“I say God damn, good to hear from you,” the Major replies. “So is your line secure?”
“It's my personal cell phone, and I'm standing in the middle of a field that's a couple hundred yards from anything. Good enough?”
“I'd say so. So what do you want to know?”
“Need to know about my ex-boss. And Isis Bardot.” There's a whistle on the other end, and I nod in agreement. “Yes sir, I know. But I suspect she just put down two people connected to some members of my fa... the group I’m working with.”
“You mean when she put two through the chests of Samuel and Theresa Grammercy?” the Major says. “The same Samuel Grammercy that was going to testify against your ex-boss, and is the father of one of the members of your little group?”
“Seems I've been lazy,” I grumble to myself, and the Major hums. “Fuck. So what do I do?”
“Don't feel too bad, Sergeant,” the Major says at first, “the info I got was all rumor, and not through anything you've done. Friends who know friends who know people who have talked. But there's breadcrumbs out there. As for what to do, if I were you, I'd disappear. There could be more than just Isis Bardot coming after you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Peter DeLaCoeur wants you dead. All of you. Specifically, the names listed were you, Katrina Grammercy, Jackson DeLaCoeur, Andrea DeLaCoeur, Carson and Melissa Sands, and someone named Andrea Hart, although that may have been a screwup on an alias.”
Fear grips my stomach as I shake my head. “Not a screwup, sir.”
“Who is she?”
“A precious little girl who is just past nine months old,” I whisper, looking back toward the main house. I can't see it from here, but I can see the top of the barn, peaceful against the afternoon sky. “Anyone else?”
“The open contract said 'and others', with a price on each head. Congratulations, Sergeant. You're part of one of the top ten richest contracts in America right now.”
“Shit,” I mutter, thoughts swirling through my head. “Any word if anyone other than Isis has taken it up?”
“Haven't heard, but with the amount of money being floated, Peter's going to get someone who's going to bite. Maybe not as good as Isis, but good enough to cause you headaches. Then again, if word gets out Isis is taking the contracts, a lot of people will peel off. Nobody really likes working with that untrustworthy bitch. Like I said Sergeant, it might be time to disappear.”
I shake my head, standing tall. “Can't do that, sir. Not this time.”
“The baby?”
“Among others,” I answer. “It's not my group anymore. Maybe I’m just being a fool, but to me... they’re my family.”
“Roger that, Sergeant. Okay. Well, I'll keep my ear to the ground, I'm not interested in taking this sort of contract, especially within the United States. Business is too good being one of the good guys. Or I guess you could say being one of the not so-bad-guys.”
“Hooah, sir. Wish I'd learned that a long time ago. Okay, I'll be in touch.”
“Take care, Sergeant Black.”
Major Munchak hangs up on his end, and I put my phone away. I know what my first panicked reaction is, to scamper back to the house like a scared rabbit. Instead, I fall back on my training, on a lifetime of habits that have allowed me to keep most of my blood in my body while those around me are losing theirs. I kneel down and pick up the burlap bag I brought, and start picking up the spent shell casings around me. I just hope that before the brass is all picked up I can get my damn head right, and I can be able to protect this family.
Chapter Five
Melissa
I can't believe how much better I feel after I leave my bedroom. After Andrea left, I used the techniques like she showed me until I felt all traces of my anxiety dissipate and I felt grounded, more centered. It's amazing, and I feel so much better.
I reach the top landing of the steps and look down, seeing Katrina and Baby Andrea napping together on the couch, both snoring lightly. I smile as I head downstairs, finding Carson and Andrea sitting in the kitchen, both of them greeting me with a smile. “Are you feeling better?”
“I am,” I tell Andrea, coming around and giving her a hug. “Thank you.”
“You're welcome, 'Lissa,” she says.
“So what are you two doing? And what about Katrina napping?” I ask.
