Cazzo_A Reed Security Romance

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  If Chris and John had come in just a few seconds later, my brains would have been splattered all over the room. I needed to pull myself together and find out what was going on with Vanessa. I wouldn’t blame the guys if they sent me home after the stunt I had pulled. I had really fucked up and after everything that happened, the guys should be at the hospital with Vanessa, not here babysitting my ass.

  I turned off the shower and dried off. When I stepped into the room, the smell of food hit me like a freight train and almost had me running into the bathroom, but I knew I needed to get something in my stomach, so I breathed through the nausea and found the least offensive smelling food on the table.

  “Jules called while you were in the shower. Vanessa’s awake,” John said.

  “Is she okay?” I asked. He shrugged.

  “He didn’t say. Are you going to see her or are you going to pussy out and walk away again?”

  There was no way I could ever walk away again. I had been low yesterday and while I still blamed myself, knowing that I had almost taken away my last chance to ever see her again made the need to see her even stronger. I stood from the table and threw my napkin down. “Let’s get going.”

  “Whoa there, cowboy,” John said as he walked over to me, crossing his arms over his chest. “First things first. You will not carry a gun any more. Until we get back to Reed Security and Cap decides what to do with you, we will treat you like a civilian under our protection. You don’t make any of the decisions. You don’t have a choice in where we go or how we do things. You don’t ever get to be left alone. One of us will be with you at all times to make sure you don’t decide to try to put a bullet in your fucking head again. If you fight us on any of this, I’ll strap your ass to a chair and wait for Cap to come get you. You feel me?” John asked.

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Not good enough. I want to hear you say that you understand.”

  “I understand. I have no say in anything we do and I will follow your orders to the letter.”

  “One more thing. No more drinking. I think we’ve all seen that you and alcohol don’t mix so well.”

  “And no alcohol.”

  “Good. Now finish eating and we’ll leave for the hospital.”

  I sat back down and swallowed down as much food as I could stomach. I felt Chris’s eyes on me as I ate. For some reason, out of all the guys, I felt like I had let him down the most. I didn’t know if these guys would ever look at me with trust or respect again. I had pretty much just guaranteed that any credibility I had with them was shot.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Vanessa

  “WHERE’S SAM?” I asked for the tenth time in the last five minutes. No one would talk to me and I was getting really worried. I had been awake for about fifteen minutes now and I felt pretty shitty, but from what Jules was telling me, I was lucky to be alive.

  “He’ll be here soon.”

  “You keep saying that, but I don’t understand. He wouldn’t have just left me.”

  Jules looked uncomfortable and started pacing around the room. Since I obviously wasn’t going to get any answers out of him, I laid back in the bed and closed my eyes. I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes again, Sam was sitting next to my bed and holding my hand.

  “Hey. Where were you?” I asked, still groggy from sleep. He looked rough to say the least. His eyes were bloodshot and he had dark circles under his eyes.

  “I just had some stuff to take care of, but I’m not going anywhere now.”

  The doctor walked in the room and smiled at me. “Mrs. Galmacci, it’s good to see you awake. I’m Dr. Cooper.”

  “Hi. So, when can I get out of here?”

  “Why don’t we take a look?”

  The doctor examined me, checking my reflexes and my memory. I didn’t think anything appeared to be strange and everyone else seemed relieved by my answers, so I assumed I was in the clear.

  “Well, we’d like to keep you another day. After what you’ve been through, it’s amazing that you’re not suffering any side effects. Usually, after four to six minutes without oxygen, a person would suffer serious brain damage. You’re a miracle. Still, we’d like to keep you to make sure that there’s nothing we’ve missed.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Cooper.”

  “Sure. I’ll check on you again tonight and as long as you’re doing good, you can go home tomorrow morning.”

  The doctor left the room and suddenly I was surrounded by four hulking men.

  “You guys aren’t going to just sit here and stare at me all day, are you?”

  “One of us will be in the room at all times with you. The rest of us will be around the hospital.”

  “Well, if I have Sam in the room with me, I should be fine. Couldn’t one of you just stay outside the room?”

  I looked at Sam, but he just hung his head as he ran his fingers over my hand. I looked back at John in confusion.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Sam, you want to take this one?” John asked.

  “Can you guys give us a minute?” Sam asked, but John just shook his head.

  “We’re all in this together.”

  Sam nodded and after a minute looked back at me. “I uh, I was pretty upset when they brought you in last night. I was stupid to sneak you out of the cabin and it almost got you killed. When we had you on the deck of that boat, we tried everything and it had been so long that you weren’t breathing. I didn’t think we were going to get you back, but then you breathed and Chris rushed you here. I was pretty sure that you were going to have severe brain damage and I was blaming myself for that. I still do.”

  “Sam-”

  “No. Just let me finish. It was my responsibility to protect you and I knew better than to do something so stupid. So, when we brought you in, I decided that I needed to walk away.”

