. "Idiot in the back just fell out of the truck."
I couldn't help but laugh. That's what happens when you don't sit in the car and buckle your seat belt. Safety first!
"They're slowing," she gave me a play-by-play, "all right, they've turned around." I nodded my understanding but kept driving in an attempt to put as much space between them and us as possible.
My adrenaline started to fade now that the chase was over, my muscles loosening from their tense positions. The SUV hit a small bump, and the rocking of the vehicle in response had me gripping the wheel tightly. Flashes of deployment passed before my eyes, and I felt the blood coating my hands as ringing filled my ears. Muffled shouting filtered through, but I couldn't lose another soldier. Not again.
“Deverson!” I shouted, my gloved hands putting pressure against a gaping hole in his leg. The ringing in my ears was strong enough that his screams were muffled, a layer of thick cotton over the sounds of the battlefield that surrounded us. “Stay with me, man!” But the more I tried to do, the more I saw his eyes dim, his screaming silencing until he no longer bled…
"Stone!" A female voice pulled me out of the flashback, and I realized something solid was sitting in my lap. "Stone!" Kiera's wide eyes filled my vision, her callused hands holding my face. She was sitting on my thighs between me and the steering wheel, and our vehicle was stopped safely on the side of a dirt road. “Holy shit,” she breathed, “you scared the shit out of me. What happened?” As much as I loved having the little brat in my lap, I didn’t want to fucking talk about it here in the car. I shifted her off my lap roughly and hopped out of the car, tossing the earbud into the abandoned seat.
“Stone,” she called, slamming her door shut. Thankfully, Chase had chosen to stay in the car. “Wait!” she shouted, her boots thudding on the desert dirt. The night was dark, the only light out here in the desert being the moon and the car’s headlights. A hand grabbed my arm and yanked until I was facing her. I ground my teeth and glared over her head at a rock formation.
“What?” I bit out. She grabbed my chin and pulled down until I was forced to look at her.
“What happened back there?” She murmured the question. It was too dark to see much, only the lightest wash of moonlight brushed her features. She really was beautiful, but now is not the time for that, my brain barked at me.
“Nothing,” I growled. She snarled back at me.
“Enough of the fucking closed-off Alpha bullshit, Stone,” she ground out exasperatedly. “We all have fucked up pasts, but when you’re in the middle of driving a vehicle at almost ninety miles per hour and you space out into whatever memory you’ve lost yourself in, you can’t just close up and expect me to forget about it.”
“I lost five soldiers in my unit when we were ambushed by several roadside bombs, and another eleven were injured,” I admitted quietly. She had told me about her mother, I supposed I could tell her about this.
“You were a soldier?” Her question was quiet.
“Ranger,” I added. Her hands shifted from my arm and chin, her palms coming to rest on my cheeks once more.
“I’m sorry.” Her words were barely audible. “You did scare the shit out of me though,” she chastised playfully.
That’s it? No one thousand and one questions? No pushing me to talk about it?
I had no idea what came over me at that moment. I didn’t know if it was the wash of moonlight over her features, her ability to be feisty even in the face of danger, or if it was just the fact that I was tired of fighting myself, but I leaned down and kissed her. Wrap
ping her in my arms, I pulled her to me, loving the feeling of her curves pressed up against the hard planes of my chest. Her tongue brushed against mine leisurely, her hands shifting until her arms wrapped around my neck.
“Stone,” she murmured against my lips, “not here. We don’t know if they’ll come back.” I stilled, realizing she was right. Sighing, I let go of her, her arms falling from my shoulders. She gave me a cheeky smile as she poked me in the stomach. “Maybe when we get to the house.” I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stop the tiny smile.
“Whatever you say, Brat,” I muttered, following her back to the car. She chuckled happily and slipped into her seat. I avoided Chase’s gaze on the way back to the compound, knowing I would see his triumphant expression and smug smile. Bastard.