“The movers won't be here for a while, and we can get her up then. As for us, we're figuring out how much cash we can get our hands on in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” Andrea says kindly. “We guess that if the threat is this serious, then we need to be able to fund some pretty extraordinary stuff quickly. Now Nathan and Katrina probably have the connections to get that done, but those people tend to be cash only. So we're trying to figure out how much we can get.”
“And?” I ask, still mellow enough from my acupressure session to not be overcome by fear. If I can feel this way every time, I'm going to be practicing on a daily basis.
“We're not sure, but it's over a million dollars for sure,” Carson says, looking at the screen. “The big thing is how much time we have to work with. For example if I had to go right now, we're limited, but in two days? We can get enough that all seven of us could disappear for a very long time.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, and Andrea takes my hand.
“Carson means we'd have to disappear, leaving this all behind and getting new identities. For Katrina, Jackson, BA and Nathan, it's probably easy. I know they've got fake identities already in place. The three of us would be more difficult, but it could be done.”
The first little spikes of worry and anxiety worm their way past my feelings but Andrea's holding my hand, and I take a deep breath, trying to get a handle on it. “Leave the farm? Like, forever?”
“Maybe,” Andrea says. “But we'd stay together, no matter what.”
I take another deep breath, nodding. Just then, I hear pistol shots from the back of the property, and I jump slightly, startled. “What was that?”
“Nathan, and maybe Jackson,” Carson says gently. “Nathan went to the barn and walked out a little while ago with the shooting targets. Jackson followed him about ten minutes ago when Nathan didn't come back, just going to check if he's okay.”
I nod and get up, going over to the kitchen where I start cutting up some collard greens. “You mind if we have collards and bacon for dinner?” I ask, thinking of one of my favorite comfort foods. It's not as good as chocolate, but bacon and collard greens is about the closest thing I have to a comfort food I can have with almost every meal. “I know we just had them three nights ago, but I could use some.”
“That's fine, 'Lissa,” Carson says. “What else are you thinking about with it?”
I shrug, focusing on my chopping. Part of having collards and bacon that helps me is that you have to focus to prepare the tough greens properly, or else you end up chewing a woody mess that tastes like grass clippings. The need to focus helps me put my anxiety out of my head, to deal with the fear that I can feel nibbling away at my good mood.
I listen as Nathan and Jackson keep shooting, hearing the difference between the two pistols, whatever they are. When Vadim Orloff attacked the house Katrina gave me a pistol, but I've never fired a gun before in my life and I think I'm pretty lucky I didn't shoot myself in the foot that night. But I can't tell who's shooting what.
Finally the shooting goes quiet, and a few minutes later Jackson returns, his pistol in a big holster strapped to his thigh. He comes to the back door, talking through the screen. “Hey guys, Nathan's going to be clearing his head a little bit more, I'm going to go clean this thing down. You all good in here?”
“I thought he was Southern,” Carson comments to Andrea, smirking. “What happened to the proper use of 'y'all'?”
“He likes to pretend he's educated,” Andrea jokes in reply, giving her brother a look. “Go on, we're good. 'Lissa here is making collards and bacon as part of dinner, so if you can t
hink of anything you want to go with it, tell us when you get back.”
“Cool. You got everything on lock, I guess. See... y'all,” Jackson quips, and even I smile a little at his joke. It's rare that I can joke around, and it hurts not to be able to laugh like everyone else in my family.
After Jackson goes into the barn, I keep looking toward the back of the property, wondering what is taking Nathan so long, until I get so distracted my knife slips and I nick my left thumb. “Ow!”
“What happened?” Andrea asks, standing up from her chair.
I wave her down, sticking my thumb in my mouth and sucking on the cut. “I'm okay, I'm okay,” I mumble around my thumb, licking the cut and cursing myself mentally. “Just a small cut.”
“You sure?” Andrea says, and I nod. Seriously, it's deep, but not that big. If I'd been paying attention it wouldn't have happened at all.
“I'm gonna go see if Nathan's okay, finish this up later,” I reply, keeping my thumb in my mouth as I walk out.
