Falling For A Donovan (The Donovans Book 14)

by A. C. Arthur

  Dev, however, had zoomed in on the tattoo on O’s neck at that point. It was a boomerang. Dev had remembered the night their entire team had gotten tattoos. Dev’s was the cross on his back that he selected in honor of his mother and the pastor that had saved his life. York had said the shell casings he found in Apollo’s car and in the area of the woods where their other teammates were found had boomerangs on them. O was really a stupid motherfucker!

  “Not spying,” O answered him. “You’re not that interesting.”

  “You could have fooled me,” Dev stated as he took another step closer to the couch, his gun still aimed and ready. “You’ve been tracking me across the country.”

  O shook his head. “Always had such a narrow mind, Bonner. I’ve been on to you for well over a year.”

  “Is that when you decided to start working with Roslyn Ausby?”

  Dev had just discovered this today while he’d been sitting in his car keeping watch on Bailey’s house. She’d said repeatedly that there was another guy at the cabin and that his name was Orin. That wasn’t a common name, still Dev hadn’t connected it to O. Not until he’d turned on his original cell phone and read the many text messages from Trent.

  Orinthian Weatherby had posed as a landscaper at Trent’s house. Tia remembered seeing him there. A witness near the cabin had seen O in a truck driving down the road. Bailey said a guy named Orin was at the cabin helping Roslyn. All of this and recalling what had gone down with O and their team, Dev had known instantly that he’d been the one tracking him. What he still couldn’t figure out was how O had known about what had happened in his past. Each of the messages O had sent him had referenced Dev’s life years before he became a SEAL.

  Dev sent a reply text to Trent telling him he knew where he could find O. And he’d waited for him to show up. Yet somehow he’d missed him. Dev cursed himself for being so distracted that he hadn’t kept his eyes open. The distraction being the woman that was now lying on O’s lap with a gun to her head.

  “Me signing on to work with her is your fault,” O told him. “You could have called me in on this assignment the same way you did the others. I would have worked with you again even though I know what an evil killer you are.”

  “You left the team, remember,” Dev said.

  Dev decided a long time ago that he wasn’t going to talk about his past. That’s what kept him sane all these years. He wasn’t about to let this asshole change his mind.

  He was careful not to look at Bailey because if he did the frayed strands of control he was trying hard to hold onto, would break and he’d kill this sonofabitch right here on her couch. But Dev knew O well. If he fired O would too. Dev thought he was faster. No, he was certain of it. Still, something in his gut held his finger still. Something weighing heavily on his chest said this was too important not to get it right.

  “You know why I left!” O spat. The hand that held his gun also shook.

  Dev stood still.

  The bird flew across the room, landing on the curtain rod over the patio doors. It did not speak, but watched as if it knew something big was coming.

  Dev didn’t even blink.

  “You left because you couldn’t handle the pressure,” Dev stated evenly. “You had a problem you didn’t know how to deal with and you made the wrong decision. Case closed.”

  “You told on me! You and your boyfriend Trent Donovan! You told because you were jealous and hateful!”

  “I told Trent because he was our commanding officer. You should have been man enough to tell him yourself,” Dev said.

  “It wasn’t anybody’s business. Nobody told you to come walking into my apartment and you wouldn’t have seen it. And the real reason you told what you saw me and Carl doing was because you were jealous. You and Trent had been circling around each other for years. I knew you two were doing the same thing and a few other guys knew it too. They were just too afraid to say anything.”

  “You’re wrong,” Dev said, still keeping calm, even though he really wanted to kill this bastard. “You’ve been lying to yourself all this time to appease your own guilt.”

  How dare he use what happened in the past to insert himself into their lives now. The rule that was set by their superior officers, was that any romantic relationships between teammates—no matter the variation—must be reported to the ranking officer. Dev hadn’t made the rule but he’d been determined to follow it. For O to threaten Bailey’s life over something she had nothing to do with was reprehensible and Dev was going to make sure the idiot paid for this giant misstep.

  “Oh you’re really gonna stand there and deny that you and Trent Donovan had a romantic affair?”

  “What I’m going to do is give you five seconds to release her,” Dev told him.

  O was shaking his head quickly now, a vein in his neck right next to that damn tattoo, was bulging.

  “If you hadn’t run back and told that you saw us making love. None of this would have happened! Carl wouldn’t have been beaten to death in the shower and I wouldn’t have been dishonorably discharged for what they called a mental breakdown.”

  “Five,” Dev began counting.

  “And then years later you assemble a team and you leave me out. Luckily I still have some friends. I found out about your little secret job and I figured out a way to insert myself.”

  “Four.”

  “Kidnapping this little thing was just okay, but when I realized I could also get near Trent’s house and his family, I knew I had to try. I had to kill Apollo and he was a good guy, but he was going to tell you and Trent that I was back. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Three.”

  “Writing that note to Tia and then watching her arrive at the cabin was just genius. I knew Jaydon wanted to kill Bailey and Trent to make her mother happy. But I needed something to make me happy as well. Killing Tia was going to be the highlight of my night.”

