I’m leveled. Stairs slamming into my back as my full-speed descent is stopped suddenly and without warning. My vision spins but I see a figure looming over me. He’s wearing a thick black jacket and mask, but I can tell even under all the clothing that he’s big. He waits for me to stand, fists clenched at his side. I see the hint of a tattoo on the back of his hand. A snake’s tail coiled around the tip of a sword. It’s the same tattoo Liam used to have on his hand. Exactly the same.
Impossible.
I stand slowly, mind replaying the hiss and trail of smoke as the rocket tore through the dry Middle Eastern air and slammed into the wall. The last two members of my squad were behind that wall. They died behind that wall. I saw the explosion and the rubble. I knew there was no way anyone could survive an explosion like that. I still remember digging through it, trying to find their bodies after the fighting was through. I was stained to the knees in blood, but I dug like a fucking lunatic, trying to find them.
The man stands below me, arm still outstretched from where he clothes-lined me. I crack my neck, flexing my fists. “Where did you get that fucking tattoo?” I growl
He laughs metallically from behind the mask, voice distorted. “You were always observant, Slade.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask, stepping closer to him.
“You can call me The Jackal.”
The laughter in his voice pushes me over the edge. Makayla is out there alone right now and this asshole is wasting my time with his games. I would like nothing more than to make him hurt as much as possible, but I don’t have time. I reach for my gun and he moves in expertly, avoiding my attempt to push him back and twisting my arm under his grip. He strips the gun from my holster and I barely stop him from taking full control of the weapon. My arm is straining in his hold and I can feel the tendons in my shoulder hyperextending. A few more seconds and he’ll have my gun.
Whoever he is, he’s good. He has training. Advanced training. I knee him in the thigh, wincing as the movement yanks my arm even farther out of place, but the distraction gives me time to flick the magazine catch on my G20. The magazine clatters to the ground just as he pulls the gun from me. I know there’s not a bullet racked in the chamber, so the weapon’s useless now. I kick the magazine farther away from him and turn and punch him in the jaw as hard as I can, but the thick mask does more damage to me than I do to him.
He headbutts me, still squeezing my shoulder tighter and tighter until it feels like it’s about to fucking burst. I focus on Makayla and fight through it, bracing myself as I yank my arm free as I roar in pain, throwing my body into him and ramming his back into the wall. I rip the mask from his face, snapping the leather strap behind his head that holds it in place.
We both freeze as I look eye to eye with a fucking dead man.
Liam Hartley.
“You died. I saw you die.”
He grips me by the shirt and pushes me back, turning until I’m the one pinned to the wall now. “Unfortunately for you, I lived.”
I shake my head in confusion, mind replaying everything that happened and coming up short with an explanation. “I looked for your bodies.”
“And then you stopped looking, and so did the rest of the rescue team that came for you. I woke up two days later, nearly fucking dead from thirst. The insurgents pulled me out and… well, see for yourself.”
He shoves me back into the wall and takes a step apart from me, opening his coat and lifting the black shirt beneath. His torso is ripped and corded with muscle, but thick scars crisscross his body in more places than I can count. I realize one of his eyes is cloudy too, sightless. One of his ears is missing.
“Liam…” I say, gut wrenching to think that I did this to him.
“No. You’re right. Liam is dead. I’m the fucking Jackal, and I’m not going to let you off easy by killing you.” He drops my empty Glock and flashes the Desert Eagle holstered at his side.
I push down the crushing guilt and confusion that threatens to overwhelm me and focus on what matters most. Makayla. I can already see it in Liam’s eyes. He’s never going to forgive me. He’s not the same man I left behind that wall. I reach for his gun while he thinks I’m dazed. I slip it from his holder and point it at his forehead.
His eyes are ablaze with the kind of fury only a man who has lost most of himself can muster. He steps into the gun, making the barrel dig into his forehead. His hand grips mine and he hisses through clenched teeth, spraying spittle. “Do it. Fucking kill me twice. Fucking do it.”