“Be careful,” Carson calls, and I wave with my right hand as I close the screen door carefully, making sure to not let it clap shut. Walking past the barn, I can hear Jackson in there, but I don't say anything as I start on the path to the back of the property. It's not that far, only a couple of hundred feet, but as I walk the fear starts to creep deeper into my mind, and I can feel my anxiety coming back. I sigh, knowing that I need to just get hold of myself and deal with what's going on inside me.
I find Nathan in the field close to the shooting target area, kneeling down and picking something up out of the grass. He hears me approach and waves when I'm still about fifty feet away. “Hey, is everything okay?”
“Yes, I wanted to check on you,” I mumble around my thumb before realizing that I probably look like an idiot still, and pull my thumb out. “Are you okay?”
Nathan nods and goes back to picking things up out of the grass. “Just making sure I have all my brass policed up. What's wrong with your thumb?”
“Nicked it chopping up some collards,” I tell him, coming closer. “I just forgot I had it in my mouth and was sucking on it like the big baby I am. Sorry.”
Nathan gets up, dusting off his hands on his pants, and looks at me with an expression that for some reason I can't quite make out. I've seen it on his face before, but I just don't know what it is. “Show me.”
I show him my thumb, and he takes my hand in his, studying my cut carefully. “It’s pretty deep.”
“But small. I'll be fine. Glad I finished Ascension though, it's going to hurt for a few days. Trying to use my sculpture tools with a deep cut is always painful,” I tell him. I take a deep breath and look up into his jade eyes, feeling the fear back away a little bit in his presence. “Jackson said you were still clearing your head. Is everything okay?”
“Maybe,” he says, still holding my hand. “But the danger is even greater than what I thought. On the other hand, there might be a way we can keep everyone safe. But we’ll have to be brave”
“Oh?” I ask, trying to stop the momentary panic. Whenever someone in my family asks me to be brave, things get scary, and I don't do well with scary. But Nathan's promised to never let me be hurt, and I trust him. If I'm being honest with myself, I know I more than trust him, but I can't tell him that. “What do you mean?”
“First, the scary part, 'Lissa. Peter DeLaCoeur's put an open contract out on everyone in this family, including you and BA. And it is not just Isis Bardot who might be coming against us, but others, too. It’s too much for me to be able to effectively protect you here.”
I hear it in his voice, he's worried, but I also hear something in what he just said. He said 'you'. Did he mean the whole family, or me in particular? “So... what do you want to do?” I ask, taking a deep breath. “What can we do, Nathan?”
“Long ago, after I got out of the Army, I did some... mercenary work,” Nathan admits, his eyes haunted. “Some of it was very well-paying, and I used the money to purchase a property in North Carolina. It’s in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Asheville. It is a big property, but the best part of it is that it is isolated. The nearest place is forty-five minutes away, and I know we can secure the place well.”
“Leaving the farm...” I say softly, fear gripping me in its icy talons and squeezing my chest. Carson and Andrea were just talking about it, and now to have Nathan talking about it again means it's a very real possibility. But the farm is my one safe place in the world... “Nathan, leaving the farm though? I don't know.”
Nathan takes my hands. “Please, 'Lissa. I know it’s scary, and that right now you are starting to freak out. I have been watching you so much over the past four months I can tell when you are on edge, and I know you are trying your best. But all this hinges on you.”
“Why on me?” I ask, and Nathan holds my hands a little more tightly, reassuring me with the look in his eyes.
“I need to protect this family. I need to. But to do that, I need to know I can focus, and to do that, I need to know that you are safe. I can't be sure of that here,” Nathan says, struggling with his words. He doesn't say a lot usually, and usually what he does say has the sort of serene simplicity of a Japanese poem, at least with me. But now he's trying to say something, and he breaks eye contact with me. “I care about everyone in the family, but you... you are special to me. I need to know that you are safe, and at my place in North Carolina, I feel like I have that space to be able to do that. From there we have a chance. Here... I don't think we do.”