Chapter 9
May 21st
Tuesday Early Morning
Kiera
"Come here, my sweet." My mother’s voice was soft, melodic as she called me. Her lean fingers patted the seat next to her on the plush couch. Skipping over, my feet slapped against the shiny marble tile before I crawled up and curled into her slight frame, her arm wrapping around my shoulder. I had always been told I look exactly like my mother; the only difference was my hair was slightly less unruly. My mom's short curly hair brushed her shoulders, the tight ringlets framing her face bringing attention to her green and brown eyes, although they were more green than brown.
"Hi, Mama." I smiled up at her. While her smile was small, her eyes lit up as she looked down at me.
"Mia Gattina," she murmured, "I love you very much. Do you want to read a story with me?"
What kind of silly question is that? Of course I did. Reading with my mother was one of my favorite things.
She held the thick book in her lap, the one full of Italian fairy tales we had read through for as long as I could remember.
"Oh, can we read “The Colony of Cats,” Mama?" I asked eagerly. It was my favorite story, always reminding me of her nickname for me—my kitten or Mia Gattina. She promised to teach me Italian when I was a bit older. I only knew a few words, but I loved when my mother spoke or sang it to me.
Little did I know, it was the last time I would get to sit with her like this...
The sunrise had just started to peek over the horizon, the waves of slowly changing colors holding my attention as I watched from my curled up perch on my lounge chair. The world was silent, still asleep in the early morning. I had left Chase in our bed; his soft snoring had told me he was still fast asleep when I slipped out of the room almost an hour earlier. The rest of my men were safely tucked in their rooms, their bikes parked in their designated slots within the large garage. Don't turn those judgy eyes on me, I was just checking to make sure nothing had been stolen... not at all because I wanted to make sure they were still there....
The slight tremors that racked my limbs had finally started to quell, the haunting memories from my childhood making getting any restful sleep impossible. The blanket I’d wrapped around myself to keep the chill of the night air away was fuzzy and soft, providing comfort despite my turbulent emotions. In the wake of my nightmare, I barely noticed the dull throb of my bruises and injuries, the memory blanketing the pain with a different sort of ache. The sound of soft footsteps had my gaze drifting from my sunrise view toward the back door. Garrett's bedhead and tattoos were a welcome sight. The energy drink clutched in his hand had me smiling, even if it was only a little. I shuffled over slightly to allow him space to sit on the lounge chair behind me. I unbundled enough to take the can he held out for me.
"Thanks," I murmured, not wanting to ruin the serene atmosphere of the sleeping world around us. His tattooed arm wrapped around me and nudged me back against his chest. Before I could even open the can, I found myself dosing, content in his familiar comfort as Garrett’s spice, grease, and black currant scent lulled me into a dreamless sleep.
Brooks
Garrett was out on the patio when I came down in the morning. Curious, I stepped out and found a passed-out Kiera in his arms snoring lightly. He looked exhausted and based on his bedhead and rumpled sweatpants and shirt, he had only been awake for a little while.
"How long has she been asleep?" I whispered, pointing to Kiera. He sighed and looked at me, his hand holding out an unopened can of energy drink that I'm sure was Kiera's.
"About ten minutes, passed right out. I think she'd been up for a while or hadn’t slept well." He glanced down at her. "Her dark circles are really prominent this morning." Quietly as I could, I pulled one of the chairs that sat at the outdoor table over to where he was lounging.
"Any idea why she wasn't sleeping well?" I murmured, looking my baby over. Garrett was right, her dark circles were a deep bluish-purple, her face looking haunted in the early morning sun as it pressed into his chest.
"Probably because her mom got brought up last night," Chase suggested from the door. I startled slightly, not even having heard him come out. It took me a bit to finally understand what he had said, and when I did, I felt my brow creased. I knew her mom had been shot and killed, but I hadn't been able to find anything else out about Kiera or her past during my searches.
"What about her?" I found myself asking. Stone's irritated face appeared next to Chase's, his eyes immediately landing on Kiera wrapped in Garrett's embrace. His scowl lessened, just slightly, and a pained light filled his eyes.
