Strike (Tortured Heroes Book 4)

by Jayne Blue

  He reared back like I’d slapped him. “What? No. Fuck. I’m screwing this up. I told you, I’m a shithead. What I’m trying to say is that I like spending time with you. I realize that you’re probably the worst idea I’ve ever had.”

  It was my turn to look gut punched. I let out a bitter laugh and got up off the couch. “Ben, why don’t you …”

  He rose and crossed the distance between us. “Stop. I mean. Don’t listen to me. Fuck. I told you, I’m bad at this. I’m trying to ask you out.”

  My mouth dropped open. He stood there with his hands on my shoulders. He wore a vulnerable expression with his eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. I hadn’t expected this. I wanted this and until he said it, I hadn’t realized how badly. But it didn’t change one simple thing. I could say yes. I’d probably enjoy myself. Hell, I knew I would. But it wouldn’t change the fact that Ben was a cop. And he was Ben. I was dangerous for him because of who my father was. As I stared into his questioning eyes, I saw it clearly. The danger I represented had to be part of his attraction. I couldn’t let that be the basis for a relationship with him even if I didn’t have my own issues.

  “And then what?” I said.

  He dropped his hands. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t be this for you, Ben. I can’t be part of this danger fix you have.”

  He looked stunned, but a tiny flicker in his eyes told me I’d hit on the truth. I crossed my arms in front of me and took a step back.

  “Charlotte.”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me that’s not part of it. You get a rush from being with me because you know how dangerous it is. At least do me the courtesy of admitting that.”

  A muscle jumped in Ben’s jaw, but the intensity of his stare faded just a touch. It was enough to tell me I was right.

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “You’re right. It’s part of the appeal. But are you going to stand there and tell me it isn’t part of it for you? I see you, Charlotte. I don’t know what it is, but you’re holding on to something pretty tight. Something hurt you, or someone. I’m not an idiot. I know what that first night was. I was a revenge fuck or something. And it suited me fine at the time. But there’s something else there and you know it.”

  It got hard to breathe. I hated how good he was at seeing straight through me. Exhilaration or misery. There was no middle ground and I just couldn’t have it. I’d drown from it just like my parents did. My doorbell rang and shattered the tension between us. I ran my hand over my mouth and gave Ben a shrug.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t answer it. Let’s finish this.”

  I stepped around him. “Just let me deal with whoever that is. It’ll give you time to figure out your escape plan.” God, I felt like the biggest bitch saying it. I knew my friend Sonya would have a field day with this. She said I always tested the people who cared about me. She was right. Because most of the time, they failed. Every man I’d ever cared about had found a way to let me down or leave me. It just seemed easier to push them away first.

  I went to the door. A wall of pink-and-white tulips greeted me. I took a step back. Before I could stop it, the tulips walked straight into the house.

  “Surprise, baby!” Craig lowered the flowers and smiled wide. I waited for the ground to open up and swallow me. He stood there, his Florida tan and white-blond hair at odds with the gray skies behind him. He flashed me a white-toothed grin and held the flowers to the side. God, it was like the fight brewing between Ben and me had conjured him. I did a foolish thing and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping it was all just a dream and I could conjure him right off the planet.

  It didn’t work. When I opened my eyes, Craig was still there and closing the space between us. I didn’t move fast enough. Craig stepped forward and snaked his arm around me. He pulled me into an embrace I didn’t want and his lips found mine. Laying my hands flat on his chest I pushed hard. He staggered backward and the color drained from his face.

  “What the hell, baby?”

  “Baby?” Ben stood like a stone wall in the center of the room. A tiny vein throbbed near his temple.

  I looked back at Craig. He set the flowers down and pushed me to the side. It was the dumbest thing he could have done. Anger poured off him and his complexion turned almost purple. He didn’t hurt me, but it was an aggressive enough move and Ben started to react. I saw it happening almost in slow motion, but I was powerless to get in the way. Craig moved and it was the second stupid thing he did.