  My heart started thudding in my chest. Did this mean he was leaving me? Was he trying to tell me he was going home?

  “I went to a hotel and I got pretty drunk. I was telling myself that I didn’t deserve you after what I let happen. I somehow convinced myself that I had killed you and I didn’t want to live without you.”

  Tears filled my eyes. I shook my head, wondering if this was going where I thought it was.

  “I called my parents and told them goodbye and then I pulled out my gun and put it to my head.”

  My hand flew to my mouth. I couldn’t imagine Sam doing something like that. I knew he struggled with a lot since he took that bullet for me, but I never would have thought he would do something like that.

  “I pulled the trigger, but Chris got there in time and knocked the gun away from me before the gun fired. I was so out of it that I didn’t even realize what had happened until I woke up this morning.”

  “Sam, how could you do that? I don’t blame you for what happened and I would never want you to take your own life because of me.”

  “I know that. I was just in a bad place yesterday, but I’m thinking clearly again and I swear I will never do that to you.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was shocked and devastated that Sam thought there was no other way out.

  “So, now that you understand what’s going on, things are going to be different from here on out,” John said. “Neither of you will ever be left alone. You will do what we say, when we say it. Sam will no longer be making any decisions, even for himself. Until this mess is sorted and we’re home, we do things my way. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll take first watch outside the room. Jules, go grab some breakfast. Rob you’ll remain in the room. I need you to find us a new place to stay after Vanessa’s released. Chris, you’ll take first perimeter watch. We’ll rotate every two hours. Sam, you don’t leave this room for any reason.” Sam nodded and John turned to the guys. “If he looks even slightly depressed or like he might lose it, you strap his ass to the chair and call me. We aren’t taking any chances of a repeat performance of last night
.”

  When everyone but Rob had left the room, I took Sam’s hand in mine and pulled. He stood and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “No, come lay down with me.”

  “I’m too big for the bed.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll lay on top of you if I have to.”

  Sighing, he laid down on the edge of the bed and I snuggled up next to him. After hearing what he had been through last night, I needed him in this bed with me to be sure that he was alive and well. I would never be able to sleep if he wasn’t next to me. I yawned and let my eyes drift closed. My chest was sore from yesterday and I wasn’t in the most comfortable position, but the warmth from Sam’s body soon lulled me to sleep.

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  Rob had rented us a house a few hours from the cabin. We had come yesterday after I was released from the hospital and I had gone right to bed. I was still exhausted from my near drowning experience, but every day was a little better. The guys hadn’t let me cook last night, saying that until I was one hundred percent, I wasn’t allowed to do anything. It was boring as hell and I needed something to do.

  I also hadn’t had a chance to talk with Sam yet. There was always someone around and I wasn’t comfortable discussing our relationship in front of them. What Sam had done was a lot to deal with and I wasn’t quite sure where we went from here.

  A large part of me was devastated by what he had done, but a small part of me said that his actions were selfish. He had walked away from me when I needed him most and then he got so drunk that he almost killed himself. Even though he said it would never happen again, I worried what else might happen that would send him into a tailspin like that. Was it a one time thing or were all the precautions the guys were taking a very necessary thing?

  “John, I was wondering if you could give Sam and I a little time to talk?”

  “Sorry, but you’re going to have to do it in front of one of us.”

  “I understand, but I was hoping that maybe Sam and I could go sit outside and talk and you could watch from a distance. I know that you don’t trust either of us right now, but I really need to talk to him.”

  He sighed and ran a hand across his jaw. “Backyard for twenty minutes. You don’t get any longer, so don’t ask.”

  “I won’t. Thank you so much.”

  I went to the living room and found Sam sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. I grabbed him by the hand and led him outside, right past John and Jules.

  “What are we doing? We’re not supposed to leave the house.”

  “I asked John. He’s giving us twenty minutes.”

  “Alright. What do you want to talk about?” he asked as we sat down on a garden bench.

  “I want to talk about what happened with you.”

  He sighed and leaned back against the bench. “Do we really have to bring up this shit again? I thought we already talked about this.”

  “No, you told me what happened. We haven’t had a chance to discuss what this means for us.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “What this means for us? I made a mistake, a really stupid one, but it was still a mistake and now you want to leave?”

  “I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I need to know if that was an impulsive thing you did or if I need to be worried. Do we all need to be watching you? Is this something you’ve thought of before?”

  “I’m not fucking suicidal. I had a bad day and I didn’t handle it well.”

  “You’re not suicidal, but you had a gun to your head? You would have pulled the trigger. You did pull the trigger. You just got lucky that Chris was there.”

  “I was angry at myself. I put you in the hospital with my recklessness. So, I left because I had convinced myself that you were better off without me. When I started drinking, I guess I had convinced myself that you were already dead and I didn’t want to live without you. I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  “People rarely are when they decide to kill themselves.”

