by Blake, Lexi
He reached out and pulled the sheet off the bed, handing it to Chelsea before turning back to Jesse. “No. I’m not even positive that thing works.”
The piece of shite telly was mounted to the wall and looked as though it still used tube technology. Jesse proved the thing did work as he switched it on, and Simon was immediately assaulted with the local news that surprisingly enough was all about him.
The bleach blonde news anchor stared into the monitor as she read the latest reports. “The police have issued an all-points bulletin for millionaire real estate investor and security expert Simon Weston after the brutal murders of two local law enforcement professionals at a building he owns late last night. According to police, he’s a person of interest in the killings of two off-duty police officers.”
“Motherfucker,” he breathed. This was serious. The Collective was playing hardball now. He pulled out his burner.
“Ian’s having a fucking heart attack. He called me fifteen minutes ago and I swear he made up words about what he’s going to do with my innards if I don’t give up your location. What does he mean by drawing and quartering me? I didn’t think he was very artistic,” Jesse said, taking a sip of his coffee.
Jesse hadn’t spent much time on the history of torture, obviously, which given his background seemed like an oversight to Simon. So this was how The Collective was going to play? He wasn’t without his own connections. He dialed a familiar number and hit speaker. Chelsea deserved to know what was going on.
“Simon, they’re looking for me, too.” Chelsea had wrapped the sheet around her and she stood beside him, staring up at the screen. Sure enough, her face popped up on the newscast.
His blood practically boiled. The minute her face was known, The Collective might not be the only group after her. “I’m going to handle this.”
One ring and then two, and then a masculine voice came over the line. “This is Brighton. You better talk fast because I’m having a shit day and this is my personal line.”
“It’s Simon and I’ve got you on speaker, Derek.” Derek Brighton was a long-term cop with the Dallas Police Department. He also happened to have been one of Ian’s teammates in Afghanistan and was currently a member of Sanctum. He was McKay-Taggart’s liaison with the DPD. Simon had to hope he had some answers. “Do you want to explain why you’ve put an APB on me?”
“Fuck, man.” Brighton’s voice went low as though he didn’t want anyone to hear him. “You need to come in and now. I did not put that call out. I didn’t know a damn thing about it until I got in this morning. You want to explain what’s happening? I’ve got two dead cops on my hands and an entire department calling for your rich-boy head. Not to mention the fact that Ian’s up my ass. I don’t like having that bastard up my ass.”
“What you have is two dirty dead cops. They came after me last night in my building and, yes, I put them both down. It was self-defense. Check the security cameras and then get to Chelsea’s apartment. Whatever you do, don’t start her car. There’s a bomb on it. You’ll find another in her flat, though she disarmed that one. This is about Chelsea. They’re trying to get to her.”
“Fuck me hard.” His voice got further away. “I’m going to need a bomb unit. Get one together and I’ll ride along. I have the address.” Derek brought the phone back. “Come in, man. Let me try to work this out for you. I don’t even know how the media got hold of this so fast. We have a leak somewhere.”
Simon could guess. This was all part of a well-coordinated attack to give him no place to hide Chelsea. They wanted to put as much pressure on him to give her up as possible. “What you have is several members of the force on the payroll of a group known as The Collective. I believe you’ll find they also own the bloody media. We’ve run up against them twice now. Have Ian send you intel on them, but I have to tell you, it isn’t much.”
Chelsea leaned in. “Simon was protecting me when he killed those douchebag asshats. I’ll testify to that. Hell, I killed one of them myself. If you want to arrest him for something, arrest him for stealing my panties and giving them to a raccoon.”
“What?” Brighton asked. “Is she there with you? Why did you let her wear panties in the first place?”
He was losing control of the situation fast. “I need to know if you’re going to help me, Brighton.”
He sighed over the line. “Of course I will. If you killed those men, you had a damn good reason. I know that. I’ll help you out of sheer guilt. I’ve kind of been an asshole to you because I was jealous. I have to make up for it because I found out you weren’t sleeping with my girl.”