  “Who the fuck is this asshole?” he said. He turned to me and grabbed my arm hard, trying to shove me behind him.

  Ben came down on him with the fury of a hurricane. I remember shouting, but he couldn’t hear me. He threw one punch, landing it squarely on the bridge of Craig’s nose. He let go of me and lunged at Ben. Janet’s words from the other day flooded my senses. He’s been trying to save her ever since. Ben’s pupils narrowed, his gaze flashed with brutal intensity. He was here, but not here. He raised a lethal fist and the two of them staggered backward in a flurry of punches, crashing through my screen door and ending up in a heap on my front lawn.

  I screamed. It was never a fair fight. Craig was tall and athletic, but Ben was a brawler. Blood rage came into his eyes and frightened me to my bones. It was as if he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. He lashed out at Craig, hell bent on destroying him. Even when Craig held his arms out in surrender and begged him, Ben’s punishing fists kept coming down on him. God, I knew this. With fresh terror numbing my spine, I tried to get through to him.

  I ran down the porch steps and tried to plead with Ben to stop. My voice couldn’t cut through his rage. So I grabbed his arm and pulled with all my strength. Ben staggered back and looked at me with wild eyes. He didn’t see me; his fist reared back and I screamed again. It was as if a switch flipped in his mind and he went feral. I called his name again and he took a step back, snapping his head. His eyes came back into focus and filled with pain.

  “He hurt you,” he said, his nostrils flaring with great, heaving breaths that reminded me of a charging bull.

  “Ben,” I whispered. “Oh God, Ben.”

  For a moment, he seemed ... elsewhere. A second later, he came back into himself. He stumbled backward toward the street. Craig tried to get up. I reached down to help him off his back. His left eye was nearly swollen shut and blood poured out of his nose.

  “You’re a fucking maniac,” he sputtered. “I’m going to end you, you asshole. I’ll have your fucking badge.” It was only then that I realized Ben was still wearing it on a chain around his neck.

  “Craig,” I said through gritted teeth. “Shut up.”

  “Who the hell is he?” Ben asked, his eyes still half wild.

  “I’m her fucking fiancé,” Craig answered.

  I looked at him in horror and dropped his hand. I turned to Ben, but he’d already taken three steps back.

  “Wait,” I said. I had to defuse this. I had to make sure Ben didn’t go off like this. He seemed in no condition to drive. I also had to keep Craig from doing something that could muck things up for Ben. But once the fire in Ben ignited, not even the rain would be enough to douse it.

  Ben shook his head and staggered toward his truck. He didn’t seem to hear me when I called after him to stop.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ben

  Rage bled through me. It made my fingertips tingle and my vision go white. I gripped the steering wheel and hit the gas, heading left on Central Street. I didn’t even know where I was going. I hadn’t made a conscious choice to take a specific direction. But before I knew it, I found myself barreling down Waverly Road, grain silos whipping by and storm clouds swirling in my rearview mirror.

  I hit the brakes when a thick band of lightning cracked the sky and struck the top of a tall maple in the only patch of woods beyond the farmland. Pressing my forehead against the wheel, I tried to slow my breathing. With my eyes closed, I saw Charlotte stumb
le sideways after that fucker laid a hand on her. When he reached for her again, I lost myself. I’d scared her. Maybe worse than he had. But I wasn’t going to let him hurt her. I would have bashed his nose clear out the other side of his skull before I let that happen.

  Finally, I came into myself a little and realized where I was. I swear I could still smell the burning tires and the oil as it leaked out of my mother’s car. She’d been so heavy that night. I never thought of her that way. But as I hooked my hands beneath her shoulders and tried to drag her from the fire, I’d thought we’d never get away. Her lifeless eyes stared up at me where she lay on the side of the road. It had been raining that night, just like this one.

  I squeezed my eyes shut against the visions. I slammed a fist against the dashboard and turned the car around. With the fork in the road just up ahead, I drove toward it and headed east. When I rounded the final curve, my heart filled when I saw the lights on behind the shop. I pulled up the long drive and parked in front of Joe’s house.

