by Dee Tenorio
Chapter Nine
What the hell are you doing?
He’d asked himself that the whole way over from his rental. Hell, he’d asked himself as he dressed in civvies and hauled on his boots to come out in the falling snow. It had been a month since Trina had backed away from his touch as if he was offering her a snake instead of asking her to stay with him. There wasn’t a day he didn’t replay her rejection in his mind. Didn’t hear her intake of breath, watching her expression change from sensually elated to terrified to resolute. Every day, he changed his mind on why those particular emotions crossed her face, but one thing was clear. She’d decided to turn him away. Just like last time.
So why the hell couldn’t he decide the same thing? Why was he here, running to her when she called?
‘Cause you’ve got no balls whatsoever, Evigan…
He glared out the windshield at the back of a peeling white two-story house near the edge of town. She’d given him an address, but he’d expected a warehouse or some empty lot. Someplace a little more…clandestine. Shaped like a tall box, the house had hardly any personality except tired. Screens hung off-angle from the windows. Shingles had slipped in various places off the roof, and the small covered porch looked like it was about to fall off the building. The husks of rusted motorcycles and an old truck on the side of the property only confirmed his murky suspicion what this place was. The house where she grew up.
The sting of icy rain and snow on his unshaven cheeks and mouth should have chipped at his resolve, but he closed the door and headed out. Remembering some of her stories about sneaking around as a kid, he proved his hunch by finding the key under a dead potted plant by the steps. He was a few minutes early, but he opened the door and closed it carefully behind himself anyway.
The house wasn’t much warmer inside but at least it was dry. He glanced around at the aged furniture and fixtures in the kitchen. The appliances had that familiar yellow-orange from the seventies and if he didn’t miss his guess, the small Formica table on the side was even older.
No door interrupted between the kitchen and a bigger dining room. A living room of sorts sat empty to his left. The word “threadbare” kept coming to mind, as if whoever lived here had put in as little effort as possible. Even his house was more welcoming than this.
A brown couch took up the length of a wall, the fabric worn and rough looking. If it had been made of hemp, he wouldn’t have been shocked. The console TV raised his brows. Didn’t see those too often anymore. In between the two, a scuffed coffee table slumped, its dark brown paint peeling much like the outside of the place. There were no pictures, no feminine touches of any kind. Just cold, dreary stuff utterly devoid of welcome or comfort.
If Trina had grown up in this, he could see why she viewed most everything with suspicion. Especially affection.
It wasn’t enough to forgive her, but it was another piece of the puzzle.
He continued walking through the house, listening for any sign of her. She’d been here recently—there was trash in the kitchen canister, including a pizza box, and the room had the faintest scent of coffee. There was a bare little bedroom past the living room, a bathroom as well. There was no trace of anyone having been there so he moved on. The stairs creaked repeatedly on his way up.
Another empty bathroom, this one stocked with toilet paper and a couple toothbrushes by the sink. He stared at them with narrowed eyes. Why would she need more than one?
There were two bedrooms up here, one on each end of the hall. He looked one way, then the other, trying to decide which one his gut pulled toward. That was one of the few instincts he had the hardest time believing in anymore, since his gut had been so sure everything was a threat when he’d first come home. It had taken Trina’s simple reasoning so many months ago to help him see his gut and his fears weren’t the same thing.
You know it’s the fear when it has nothing to do with what you can actually see…
Fear overwhelmed his senses, pushed his reasoning completely out of his head. If he could still think, he could reason and he could start to trust the instincts that had kept him alive so long. Not completely, he allowed, pulling his gun from his hip holster and taking cold comfort from its solid weight. But it was a start.
Something was off here, his gut was right about that. Trina had called, told him it was urgent, all but begged him to come, but now she wasn’t here? If that didn’t scream ambush, he didn’t know what did.