“I... I'm special to you?” I ask, making sure I heard correctly. “But how can I be special?”
“You are,” Nathan says, looking up again, his eyes full of emotion. “Melissa, you are the first person I can say that I... I care for in a very long time. And I swear to you, I will protect you with every drop of blood and every breath in my body. I will keep you safe, and if I have to, I’ll help fight your fears. Please, 'Lissa. Before I talk with the rest of the family, I need to know... are you with me on this?”
There's such a burning intensity in his eyes, a need for my acceptance and something more, something that stirs embers in my belly. I nod, and try to smile. “Okay, Nathan. For you, I can be brave. I don't know if I can keep it up the whole time, but I'll do my best for you.”
“That's my girl,” he says, his words sending another little thrill through me and building the ball of warmth in my belly again, even if he didn't mean it the way I want him to. “Let's go tell the rest of your family.”
“Our family,” I correct him, stopping him in his tracks.
“What?”
“Our family,” I repeat, taking his hand. “I may be an emotional wreck, and maybe I'm limited in ways I'm just starting to understand, but you're blind, Nathan. You're just as much a part of this family as any other person. Katrina sees you as a father figure, definitely more than her actual father. Andrea sees you the same way, or maybe as a mentor, and Jackson for sure thinks of you as a mentor. And I... you're special to me too, Nathan. You're a vital part of this family.”
He nods and takes a deep breath, giving me a genuine smile that lights up his handsome but flawed face. It's that face I see so rarely, but is burned into my memory, and is engraved on Ascension. “Okay then. Our family. Let's go talk to our family.”
Our family talk is actually delayed by two hours while the movers come to pick up Ascension and get it ready. The statue first has to be put up on a pallet, where they use a miniature forklift to move it out of the barn. Using a light crane, they bring it onto the flatbed truck that already has supporting padding ready for it. Thankfully, we've used this group before for all my major sculptures, and they get it on without any major problems.
After the flatbed pulls away, I watch for a while before I go inside. I've been pressing the spot on my hand over and over, and it helps to calm me down, but even more helpful is remembering what Nathan said to me.
I'm special to him. He cares for me. I know it isn't the three words I want to hear
, that I've dreamed of sometimes, but that's okay. It's a start, and it helps. I see everyone gathered in the living room, sitting down and waiting for me. Seeing me, Nathan gives me a bit of a smile and stands up, offering me his seat on the couch. “'Lissa?”
“Thank you,” I accept, smiling a little as I watch Nathan move to the front of the room. “Well, Nathan, go ahead.”
“I talked with some of my connections in the mercenary world,” he says, laying it out again. Everyone waits and lets him have his say, including about his idea about everyone relocating to his property in the mountains. “I told Melissa about this, and she's on board. 'Lissa?”
I nod, looking around. “I know all of you worry about me. But I'm going to be brave, and that means going with you all. So if Nathan says he wants us to go, then we go.”
“Just a moment, 'Lissa,” Katrina says, speaking up. “Not that I'm against it Nathan, just that I have a few questions. You said property. What type of property are we talking about, anyway?”
Nathan shakes his head, smiling. “Actually, space is not going to be a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“The property was formerly a small retreat. It was owned by a Methodist church that decided to offload the property when they wanted to build a megachurch in Asheville itself. Officially I own eleven acres, but the surrounding property is all owned by lumber companies or is part of the Pisgah National Forest, with only a mile-long dirt road for access. The two buildings on the property are a small hotel with ten rooms, and a small chapel.”
Katrina nods, pleased. “And they've been kept up?”
Nathan shrugs. “The main parts of the buildings themselves are in good shape. It's not perfect, it's not a day at the Holiday Inn, but everything was working when I checked on it a year ago.”
“What supplies are we going to need?” Jackson asks. I think, and raise my hand. “What is it, 'Lissa?”
Retribution: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Secrets & Lies Book 3) Page 4