  This had been my house until I was eighteen years old. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I trudged up the little hill and opened the screen door. I never knocked. No one did. Though Janet and Joe owned it now, if you were a Killian, this would always be home.

  The kids were gone, the little ones sleeping and Joe the third was over at his girlfriend’s. It made the house quieter than I was used to but that suited my mood. The house smelled like fried chicken and without even asking, Janet fixed me a plate and pushed a chair away from the kitchen table.

  Joe and Janet sat at the table with me but didn’t say anything. I was grateful for that at first. But the two of them had a nonverbal language that came from more than thirty years of couplehood. Janet made a motion with her hand when Joey opened his mouth to say something. He clamped his jaw shut and let out a heavy sigh.

  She let me finish my chicken. She cleared it and brought Joey and me a can of beer and one for herself. Only then did she give Joey a nod and he cleared his throat.

  “What’d you do?” Joey asked.

  I eyed him, mid-swig. I took my time swallowing cold beer then set it down with more force than I should have. Foam poured out of the top. Janet whipped out a towel and wiped it before it spilled over. God, she always did that. She always had a towel at the ready to clean up everyone else’s messes. I shook my head and dropped it, as my rage cooled into something a hell of a lot more sullen.

  “I went over to Charlotte’s,” I said, unable to think of anything better.

  Janet raised a brow and rested her chin in her hand like it weighed a hundred pounds. “Hmm. To fuck or fight?”

  Joey at least had the decency to turn red when she asked it. I scooted my chair back and put my feet up on the one next to me. “Neither. At least, that’s what the plan was.”

  “What happened?” Janet reached for Joey’s hand. He held it out and closed it around Janet’s. After all this time, they never let much time pass without touching each other. My parents had been like that. Losing my mother gutted him more than it did the rest of us. In every way that mattered, we lost him that night too. He hung around like a ghost for a few years, but by the time I finished high school, he was gone too. The official cause was a heart attack, but we all knew better. He just flat out lost the will to live.

  “Her boyfriend showed up.”

  Janet had the decency to look stunned. She dropped Joey’s hand and picked a crumb off the table. “You mean her ex?”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Well, I didn’t figure it was much my business. But he called her when she was here the other day. She didn’t take the call but I could see the stress it caused her. It sure didn’t look like welcome contact to me.”

  The white rage came back. I saw Charlotte stagger-step when that asshole touched her again. I pounded my fist against the table. Janet closed her hand over mine and gave me a cold stare.

  “Benny, what the hell did you do? Please tell me you didn’t lose your shit.”

  I clenched my jaw so hard I’m not sure how Janet understood what I said. “He put his hands on her.”

  “Did you lay him out?” Joey asked.

  Janet covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit,” she said. “How bad?”

  “Well, he’ll think twice before doing it again.”

  “Benny, how bad? Is this guy going to need to go to the hospital? Were you like this?” She held her hand up, palm out and made a circle with it around me. Then she picked up the badge hanging around my neck, fingered it, then dropped it so it thumped against my chest.

  I looked down. I still wore my SWAT t-shirt and had my gun clipped to my belt. Ice filled my chest and I dropped my head.

  “Right,” she said. “So you punched him senseless while you might technically still be considered on duty. And you did all this while you were at the police chief’s daughter’s house. Stellar. Do you think he’s going to press charges?”

  “He had it coming!” Joey slammed his own fist into the table. Though I appreciated the solidarity, it didn’t do anything to tamper Janet’s rising rage or my growing sense of dread.

  “Maybe so, but Benny, this isn’t like you. You’re a hothead just like your father. But I’ve never known you to have this kind of shit judgment where your career is concerned. I’m asking you, could this asshole make trouble for you? I mean, more than you’re already courting messing around with the chief’s daughter?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ll tell you what though, I’m not sure I give a shit. He shoved Charlotte. Right in front of me. When he saw me standing in her living room, he got jealous. He may be an asshole, but he’s not an idiot. He knew why I was there.”