Opting for the left door, he moved silently, rushing through it into an empty bedroom. Empty of people, anyway. The bed—a twin size, pushed against the wall like a hospital cot—had rumpled blankets on it. The pillow caught his eye, a smear of dried blood marring the faded white cotton. His heartbeat sped up, throat tightening as he stared at it.
She’d been here. Bleeding.
Boxes lined one wall, some open and spilling their contents as if she’d rifled through them. A plastic trash can next to the bed held worse evidence. More blood, this time on crumpled paper towels. A lot more.
He backed away, breathing hard, blinking away the blackness edging his vision. She was hurt. She didn’t need him falling apart on her.
He left the room, striding down the hall and not giving a shit who heard him coming. A solid kick and the door slammed open. Gun raised, he entered the last room to a disconcerting emptiness. A large bed this time, covered with far more blankets than any of the other rooms’ beds. This one had been slept in, too. By two people, if the dents on the pillows told the truth. Blankets had been thrown back in a rush. He put his hand on the sheets, not surprised to feel slight warmth still there.
They’d either gotten past him or they were still in the room.
For all its heavy curtains darkening the space, this room didn’t offer much to hide behind. A lamp table on the far side of the bed. A small TV on a dresser. The mirror behind it reflected the emptiness, leaving just one place left.
The closet with two sliding doors gave him a fifty-fifty shot of facing something he didn’t want to see. The MEU(SOC) in his palm, the sidearm that had saved his ass more than he cared to remember, at least gave him a chance to deal with it.
A deep breath. Gun up. He swiped his free hand, sending the door sliding into the wall with a slam.
He jerked, dropping his gun arm with a harsh exhalation of breath and a few words he didn’t usually like to use in front of women and children. In this case, however, he had to make an exception. It was a small infraction compared to his last; pointing a big fucking gun right between the wide eyes of a woman holding her small child.
He was still dragging in deep breaths when he heard the thump of someone on the stairs. Turning to the door of the room, he watched the woman he loved stride in with a box of donuts in one hand and a tall paper cup in the other. Coffee. Just like always.
He glanced at Shana in the closet, finally seeing the big fucking knife she held in her hand behind her son’s back. Great, not only had he almost shot her, he’d almost let her spear him while he was at it.
Trina glanced from the knife-wielding blonde back to where Cade had dropped his weight onto the foot of the bed, his gun resting on his thigh.
“I can’t leave either of you alone for a minute, can I?”
That was when he knew.
At least his instincts weren’t completely off. He’d walked into an ambush all right. Just not the kind he’d expected.
…
“You were early, Cade. I said six.” Katrina rushed down the stairs, the solid thumps of his boots on the stairs letting her know he was following.
“What happened to your face?”
Not answering that one. “How did you even get in here?” She whooshed into the kitchen.
“You told me where the key was months ago. What the hell happened to your face?”
She stilled beside the table, hoping the pause came off like a bristle. It had been a vain hope that her sunglasses hid the bruise forming across her cheekbone or the other one at the
corner of her mouth. Vainer still to hope that Cade wouldn’t get pissed about it. They did, however, cover the four butterfly stitches Shana had helped her put on over her left eyebrow. She didn’t want to think of the adjective he’d require when he saw those.
Goddamn it. She was still kicking herself about her own stupidity, but letting Cade add to the castigation was not something she could take on today.
“Don’t you think I’m pretty anymore?” The snideness in her voice made her cringe, but it had to be done. Keep him away. Make him not care…
She chanced a look at him from the corner of her eye, but he hadn’t moved. He still stood on the threshold of the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest, taking up nearly the entire portal. He hadn’t even taken off his hat. Together with his heavy coat, he went from an imposing figure to a giant. An angry giant.
She quickly looked back down to the table where her fingers tapped impatiently on the green Formica. “My face isn’t important.” Neither was her decreasing standing with the club. “You probably guessed I didn’t ask you here for donuts.”
Was his grunt one of assent or mockery?
