Ruthless (Fractured Farrells: A Damaged Billionaire Series Book 1)

by Mallory Crowe

  “I’m going to try to get you out of this and then I’m going to investigate.”

  “I can help,” said Jean, even as he felt her hand at his side ball into his shirt, betraying her nerves.

  “I’m trained. You’re not. If I’m trying to keep you safe, that’s just going to distract me.”

  “But I don’t want you getting hurt trying to protect me. Come on, Colin. There has to be something I can do.”

  “There is. Stay where I put you and don’t make any trouble for me.” He came across the small doorway where a parking structure opened to the street and ducked inside with Jean. In order to make sure their tail didn’t see them, he pressed against the wall as tightly as possible, keeping her against him. Her shoulder was against the side of the building, and her back was to the projecting wall as he was pressed tightly to her front. One more reminder of why he’d broken all his rules with her last night. One more reminder of why things were so damn complicated now.

  Why did she have to be so independent? Why couldn’t she have been happy to rip off the Farrells, a bunch of rich sons of bitches she didn’t even know? She hadn’t been a thing like he’d expected when he first tracked her down. If she had been, none of this would’ve happened. His heart wouldn’t be pounding in fear at the idea of someone hunting her down. His mind wouldn’t be twisting in circles at the idea of leaving her. Everything would’ve been easier.

  Jean reached up and set her hands against his chest, looking up and meeting his gaze with her bright blue eyes. “You’re gonna be safe, right?”

  Colin nodded. “Always.”

  The corners of her mouth ticked up the slightest bit. “Good.” Then she reached up on her toes to press her lips gently against his. He didn’t know why it surprised him so much. They’d already slept together. But the motion seemed so genuine and soft...two things he hadn’t had enough of in his life. Even when he’d been with her last night, it had been hard and fast and fierce. Something their bodies had been driving them toward since the moment they first met. But this was her way of saying she really cared about what happened to him, and for the life of him, Colin didn’t know how to react to that.

  But he didn’t have to. He saw the tail walk by their little nook, the man’s eyes scanning the street for his missing prey. Colin knew the second the man realized he was right next to them. He jerked away and started to run.

  Colin gave chase. This guy was fast, but Colin had the advantage. The tail had to push people out of the way as he weaved through the sidewalks while Colin followed in his wake.

  Right when Colin was about to grab onto the man’s jacket, the tail tripped a woman to his left, and she tumbled into Colin. Colin was just able to catch her and make sure she wasn’t about to fall on the hard concrete.

  By the time Colin looked up again, the son of a bitch was ducking down an alley. Colin kicked up his speed, trying to make his way through the now staring crowd and twisting around the corner. Luckily the alley was mostly deserted, but the guy had thrown a few trash cans around, and Colin had to duck and jump over the debris as the guy made it out of the alley and turned right.

  Colin made it to the street and turned in the same direction, scanning the sidewalk for his mark. If he’d tossed the hat, glasses, and jacket, Colin probably wouldn’t be able to sight him.

  There it was. He saw the hat and started to run as he realized Jean had come out from the office building and swung her purse directly at the guy’s head, causing him to stumble back a few steps and grab at his head.

  As the guy started to grab for Jean, Colin reached him and twisted his fist in the guy’s collar, pulling him back against the wall. “Not so fast.” He slammed the bastard into the brick. “Who the hell are you?” Colin kept an eye on the guy’s hands as he started to pat him down, looking in the most common places for a holster—under shoulders, waistband, thighs, and ankles—before he pulled out a small revolver from the ankle and a nine millimeter from the waistband. He tucked the larger one in his own waistband and kept the smaller revolver in his hand. The street wasn’t as busy as the other one, but there were still people walking by. Either they assumed he was a cop or they weren’t paying attention, but they’d need to get out of here soon before any real cops showed up.

  “I asked you a question.” Colin checked the bullets in the chamber and cocked the gun back.

  “Who is paying you to go after me?” asked Jean.

  The guy was quiet as he shook his head back and forth. “No way, man.”

  “No way?” repeated Colin. “I don’t think you understand how this works. I ask questions. You answer those questions, and from now on, every time you don’t answer me, something is going to break, got it?”

  The guy kept on shaking his head. “No, no, no, no, no... You don’t understand. If I tell you anything, my family is going to die. He’s going to kill all of them.”

  Jean leaned in close. “Maybe we should tread carefully,” she said softly.

  “He’s bluffing,” said Colin. It was a natural response once a rat was cornered—spouting out anything and everything they thought could save their ass. He was just lucky that he found a bleeding heart like Jean to plead his case to. “As of right now, I’m the only one who can help you or your family. Because I can guarantee you aren’t hurting a single fucking hair on that woman’s head, so your family is in danger no matter what. Tell me who hired you and then we’ll talk about how we can protect your loved ones.”