His girl? Was he talking about Karina? He’d never slept with Karina. He turned to explain to Chelsea but she was smiling, seemingly unworried about the possibility of him lying about his sex life.
Chelsea’s eyes lit up. “Derek has a girl? Shit. Derek, I told you those Japanese blow-up dolls aren’t real girls.”
Jesse shook his head. “Didn’t you hear? Brighton’s finally doing Karina.”
That was news to Simon. And not really important at the moment.
“Simon never slept with Karina. She’s so not his type,” Chelsea huffed. “And good for you, Derek. Oh, Karina would get my panties back. She’s a badass. She can take out that raccoon. Derek, I need to hire Karina.”
Jesse looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Dude, the raccoon had babies in your panties. You should hire Karina to buy you new ones.”
She pointed a finger Jesse’s way. “Good thinking, Murdoch. Tell Karina I wear a six and I like cotton briefs.”
“Is she serious?” Derek asked.
Simon took the phone off speaker. “Both of you hush. This is bloody important.”
“So are panties,” Chelsea huffed and walked to stand by Jesse. She took a Styrofoam cup from him. “Do you have any sugar?”
“I poured half a jar in there for you,” Jesse assured her.
At least they had something else to talk about now. He put the phone back to his ear. “How serious is this search of yours?”
“Pretty fucking serious, man. Your face has gone out to every police station in the state. You either need to come in and get this cleared up or get out of town while I try to sort it out. Ian’s already hired a lawyer for you. Some new guy from the club. He’s all up in everyone’s business. He’s kind of mean, actually. I think I’ll set him on my ex-wife next. You said something about the security feed, but the tapes were blank. The security guard told us it hadn’t worked for weeks and you wouldn’t fix it.”
So his security guard was fired, and depending on Simon’s mood at the end of this case, perhaps dead. Luckily his backup plans had backup plans. He was a man who had learned to cover his arse. “I have a feed sent directly to my server.” Perhaps the cops would have prevented one thing from happening. The Collective likely hadn’t been able to torch everything since the police had been there so quickly. “It’s backed up on another server. Adam has the information. He can pull it down for you. Also have him trace Chelsea’s phone. We received a call right before we were attacked.”
“Thank god, that will help. I’ll get on it, but someone has a serious hard-on for you. You need to watch your back.”
It appeared they did. “We’ll be in the wind in an hour or so. Liaise with Ian.”
“Then you’ll call him?” Brighton sounded a bit hopeful. “Because he kind of put out an APB on your ass, too.”
“I’m going to call him the minute we get somewhere safe. Tell him I’ll take care of her and I’ll be in contact.” He cut off the line. He would have to deal with Ian sooner or later, but he needed to move her and fast.
“Darling, I need you to get dressed. We’re leaving in five minutes.” He stepped to the door and opened it. The motel was set back from the road. If the motel manager had recognized them, the cops would already be here. Luckily the manager likely didn’t want the police involved in anything. He would probably lose the majority of his clientele. Still, Simon kept his head d
own as they walked into the mid-morning light.
Jesse passed him a cup of coffee. “Drink it. You look like you could use it.”
He needed Scotch, but the caffeine would have to do. “We need to get her out of town.”
“Already working on it. I think we should drive out of the blast zone and then I’ll look into getting us to Mexico or something. Maybe somewhere with a beach. I don’t think Chelsea could handle jungle life.”
No. That much was certain. “We need to ditch your car and get my backup.”
“Already got the keys.” Jesse dangled the keys to the sedan he kept in a garage in Irving, a suburb. He’d taken it out the day he’d come to Dallas, putting the car, which was in another name, and extra equipment in a safe place.
The plate would come up as registered to a John Smith, who had no outstanding warrants and nary a speeding ticket. He would drive exactly two miles under the speed limit and pray they didn’t get pulled over. His plans for Austin were shot. They needed to get out of the state. Once they got out of Texas, he would look into getting a small plane and fly them out.