As much as I want to end him and ease my mind about making Makayla that much safer, I squeeze the barrel release and flip the safety latch with my forefinger, disassembling the gun in three swift movements. I pocket the barrel and push his chest back, scooping up my Glock and magazine before leaving him where he stands, still sucking in heavy breaths through clenched teeth.
That was for the old you, Liam. But if I see you again, I won’t hesitate to kill you.
34
Makayla
Two of the masked men stand by the door, as if guarding it while the third sits across from me. My heart is pounding out of my chest and everything in me screams to run, but I’m afraid a sudden movement might set the men off. For now, the safest course of action is to try as hard as I can to remain calm and let this play out. Just moments ago I was hoping Jesse wouldn’t find me, and now I’m wishing he would hurry up and get his ass here.
“Makayla,” says the man across from me. His voice is distorted by some device inside the goat mask, just like the man’s voice in the stairwell. “I can’t reveal who I am without risk of endangering myself and my associates,” he says, gesturing to the two men by the door who slightly incline their heads. “But we are not here to hurt you.”
I feel a slight hint of relief, but I’m not ready to believe them. Not yet.
“I wanted to wait until I had more information, but I don’t know if I will have time to learn more,” says the masked man. “But someone you trust wants you dead. The Order of The Goat wasn’t founded to serve as a tool of the wealthy and the greedy, but recent… events have begun to turn our order into something I no longer recognize.”
I shake my head, not understanding. “Order of the Goat? None of this makes sense. Why would someone want to hurt me?”
“Like I said. I don’t know as much as I would like. I only know that word has circulated within the order about a hefty reward for your death, and some of the information provided to aid any who would make an attempt on you is too sensitive to come from an outside source.” He stands abruptly, motioning to to the two men by the door to unlock it. “Be careful, Misss. Pierson. This is the last time I will contact you.”
I sit in stunned silence as the three men silently file out of the café. My head is spinning and it has nothing to do with the wine I drank earlier, which is all but gone from my system. It all feels so unreal, like one of the plotlines from Stalked. I keep expecting to hear “cut” called from the shadows and turn to see the crew getting ready for the next shot. But it’s just me, the empty café, and the dark street beyond.
Someone I trust? That’s a relatively small group of people. I can’t even think of what sort of sensitive information there is about me to give away. I guess my address or my schedule might qualify, but it’s not as if a determined paparazzi couldn’t figure either of those out. I bury my face in my hands, trying to clear my mind, to get a reprieve from the constant stream of doubts and questions that have been bouncing around my skull since I first saw the stalker in the gold mask. I laugh a little humorlessly. Actually, the mental strain really only began to be too much when Jesse came back into my life. I think I could handle the threats more easily than I can handle his broad, beautiful…
I blink a few times, sighing and standing. The past two days have been bizarre, and the last hour has been stranger still, but it’s not like me to sit and wallow or feel sorry for myself. I’m going to do the smart thing. The logical thing. Someone wants to hurt me, so
I’m going to go back to the bodyguard I’m paying a small fortune for. I’m going to be as mature as I can about the fact that he’s deadly attractive and doing all kinds of things to my emotions. I’ll either figure it out or I won’t, but the most important thing for me to do is get somewhere safe. I’m a big girl. I’ll figure out the rest.
I step outside just as someone big crashes into me, squeezing me to his body.
“Kay” whispers Jesse. He wraps a protective arm around my back and leads me down the street, eyes hard with determination.
I cling to him, not proud of how good it feels to be back within his protective circle, but accepting it for once. I squeeze him tight. “We have to get out of here,” I whisper, still not confident those three masked men really had my best interests at heart.
“I know,” he growls.
A taxi slowly pulls onto the street ahead. Jesse tries to hail it, and when it seems clear the taxi isn’t stopping, he motions for me to stay put and jogs into the street, pulling out his gun. My breath catches. What the hell is he doing?