  “And why was that?” she asked.

  I couldn’t sit still anymore. I let my boots crash to the floor then got up and started pacing. “I went there to talk to her. Fuck. I went there to end it with her. But I got there and I just couldn’t do it. I tried to explain it all to her and made a mess of it.”

  Joey laughed. “You usually do. I’ve been telling you for years, you suck at girls.”

  “Oh, shut your head,” Janet said. “Ineloquent as he is, your brother has a point. So let me get this straight. You went over there looking all glum, I imagine. Her ex shows up, and you Hulked out on him. What did you say to Charlotte before you left?”

  I whirled on Janet and stuffed my hands into my back pockets. “There wasn’t anything left to say. She pulled me off that shithead and I left before I hurt him even worse. I drove around, then I came here. Why, I don’t know. I guess I was looking for some family moral support.”

  Joey and Janet looked at each other, then they both started laughing. I stood there with my mouth hanging open and thought about pounding my fist through the wall. Janet laughed so hard tears formed in the corner of her eyes. She finally stood up and came over to me. I held my body so tight she had to really pull to get me to follow her back to the table. Fuming, I finally relented and sat down.

  “Oh, Benny. God help you. You can’t even see it.”

  I looked at my brother for help. Surely he had to think Janet had lost her mind. He just shrugged and flapped his hand. Reaching over, he rubbed Janet’s shoulder and took another sip of his beer.

  “Enlighten me,” I said. “What exactly do the two of you think is so funny?”

  Joey froze mid-sip then put his beer down. “Brother, you’ve got it bad.”

  “I’ve got what?”

  “This girl has gotten under your skin. She’s got your head turned around.”

  I let my breath out in a whoosh. Janet pressed a hand to her cheek and smiled at me. Joey shot her a wink then fixed a stern gaze back to me. I didn’t like it one bit. I couldn’t sit still. I got up and started pacing again.

  “What are you two fools getting at?”

  “Well, it’s sort of obvious, Benny. This girl matters to you. Dare I say it, I think you’ve maybe fallen a little bit
in love with her. And true to form, you’ve managed to pick someone that could probably cause you maximum damage if you fuck it up. So far, that’s looking more and more likely. I’m sorry, we shouldn’t laugh. It’s just, it’s about damn time.”

  I stopped pacing. I started opening and closing Janet’s kitchen cabinets. They were oak, painted green. Last summer, I’d helped her sand them to get the distressed look she wanted and replace the pulls. I don’t know what I was looking for. Nothing. I just couldn’t wrap my head around what she was saying.

  Was I falling in love with Charlotte?

  “Benny.” Janet got up and came over to me. She put a light hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s something we’ve prayed for. I like her. I like her a lot. So don’t fuck it up. Er ... well ... at this point I guess my advice is figure out how to un-fuck it. Fast.”

  Joey nodded from his peanut gallery position at the kitchen table. I looked at Janet. The hollowed-out space in my gut filled with a new kind of heat.

  “Let me ask you,” Joey said. “How often do you think about this girl? And I don’t just mean fucking her.”

  Rage boiled over again just like it did when Tim asked me the same question. Janet lobbed her towel right at Joey’s head. He caught it and put it on the table.

  “I don’t know,” I said but they both knew I was lying to them. The truth was, Charlotte seemed to be taking up a lot of my brain space. I kept finding excuses to drive near Kingston Boulevard that had nothing to do with surveillance.

  “She’s not making it easy for you, is she?” Janet said. “She’s smart. Her father could be a problem for you. Hopefully, you haven’t scared her off so badly that she won’t want to smooth things over with the ex-boyfriend. I don’t claim to know her well, but my instinct says she’s probably trying to do that as we speak. Do you have a plan to deal with that if she can’t?”

  “What? No. Shit. I haven’t thought that far. Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say I loved her.”