Jesse was right. They needed to get someplace where The Collective’s wide arms had little reach, and unfortunately, that meant someplace isolated.
They would be on the run and she would be dependent on him. He knew it made him a bastard, but it didn’t sound so bad. He would take care of her, protect her, give her time to really trust him.
He couldn’t think that way. He had to do everything he could to get her life back on track. He had a couple of days to prove to her he was the right man. Of course at this point, all she really knew was that he could give her an orgasm and was a cheap bloody date.
And he had to think about more than just himself. “Are you sure you want to come? We could be gone for a while.”
Jesse suddenly found the cement under his feet fascinating. “I’m not going to leave you hanging. I’m coming with you.”
“What about Phoebe?” He didn’t understand the relationship, didn’t understand Phoebe at all, but it seemed she was important to Jesse. Jesse struggled to form deep connections, though he obviously needed them badly.
His eyes came up and he shook his head slightly. “She knows I have work to do.”
“Does she? Have you told her what you really do?” Despite the fact that she worked for McKay-Taggart, she wouldn’t be privy to the more dangerous cases. She was an accountant. She worked payroll and kept the books. She wouldn’t have been told that they sometimes worked for the CIA.
“No. She thinks I do bodyguard work. I do sometimes. It wasn’t a lie. And Ian won’t let me do anything serious.” He frowned. “Do you think he’s ever going to trust me?”
Well, Simon dragging Jesse into hiding Chelsea wasn’t likely to help his case with Ian, but he knew that wasn’t the reason Ian was hesitant to really put Jesse in the field. “You know Eve hasn’t cleared you.”
When Jesse had started with McKay-Taggart he’d been on probation, but that time period had never ended because Eve wasn’t happy with Jesse’s mental state. He was stubborn, insisting that he was fine, but Eve didn’t buy it. Simon didn’t either. The reason they’d been partnered in the beginning was so Simon could watch over Jesse. He had triggers and those triggers typically led to him beating the holy hell out of someone. Simon was bigger than Jesse, but when Jesse went to that place in his head, he could take down a bull. Simon had nightmares about having to put Jesse down permanently.
Unfortunately, that was part of their bargain.
Jesse shoved his aviators over his eyes. “Shrinks don’t ever like me.”
“Eve is quite fond of you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry. As shrinks go, she’s a good one. I’m just saying that they don’t think I can ever be sane again. I am, you know. I just have good days and bad days, that’s all.”
His last bad day had put a man in hospital. Lucky for him that man had been trying to kill him at the time. They’d worked a corporate case and when they’d tracked their suspect down, he’d managed to get the jump on them. He’d gotten Jesse in a headlock. Apparently it was something his previous captors had done as well. The suspect had soon found himself with multiple broken bones, including a jaw that would likely never work the same way again. Simon had just barely managed to stop Jesse from beating the man to death.
“I just don’t want to come between you and true love.” It was definitely time to lighten the mood.
Jesse snorted a little. “I hardly think it’s going to be that. A man gets one shot and I had mine. I just really like Phoebe, you know. It’s probably for the best that I walk away now before I do any real damage. She couldn’t handle my job.”
And there was the real possibility that one day he would go ballistic. Jesse was a little like a bomb waiting to go off. When he did, he would likely take out everyone in the vicinity, including the woman he loved. That shite about a man only getting one chance was just Jesse talking out his arse. It was obvious in the way he looked at her that he cared.
“All right then.” Maybe getting out of the country would do him some good. “We’ll switch vehicles and head for Oklahoma. They won’t expect that. I’ll hire a plane and perhaps we should head to Europe or the Caribbean. Mexico is the first place they’ll look.”
Europe perhaps. Greece or Italy. Not England. He wouldn’t be going home for a long while. His parents would be horrified, naturally. His brother would just shake his head and tell everyone he’d expected a bad end to come his younger sibling’s way.