  He was spitting as he talked now, the hand holding the gun shaking uncontrollably.

  “But then that silly bitch Jaydon got ahead of herself. She ran to the cabin when I told her I needed to secure the perimeter first. I headed out to find the guys I knew you would plant out there, in the trees, and she went straight to the cabin. I heard the gunshots and I could tell from the sound that the team was in there and that they’d been firing the most shots. Jaydon only had a .35. The team carries nine millimeters or in York’s case a SIG516.”

  “Two!” Dev yelled.

  “You’re a sneaky lying bastard! You and Trent! You sneak around and lie to everybody and then I get into trouble. You were a killer before you joined the Navy and you lied your way out of that. That’s right I hacked into your files. I know all about it, you lousy piece of crap.” He was sobbing now. “My Carl died because of you. I hate you! I hate you!” O screamed and then lifted his shaking hand to point the gun at Dev.

  Bailey bolted up off his lap and when O looked in her direction Dev fired.

  O yelled like a baby as the bullet pierced his right wrist. Dev took another step closer as O’s gun fell to the floor. Dev fired again. This time he hit O in the right kneecap. O howled in pain and fell over on the couch. Dev dropped his gun then, kicking the coffee table out of the way and grabbing O by the collar of his jacket. He lifted the guy up off the couch and held him so that his feet dangled a couple inches off the floor.

  “You ruined my life!” O cried.

  “Not yet, you miserable bastard. I’m going to do more than ruin your life. I’m going to kill you slowly and make you wish you’d decided to live your life an entirely different way,” Dev told him before he turned and dropped him to the floor.

  When O attempted to get up, Dev punched him. When O spit blood out of his mouth and called Dev a “homophobic bastard!” Dev punched him again. And then, before O could speak another word Dev was punching him again and again. He straddled the man and held him by the collar once more, punching him in the face and watching his head jerk back. Then Dev wrapped his hands aro
und the guy’s throat. He was going to kill him.

  The rage. The tension. The black that had surrounded him like a fog all his life closed in. He had no choice. Just like the last time. This guy had threatened the woman he loved. Just like before. Only Dev had also failed before. He had to protect her this time. He couldn’t let her die too. He always had to protect the women he loved and cherished. There was no question about that. None at all. His hands tightened and O’s head lolled.

  “Devlin! Stop!”

  He could hear a voice but for the life of him Dev couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He couldn’t answer and he couldn’t comply.

  “Stop it, Devlin! You don’t have to kill him,” she was saying. “You don’t have to kill again. Not like this. Not like the last time with your stepfather.”

  Dev paused at that moment. He released his hold on O and sat back on his ankles, his breath coming in deep heavy pants.

  “What did you just say?” he asked slowly, not sure he wanted to hear it again, but knowing that he had to anyway.

  “I know you were charged with murdering your stepfather. I know and I think the cops got it wrong. I know you did it for your mother.”

  He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Just like you think you have to kill him now for what he was going to do to me.”

  Through the blood and the adrenaline he picked up her scent. She was clean and fresh and good and kind. She did not deserve to see this, to see him this way.

  “Leave,” he told her.

  “I won’t,” she insisted.

  “I don’t want you to see this.”

  “Then don’t do it,” she continued and then wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Don’t do this, Devlin. Let the police handle him and let me handle you.”

  Dev closed his eyes.

  “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have to do this.”

  “It’s my house and I want to.”

  “I can’t let you,” he insisted.

  “You can’t stop me,” she stated.

  Cole Desdune had arrived only minutes after the two patrol officers came running into her house. They’d been driving through the complex under Cole’s direction and they saw that the door was knocked down. The moment they came into the living room Devlin had stood, moving away from Orin’s barely breathing body. He gave the first officer a recap of what happened—without the story that Orin had told Devlin—and then showed them some type of identification card that had the officers immediately nodding and putting Orin in cuffs.

  “We’ll take him down to the station and I’ll add your statement into the report,” Cole told Devlin as they stood in the kitchen now.

  Bailey had walked Devlin out of the living room as Orin was being arrested and taken out to the patrol car because she felt he needed a moment to pull his mind out of that dark place she knew he’d gone when he was punching Orin. Now, Devlin was sitting at the island, an untouched bottle of water in front of him. Peaches stood on the marble top of the island right beside him. She liked seeing the two of them together especially now that Dev had told her Peaches was the reason he’d kicked down the door.

  “If you could come down tomorrow morning, Bailey, we can get your statement. That way we’ll be out of your hair for tonight,” Cole said.

  Cole was a few inches taller than his younger brother, Sam, with a broader build and a lighter complexion. He kept his hair cut really low and his face was clean shaven. His serious eyes had assessed the situation from the moment he’d walked in, up to this very second.

  “I’ll come down to the station with her,” Devlin said to Cole.

  “Your assignment was unauthorized,” Cole said. “I’m trying to keep you out of this as much as I can. If you march into the precinct I’m sure the Chief will want to have some words with you. If you stay away, I can say you’ve gone off on assignment or something like that.”

  “Will that keep him out of trouble?” Bailey asked.