“Shana needs help.” He’d respond to that, wouldn’t he? He wasn’t the kind of man to hold someone else’s wrongs against an innocent.
Trina jumped when his rough fingertips slipped under her chin. Spinning on reflex, it took her a second to realize she hadn’t heard him move. He was simply there, his big body flush to hers thanks to the arm he braced around her back. Her gasp filled with the snow-dusted taste of him, but it was his touch that had her softening in his arms. It wasn’t even a caress, just the feel of his warmth trailing along her jawbone. A second later, the sunglasses were whipped off.
“Who did this to you?” Was it wrong to find an enraged snarl, low and nearly under his breath, so damn sexy?
“Hawk.” There wasn’t much point in hiding the truth. “He thought he had some rights he didn’t. I corrected him.”
She dared a glance up at Cade’s face. It was tempting to lay the uninjured side of her face to his chest and soak up his concern. He’d hold her, she knew that. God, he’d probably even forgive her—which was the only reason she didn’t relax.
His gaze flickered. “Corrected him how?”
“Let’s just say he’s probably still looking for his missing testicle.” She hoped the miserable fuck bled out searching, too. “Most of this,” she gestured to her face with a waving hand, “happened when he shoved me into the doorway to knock me out.”
Hawk apparently figured out the only way he was getting to her was if she was unconscious. One second she was undoing the padlock on her door at the bar, the next she was seeing stars tinged with blood. By the time she came back to her senses, he nearly had her pants undone. The good news for her was that her knife was still in her jacket pocket. Not so good for Hawk.
She hated the shaking feeling that tried to work its way back through her body. She’d barely pulled herself together to the sounds of Hawk’s scream before stumbling back out into the bar, through all the others who just watched her go by. No one helped. No one made a single move to get out of her way. Not even the other women. Certainly not Frank, who sat at his table with those empty eyes trained on her.
Hawk hadn’t attacked without permission.
Red Dog was officially no longer a concern.
The consequences of that change in her status were still rippling through her. Whatever protection she’d had was gone. And if she was on the chopping block, that meant Cade as well, since her only value to Frank was in providing him “intel.” What exactly had changed, she didn’t know, and she was starting to worry she wouldn’t find out. So she came back to the last safe place she had left, only to discover someone was already using it.
“I’m fine,” she added, hoping he’d accept her dismissive tone. “I called you for Shana.” A reminder she needed more than Cade did. She pushed against his chest.
He held her a few seconds longer, then lowered his arms and stepped back. It wasn’t weakening her position, she told herself, to sit in the chair beside the table. More lies, probably, but a lie she could live with.
Cade, being Cade, simply countered the move. His long legs easily spanned the length of the table, nudging her own. “Why not call Rick? He’d get her out in a heartbeat.”
She shook her head. “Rick is the first person Frank will look for. He’s been at the bar for three days straight.” Waiting for something. She couldn’t figure out what, since he’d shifted all his discussions from the large meeting room to the corner booth, but she knew it was important. And it had something to do with her. All day and night, she felt his gaze on her, just waiting for her to make some kind of mistake. “As far as I know, he doesn’t even know Shana left their house. But that won’t last long. If we can’t get her out, he’ll kill her.”
Or at the very least, make her wish she was dead.
“She hurt?” He looked up at the ceiling, as if that would help him see for himself.
“No,” came a soft voice from the doorway. “She’s just fine this time.”
Katrina glanced over to see Shana standing there, her arms wrapped tightly to her body. Cade turned as well, nodding politely. “Ma’am.”
Shana’s brows both rose in surprise, her gaze skipping to meet Katrina’s, as if to ask, Seriously?
“Rick always spoke very highly of you.”
Cade frowned. “Always?”
“Letters. His mother used to pass them on to me when I’d see her in church. He wrote about your unit a lot. They seemed like good men. I was sorry to hear what happened…”
Katrina shook her head vigorously, but Shana either didn’t see her or was too intent on giving her condolences until it was too late.