He hated that he couldn’t tell them the truth. Not that his brother would believe him anyway.
Jesse shook his head ruefully as he looked Simon over. “You’re going to have to change and lose the accent. I think a Brit in a suit looking for a plane in rural Oklahoma is going to raise some questions.”
Simon sighed. Jesse was right. He would have to switch to inferior clothes and try to blend in. But he did an excellent American accent. He’d picked it up during those long holidays spent on the Circle M. “I think I can handle it, son.”
Jesse’s eyes flared. “Damn, I didn’t know you had that in you. I have to take an acting class or something. The only thing I can do is ask where the bathroom is in Farsi. Well, and cuss. I know when someone’s calling me a filthy pig in Farsi, too.”
Jesse’s shoulders tensed, a sure sign he was thinking about his long incarceration and the team he’d lost.
“Let’s get Chelsea and head out.” Simon stopped, hearing a car pulling into the parking lot. He took a step back, but it was too late. Even before the big black SUV pulled to a stop, the doors were opening and men in dark suits were stepping out, guns pulled.
“Mr. Weston, stand down,” a tall man with aviators said, hefting a Ruger Simon’s direction. “We’ve got you surrounded. If you give up the girl, we’ll leave you to the cops. If you don’t, well, they’ll take your corpse, too.”
Shit.
The Collective had found them, and they were going to have to fight their way out. Or he could try to play it smarter. They were outnumbered.
He exchanged a look with Jesse. They’d worked together long enough to know each other’s tells. Jesse gave him a short nod, letting Simon know he was with him.
Simon held his hands up. “I think we should talk about this. I know where the girl is and I can take you there.”
He needed to lead them away from Chelsea. She was a smart girl. She could undoubtedly hear what was going on and there was no way she gave up his game. She would find a place to hide and when they took him away, she could call the rest of the team to pick her up. She would be safe and Simon would just have to stay alive any way he could.
Jesse held his hands up, too. “Uhm, I think I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time, dudes. I was just talking to this guy. I’m going to go and let you all figure this out.”
The man who was doing all the talking sighed a little. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Murdoch. However, I am very likely to
let you since I don’t want to start a war with Ian Taggart. And I think Miss Dennis is here right now. Both of you move away from that door so my men can retrieve her.”
“If you think killing me or Jesse is going to start a war with Ian, why do you think he would let you get away with taking his sister-in-law?” He couldn’t let them through. They would take her and do god knew what to her. He wouldn’t see her again and he couldn’t handle the idea of not knowing where she was.
“I suspect that Mr. Taggart wouldn’t mind having his wife to himself. We had a plant in MI6 for a while. He told us Taggart didn’t get along well with his bride’s sister. I would be shocked to find that has changed. Taking care of the brat just might get Taggart off our backs for a while, but everyone knows how he feels about his men. I would rather not kill you, but I will if you don’t turn her over.”
He was seriously underestimating Ian’s care for his family, and that did include his sister-in-law, whether or not they acted like bullying toddlers around each other, but he didn’t think the man was going to listen to reason. Maybe he would listen to lies. She had to have heard them. The walls were paper thin. With any luck she’d hidden or had gone out the window in the back, or perhaps trained the raccoon to attack men in black. “I assure you she isn’t here. I moved her to a safe location. Do you honestly believe I would bring her here?”
“You better have because you have exactly thirty seconds to produce her or I’ll start shooting, and none of us wants that, Weston.”
He had to think. He had to figure a way out of this that didn’t involve turning her over. He still might have to fight his way out. At least Chelsea would look out for herself. At least she was smart and resourceful and knew when to take off.
The door behind him opened and Chelsea stood in the doorway, dressed in her pajama pants and that T-shirt that did absolutely nothing for her body. She held a hand out as though she could stop a bullet. She wasn’t even wearing a pair of shoes.
“Please don’t shoot him. I’ll come with you,” she promised. “But only if you leave them behind.”