  “It was a combination of circumstances. I don’t feel the need to kill myself now and I don’t plan to any time in the future. I have never before thought of killing myself. Even when I thought I would never walk again, I didn’t think of picking up a gun. I swear to you.”

  “You swear to me now, but what about in the future? What if something happens to me down the road. I could get hit by a bus crossing the street or get cancer and die a slow, painful death. Are you going to decide that you can’t live without me then and pick up a gun?”

  He stood and ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t make you believe me. I know that I fucked up and I lost the trust of everyone around me. I still have to call my parents and explain this fucking mess to them. I’m not proud of how I handled what happened and I know it’s going to take time for you to get over, but only you can decide if you can trust me again. I told you I wouldn’t fucking do it again and I’m not going to sit here and reassure you every five minutes that I’m fine. So, you take your time and think about it and let me know when you decide.”

  He walked off to the house, leaving me feeling like I was the one that had fucked up. I didn’t know if I had handled that wrong, but it needed to be discussed either way. I had legitimate concerns and I needed to voice them. I sat out on the bench going over what he had said until John stepped outside and waved me back in. I guess my time was up.

  Walking back into the house, I followed John to the living room where the news was on. I wasn’t particularly interested, but the guys were all watching it intently.

  “Arms dealer Carl Reiner was killed at his house in the Dominican Republic early this morning. Details are still coming in, but it appears that he was murdered in his home along with most of the other people on his property. At this time, ATF and CIA are denying any involvement in his death.”

  “That’s..that’s the man that my father dealt with, right?”

  “Yup,” John said. He was standing with his legs spread wide and his arms crossed over his chest, running his thumb across his lip.

  “What does this mean? Does this mean it’s over? That I can go home?”

  Sam stood and walked out of the room, obviously angry at my question. John motioned with his head for Jules to follow.

  “It means that we need to wait a few days for more details to come in. We also have the small problem that your father sent someone after you, and if he did it once, he could do it again. Sending you home wouldn’t solve anything right now.”

  “What do we do about my father?”

  “That depends. What do you want to do?”

  I looked at Chris and Rob and then back to John. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, as long as your father is alive, he could try to use you again when he needs you. So, you have to make a choice. We can make you disappear, give you a new name and a new life, or we can make your father disappear.”

  “Disappear, like never come back?”

  “Disappear, like he wouldn’t be around to ever bother you again.”

  “You’re asking me if I want to kill my father?” I scoffed and backed away from him. “How could you ask that of me?”

  “He was going to hand you over to an arms dealer. He was going to sell you into a life of being a killer’s wife. How would that not be justice?”

  “You want me to sign his death warrant. You may be able to take a person’s life that easily, but I’m not like you. I didn’t join the military and become a killing machine. I don’t even know how to use a gun.”

  “What would you like us to do? Send you back to him?”

  “I can go out on my own. I can start a new life without him,” I said incredulously. “Not everything has to end in death.”

  “Guess that’s my answer.”

  I spun around to see Sam leaning against the wall.

  “Sam-”

  “It’s fine,” he shrugged. “We can make that happen.
Rob still has all that information that Becky found linking your dad to Reiner. We can use that to blackmail him. If he ever contacts you again, we take all that to the ATF and your father goes to prison for a very long time. With Reiner out of the way, your father is the only thing standing in the way of your freedom.”

  Tears slipped down my face as I looked at Sam. He didn’t look upset, just resigned to what would happen if we did this. I wanted to tell him that I still wanted him, that I didn’t blame him for his choices. I wanted him to know that I understood what he was feeling, but the words stuck in my throat as everyone stared at us.

  “You have to talk to John about it though, because I’m pretty much on my way out at Reed Security. I don’t make the decisions any more.”

  He turned and walked out of the room again, leaving me to give John an answer.

  “Is that really possible? What he’s talking about?”

  “Yes. We can make it happen if that’s what you want. I would prefer for him to be completely out of the picture, but it’s your call.”

  “As much as I hate what he did, I’m not a person that can decide to end someone else’s life. He’s still my father and I don’t need that guilt the rest of my life.”

  “Okay. I’ll take care of it. I’ll make sure he gets the message to-”

  “No. I want to talk to him one last time. I need to talk to him one last time.”

  “Why?” Chris asked. “That man doesn’t deserve another minute of your time.”

  “Because I have things to say to him and if I don’t, I’ll never have peace.”

  John nodded at his guys. “Then we’ll take you to New York and end this.”

  ✯✯✯✯✯

  We were just a few blocks from my father’s office and I was a nervous wreck. We had waited for a few days to make sure that there were no conflicting reports about Reiner and then we packed up and headed for New York. Rob had compiled a whole folder of blackmail on my father that didn’t just deal with Reiner, but other financial scandals that would get him thrown in jail. It was like my father was someone I had never met before.