“Thank you.” Cade’s solemn response was unexpected, but his standing to offer his seat to Shana wasn’t. Once she was situated, they all knew the time had come to talk about the present. “What finally got you out of Frank’s house, Shana?”
Blue eyes full of trepidation met Katrina’s. She didn’t even have to think before nodding. This was the only way they would convince him. He needed to know it all.
Slowly, Shana reached into the deep pocket of her robe and pulled out the knife she’d been holding earlier. Frank’s favorite, she’d explained when she showed it to Katrina the night before. Nearly a machete, the blade was easily the length of her forearm, gleaming like a mirror. The grip, a menacing black leather, ended at a shining silver ball.
“Carter’s knife?” Cade asked, though Katrina figured it was just to be polite. It certainly wasn’t Shana’s. The blonde handled it like a vile contaminant.
“His pride and joy,” Shana whispered. She cleared her throat, roughly. “I never had the leverage to break free before.”
Cade watched her slide the knife to the end of the table, offering it to him. “This gives that to you?”
Shana nodded.
Cautiously, as if he worried it might explode, he fit the grip to his hand and lifted it. Dull morning light caught the razor-sharp edge, traveling up to the deadly tip as he tested the weight. “This is a merc’s knife.”
“The ball unscrews.” Her voice might be soft, but it was strong. Getting stronger, Katrina hoped.
Cade made quick work of undoing the pin. Holding it in one hand, he looked inside the hollow hilt, frowning again. He reached in, pinching the item fit snugly into the gray foam cut for it. He lifted it out questioningly. “A flash drive?”
Shana nodded. “He doesn’t trust his men. Or anyone. It took months to come up with something I could use against him. He didn’t care what I heard, there was never anything I could show anyone. And he almost never leaves me alone. The only reason he did this time was because he didn’t want even me to know what he’s up to right now. But I heard him say, over and over, how he keeps track of everything, so the men know what he does to people who screw him. He tracks every penny, every speck of coke. Anything that affects his business.” She glanced
up nervously at that.
Which could be anything, Katrina thought, staring at the blade. The people he’d extorted, murders he’d ordered, assaults he’d committed… Or none of it at all.
Cade may have been thinking the same. “Is that what’s on this drive?”
The other woman swallowed carefully. “I think so. There was nothing on his computer. I figured he had to use something external, all I had to do was find it. This was the only one I found. He keeps it in his shed, where I’m not supposed to go.” Shana looked down again and Katrina recognized the shame drooping her shoulders. “He keeps a lot of things in there.”
She made a mental note to get her ass in that shed as soon as she could.
“I was hoping I could find it, get a copy of the files without him knowing, but I took too long searching. I put off searching the shed because I was afraid…” Now she looked at Katrina, the shame and guilt in her eyes almost too much to bear. She reached her hand out and Shana was quick to grab on.
“He got a hold of Jimmy,” Katrina inserted, taking over the story. “He has bruises the size of basketballs up and down his back.” She felt both sick and enraged at the memory of the poor baby’s trembling when she asked to see the damage. She’d never forget the sound of his sobs when she held him afterward, either. “I told her a long time ago to come here if she ever needed to run. Well, she’s here. I have to get them somewhere safe.”
“You do?”
She met Cade’s sardonic scowl unrepentantly. “Me and some help, okay? If you’re willing.” Please, be willing. She bit her tongue to keep from begging. “An old friend of mine will pick them up if you can get them down to Riverside. He’ll have a place for them, someplace Frank will never find.”
“He?”
She met his questioning stare as blankly as her temper would allow. Was he asking questions about another man because he was jealous or just to get on her nerves? “Yes, he. His name is Daniel and I’d trust him with my life.”
“Mine too, it seems.”
It hurt to grit her teeth, but she did it on principle. “He’s earned it, but he’s not the point. You are. Can you help?”