The taxi screeches to a halt. He moves to the driver’s window, leans down, and says something in quick, clipped tones. I see the driver nodding furiously and then he gets out of the car. Jesse hands him a card and claps him on the back before shoving him toward the sidewalk. He waves me toward the car.
I approach hesitantly. “You’re just stealing his car?”
“I’m borrowing it. Get in.”
I take the door handle and sit in the passenger seat. “What if he calls the cops?”
“Then he won’t get the money I promised him.”
“Oh,” I say quietly. “But what if--”
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he snaps, throwing the car in reverse and turning us around so that we’re driving away from his apartment.
“I was overwhelmed and embarassed,” I say. “I just wanted some space to think and I knew you wouldn’t let me.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
The way he’s talking to me like a child irks me, but I notice the blood on his face and the way his breathing is pained. He’s also holding his left arm a little tentatively. “What happened to you?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“It looks like nothing happened pretty hard, then.”
He licks his lips, ignoring my sarcastic tone. “You said we had to get out of there. Did something happen?”
I cross my arms. “Nothing happened.”
He glares at me briefly before looking back to the road. “One of the stalkers was waiting for me in the stairwell when I came after you. I knew him.”
“He wasn’t wearing a mask?”
Jesse laughs through his nose. “He was. At first.”
“Who was he?”
“Someone I thought died a long time ago.” He shakes his head, twisting his hands on the steering wheel and squeezing until his knuckles go white. “I left him there. Everything that happened to him was because of me.”
“I don’t understand…” I say.
He sighs. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
I touch his thigh, regretting the decision when I feel how warm and perfectly hard it is. “You don’t have to put up walls around me.”
He huffs a laugh. “You sound like the army shrink they used to make me see.”
“I’m serious, Jesse.”
“Yeah, well, I can take care of myself. The only thing I’m concerned with right now is keeping you safe.”
“And those flashbacks you have are good for keeping me safe?” I ask carefully.
His jaw flexes. “I have pills for them.”
“Do they work?”
“Some.”
“You can talk to me. I’m not here to judge you. Whatever you had to do over there couldn’t have been easy, but it’s not your fault. Soldiers have orders. You had to follow them.”
“Not my fault?” he asks. I sense a tinge of anger in his voice that makes me pull my hand back, suddenly anxious. He looks like he’s about to say more but he just shakes his head, eyes still locked on the road ahead. “You couldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
He glares at me and I can see he’s going somewhere mentally, calling up old ghosts that he would rather leave dormant. “The thing that sticks is the guilt. In the moment, it’s just about the mission. People become targets. Objectives. When you’re over there, it all feels so vital, like if you don’t eliminate the target, our way of life back home will be over in an instant. But then I came back and realized most people hardly pay it a passing thought. All the shit I did to protect the country… how much of it mattered? And if it didn’t matter, how can I justify it?”
I frown. I’ve never been the most patriotic person, but hearing his side of it breaks my heart. I feel guilty for being one of those people and never really thinking much about the soldiers fighting to protect us. “You’re protecting that innocence,” I say. “Think about it. If people had to be aware that their freedom was so fragile, it wouldn’t feel like freedom at all. The fact that people are able to go weeks, months, or even years without really thinking about it means you were doing your job. It was worth it.”
He says nothing, but I can see something subtle change in his face. I don’t know if it’s relief or comfort, but he doesn’t speak again until we park in a dark field in the middle of nowhere.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Nowhere special. But we need to wait out the night at least. It probably won’t make a difference, but I’d rather be cautious.” His eyes flick to me, and I realize he only wants to be cautious for my sake. Jesse is not the cautious type, and I’m touched by how much he’s willing to act outside his normal impulses to keep me safe. He may just be doing his job, but part of me feels like it’s more than that.
Where are we going to sleep?” I ask, stepping out of the car and looking around. We’re parked at the bottom of a smooth slope of grass. There’s a chain-link fence at the top of the hill and a narrow dirt path winding its way up to where we’re parked, but our view is otherwise made up of rolling grass and a speckling of trees. It’s beautiful, and I can see so many stars in the sky that I find myself staring. I never find much reason to get away from the city, and it’s amazing how quickly I can forget what the sky looks like away from all the lights.