"She watched her mom get shot," Stone muttered, "by a sniper. While she was in the sniper's nest. Forced by her father." I clenched my hands tightly into white-knuckled fists.
"She was seven when it happened," Chase added softly.
What kind of sick fuck would make his own daughter go through that? Looking back at my baby, her fire, her rage, slowly started to make sense. I had no idea what else Frankie 'Smokes' was capable of, but if he was willing to make his young daughter live through that... Fuck, I growled.
"She tossed and turned all night, mumbling in some mix of English and Italian, but I couldn't figure out what she was saying," Chase admitted.
The air around us was tense. Even though Garrett had stayed silent during the exchange, I could see in his fists and burning green eyes that he was just as pissed. It was only a few moments later that Kiera stirred, a tiny whimper emanating from her. Her face pinched as her fingers clawed Garrett's shirt after the blanket fell from her shoulder.
"Kitten"ーGarrett nudged herー"Kiera, wake up." She shot to a sitting position, her breathing ragged and choppy. Her eyes darted around in fear until she finally realized she was out of whatever nightmare she was reliving.
"We having a sleepover?" she mumbled, looking around at all of us. I chuckled, loving that even when grouchy or angry or scared she still had a comeback.
"Here," I offered, reaching behind me to grab the energy drink off the table before passing it over to her. She gave me a small smile and chugged it. "All right, now that we're all up," I started, “what did you learn from your meeting since we haven't had a chance to catch up on it?"
"Brian Chan has some knowledge about Frankie's lockdown, not sure what it is though."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "But you know how to get that information, don't you?" I surmised, and her lip curled in a smug smirk. There's my baby.
"Damn right," she smarted. "He goes to Euphoria, has a designated private room and everything. Goes every Saturday at nine o’clock sharp."
"How do you plan on making that work?" Stone asked, his hand rubbing over his scalp and neck.
"I figured since it's a strip club, I could just go in as one of the strippers," she reasoned, but my two officers immediately put up an opposition. I rolled my eyes at their arguing, watching for a few minutes as Kiera huffed and argued right back.
"All right, children!" I barked. "Can you make it so you'll be the one in the room with him?" She nodded, glancing at Chase for confirmation. "Two of us will go undercover with you as guests, that way one can watch the main club and one can be in the room so he can't do anything." She ope
ned her mouth to argue, but I cut her off. "No, Baby, I'm not taking chances. If you want to go in undercover, then you'll take two of us with you."
"Ugh," she groaned. "Fine. Chase can be the one watching the club."
"I'll be the one in the room," Garrett suggested in a demanding tone. I nodded in agreement.
"Well, now on to how we're going to deal with the Alloy Kings." I looked at Stone. "Since they'll be working on that Chan guy, you and I can work on how to shut down the Alloy Kings once and for all."
"I think I have an idea that will work." Stone tilted his head and indicated inside. "Let's head into the compound and talk to Nate. Garrett, you coming?"
"Go with them," Kiera agreed, looking at the club's vice president. "Chase and I can scout Euphoria since Chan won't be going for his usual visit until Saturday." Garrett nodded without any argument before giving her a quick kiss and following Stone into the house to start the day. Chase did his usual half-skip half-run that he always did when he was excited as he headed into the house leaving Kiera and I alone on the patio.
"You all right, Baby?" I murmured, pulling her into my arms, careful not to brush against her bruises. She wrapped her hands around my waist and leaned into me, her mossy green-brown eyes taking in my face. Up this close I could really see the toll her sleepless night was taking.
"I'm good," she replied quietly. "I can't promise this won't be hard on me, but I've waited for fifteen years to go after my father. I won't let old memories or any of that useless bullshit get in the way." I smiled down at her.
"I wouldn't expect anything else," I teased before pressing a soft kiss to her lips. "I'll see you later, Baby. Be good." I started to walk off, her voice reaching me as I strode through the house as she called after me.