  She’d been leaning against the counter, her hands clasped in front of her. She wasn’t shaking, nor was she nervous. She’d been present during arrests and altercations before. And considering what she’d been through in the last few weeks, the minutes she was held by Orin hadn’t terrified her as much as she figured they should have. It was Bailey’s experience that when someone really wanted a person dead, they killed them. Orin wanted to get things off his chest. He wanted to blame Devlin for his past and to try and humiliate or embarrass Devlin into admitting something about him and Trent that wasn’t true. Neither result happened, thus the man was now slouched in the backseat of a police car. None of this had been Devlin’s fault, Bailey knew that and thus did not want him getting into any trouble for what happened here tonight.

  “In the morning I’ll get in touch with one of the team leaders in the area. We’ll work it out,” Devlin said. “But I’m not going to let her come down to the precinct and talk about this alone. Not when I’m the reason the bastard was here in the first place.”

  Cole shrugged and looked to Bailey. She did not speak. The last thing she wanted to do was argue with Devlin right now.

  “Then I guess I’ll see you both in the morning,” Cole said. “What are you going to do about this door? We’re not expecting much by way of accumulation, but the snow and freezing temps are expected to continue throughout the night.”

  “We’re going to a hotel,” Devlin said. “I’ll board this up before we leave and have a repairman out here tomorrow.”

  Again, Bailey remained silent, letting Devlin take the lead at this moment because she knew that’s what he needed to do.

  “I’ll help you board this up then, at least enough so you can still get in and out and there’s some semblance of protection to all her stuff,” Cole said.

  “Hammer and nails and some things that the contractor who’d come out to fix the planks on the patio left, are down in the basement,” Bailey offered.

  After the two men went downstairs she breathed a sigh of relief and then went upstairs to once again throw some things into a duffle bag. She was spending far too much time away from her little house lately. This time, however, Bailey also grabbed Peaches’ smaller cage from where she kept it stored in the loft and prepared her bird to travel with her. No way was she leaving her by herself again.

  It was another twenty minutes before Cole left and the door—which now looked like a jigsaw puzzle of wood and nails—was back in some semblance of working order.

  “I’ll pay for the repairs,” Devlin said.

  “I’m all packed,” she replied.

  He frowned at the bird cage, but did not say a word. He simply took both the cage and her bag and nodded his head for her to head out the door.

  They arrived at a hotel not far from her house and Bailey got Peaches settled in a corner in the living room area. She was just about to grab her bag and head into the bedroom when he spoke.

  “I was going to deliver orders from Trent to the members of the team one night. The door to O’s—I mean Orin’s—room was unlocked. I knocked twice before checking the knob. We were staying in one big housing unit back then. Trent had a firm rule about everyone being in at a certain time to ensure we were all well rested for the next day’s mission. It was well past that time so I turned the knob and when I realized it was open I went it. Orin and Carl Murtz were engaged in a sexual act when I entered. I don’t give a damn what sexual preference anyone has. I’m the last person to try and place any judgment. I was simply doing my job,” Dev said and then took a deep breath.

  He released it and continued, “I reported the scene to Trent. A couple of guys from another team got wind of the incident and shared their dislike of the situation with Carl when they caught up with him in the shower. By the time we got there, Carl was dead. The guys involved in beating him to death were dishonorably discharged and court marshalled because despite the rules, we don’t turn on teammates, ever. We thought it was over, but Orin never recovered. T
hree months later he was off the team as well.”

  “And he’s harbored bad feelings all this time. Deciding the death of his lover was you and Trent’s fault,” Bailey said. “That’s really sad. All of this because of his broken heart.”

  “Yeah,” Devlin mumbled. “I never knew broken hearts could lead to dead bodies.”

  She figured he was also referring to Roslyn, and Bailey felt even sadder at the comparison.

  “I wanted to kill him,” Devlin said after a few quite moments. “Seeing him holding that gun to your head. Knowing that he was the one who had helped Roslyn and Jaydon kidnap you…I just wanted him dead.”

  Bailey had no idea how Devlin had connected those dots, but it didn’t matter now. She put her bag down and went to sit beside him on the couch. He was leaning forward his elbows resting on his knees, but she sat back against the couch and waited.

  “How did you know about Kelvin Ricks?” he asked her after more silence.

  “You and Trent aren’t the only ones who know how to do a background check,” she replied.

  He gave a curt nod. “I guess not since it appears that Orin knew about it too. But you shouldn’t have been able to trace me.”

  “You mean because you were born Edward Devlin Bonner, Jr.? Yeah, it took me a while to work that out, but I had some help from a friend that I went to the academy with. She works for the Pentagon now and she was able to pull everything they had on that name and send it to me.”

  “I guess you want to know what happened,” he said clasping his hands together in front of him.

  “I want to know whatever you’re willing to tell me,” she replied.

  “But you already know the story.”

  “I know their story,” Bailey told him. “The one the detectives wrote down after their interviews, the one the district attorney used to convene a grand jury, and the one the judge summarized when he decided to dismiss the case after the pastor gave you an alibi and corroborated the abuse of you and your mother at the hands of Mr. Ricks.”