He gestures to the ground, smirking.
“It’s freezing out here,” I say, clutching my arms to my side.
“Here,” he says, sliding his jacket around my shoulders and rubbing some warmth into my arms.
I close my eyes, leaning into him. We sit silently for a while before I speak. “Don’t freak out…” I say carefully. Jesse tenses beside me. “But three men in goat masks talked to me when I was waiting in that coffee shop.”
“What did they do?” he growls.
“Nothing. It was strange. They just wanted to tell me something. They said someone I trust is feeding information to the people who want to hurt me.”
“Someone you trust?” he asks. “How long is that list?
“Not long. My stepfather, Kennedy… you.”
“Don’t tell them anything from now on. Not where we’re going, our plans. Nothing. Okay?”
I smirk. “So I should still trust you?”
“You can always trust me.”
I want to believe that. I really do. But the echo of his betrayal still haunts me. “I’m sorry I ran,” I say.
His hands pause for a moment before he starts to rub my arms again. He’s behind me and his hot breath tickles my ear as he speaks. “Me too.”
His tone tells me he doesn’t mean he’s sorry I ran. He’s sorry he ran… all those years ago. Tears well in my eyes. So what if he’s sorry? Does it change what he did? Yes. I already read his journal and I know he was only trying to protect me to begin with. Hearing him apologize melts away some of the last remnants of the anger I held toward him.
“What happens if you get involved with a clie
nt?” I ask, turning to face him.
He takes me in calmly with his eyes. “Bad things,” he says, voice full of hunger.
I put a hand on his broad chest, letting my fingers slide down slowly, tracing long, delicate lines on his skin. He sucks in a slow breath.
“Maybe I want you to do bad things to me,” I breathe.
His hands weave through my hair and his mouth crashes against mine. A roaring sound makes me jump back, looking to the sky in confusion and panic. He holds me tight as we watch the underbelly of a jumbo jet as it takes off from somewhere just on the other side of the hill. It crawls past our heads, impossibly slow for something so large.
“You brought us to an airport… like we used to.” I say
He smirks. “Call me sentimental.”
I bite my lip, kissing him again and pulling his shirt over his head. He lowers me softly to the grass, kissing my mouth and my neck, pulling my shirt up. I let him take it off me, lifting my shoulders to allow him to unhook my bra next. He props himself up on one arm, still kissing me greedily as he uses his free hand to unbutton my pants and start trying to push them down. I help him, lifting my ass and shimmying out of my pants and panties. He yanks his pants down and I catch a glimpse of his perfectly sculpted body cast in sharp relief by the moonlight.
I see his cock for a brief moment before he crushes his body into mine. I have a split second to marvel at how large it is. He kisses his way down my chest and finds my nipple, sucking and kissing every inch of me. I arch my back, already feeling a building of pressure between my legs. Being with him, knowing I’m not going to stop… I’ve anticipated it for so long. I’ve feared it and dreamed of it. Now it’s happening, and all I can do is brace myself.
I realize with a start that he’s going down on me. His beautiful features are poised over my belly, making me suck in a breath of surprise when he kisses the sensitive skin around my belly button and down the smooth shelf of flesh above my mound. His touch is electric. It’s fire and ice all mixed together as his hot mouth burns my skin and leaves echos of icy shock in its wake. My body is alive like I’ve never felt as each kiss sends jolts of pleasure pulsing through my body. I grip the grass tight, barely feeling the way it tickles my bare back, feeling like I need to grab onto something for fear of losing myself in this moment. I want to be here, to be present. I want to relish in every second of it because the thread connecting us is frighteningly strong, but the same power of attraction could repel us just as easily. It’s exhilarating and terrifying.
Single Dad Next Door: A Fake Marriage Romance Page 25