  The guy still shook his head. “You don’t know this guy. He’s ruthless.” The man turned his pleading gaze to Jean. “Please, you have to—”

  Colin shoved his elbow into the man’s gut, and he coughed and wheezed as he bent over. “You’re talking to me now. She’s not going to help you. One last chance. Tell me who—”

  The man ducked low and started to make a run for it. Colin grabbed the man’s jacket, but he contorted until the material slipped off his shoulders and arms, then ran straight into the street, where he was plowed into by a cab.

  All the cars around him screeched to a halt as the man lay limp on the ground. Jean started to go to his side, but Colin grabbed her arm and turned her in the direction of his apartment. “We need to get out of here.”

  As everyone else started to crowd around the man on the street, Colin led Jean as fast as he could in the other direction. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he asked as they turned the corner to the same alley he and this guy had gone down.

  “Helping you. I took a shortcut through the building and cut the guy off. Don’t bother thanking me,” she said sarcastically.

  “Thanking you? What if you’d missed? Why the hell do you think he was following us in the first place? The one thing he wanted was you dead and you gave him the perfect opportunity. What if your purse hadn’t been heavy enough or what if he’d already had a gun in his hand?”

  “Well, maybe I had protection,” she said softly.

  Colin stopped abruptly. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  She tightened her lips and glanced down. “It means that I came prepared today.” He wasn’t sure whether she did it consciously or unconsciously, but her hands held her shoulder bag closer to her stomach.

  “Give me that.” Colin snatched the bag over her arm and unzipped the top to look inside. He let out a litany of curse words as he confirmed his suspicion. “This is my gun.”

  “What was I supposed to do? You weren’t telling me anything and I knew I was in danger.”

  “You don’t need to have a gun. You’re not trained and you—”

  “Excuse me, but I do know how to shoot. My grandma gave me a shotgun for my eighteenth birthday and you better believe that I know how to use it.”

  “That’s not the same,” he snapped. “You don’t keep a gun in your purse. Did you see how easy I got that away from you? What if I was one of the bad guys? You might as well be handing the gun to the people who want you dead. And you need a license to carry a concealed gun,
so if we’d waited around for the cops, you’d be taken away in handcuffs.”

  “Well, I had to do something.” She tried to get her purse back, but Colin held it away from her and tucked it under his shoulder tightly. He’d be damned if he was going to let her carry around his gun right now.

  “Why is it so hard for you to trust that I’m going to keep you safe?”

  “Because I’m the only one who keeps me safe! My entire life, everyone has tried to use me or hurt me. The only one who ever had my back is dead, okay? So forgive me if I have trust issues.”

  Jean didn’t meet his eyes and started down the alley. Colin fell in stride next to her as he thought over her words. It was nothing he didn’t know, but hearing her say it made his temper flare even more. Not at her, but at everyone else in her life. All the Katherines and Marks who’d let her down and made those walls so high.

  Instead of saying anything else to her—not that he knew what to say—he got on the phone and called Smith. He gave a description of where they were and asked him to dig up everything he could on the guy in the street. The ambulance should be almost there or there already, and if he had any ID or if his prints were in the system, they’d have an ID soon.

  Maybe they could even figure out who the family he was trying to protect so badly was. Whoever this guy was, he’d seemed one hundred percent convinced that someone he loved was in serious danger.

  Colin went through the roster of Farrell brothers in his mind. All of them were ruthless in their own right, but it was hard to imagine even Robert sinking this low. Especially considering they had enough money to get some of the best hit men in the world. Not these thugs who barely knew what they were doing.

  That guy never should’ve been taken down by Jean. A professional could’ve fought through the pain, no matter how big the gun that slammed into his head through the leather of her purse. And she’d be gone in seconds.

  Jean stayed quiet all the way back to his apartment. As soon as he was inside, he took his gun out of her purse and locked it back up in his safe. It was loaded and even had one in the chamber ready to go. She was lucky nothing had been stuck in the trigger to cause the thing to go off when she’d decided to use her purse as a weapon.

  Then he added the two guns he took off the thug into the safe, unloading them first. The guns looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in a good long while, and the bullets were low grade. Probably got the guns cheap from a pawn shop somewhere or out of someone’s trunk on the street.

  Pretty much what was expected from a low-grade hit man who didn’t know what he was doing. Damn. This whole thing got more and more confusing by the second.

  “So...what?” asked Jean from behind him. “Are we just going to stay cooped up in here all day?”

  “What do you want me to say?” he bit out as he shut the safe. He still had his personal gun in his shoulder holster and took off his jacket so he could remove his backup magazines and set the gun on the nightstand.

  “I want to feel like we’re not trapped in here. Like we’re doing something.”

  “We just chased a guy into a street full of moving vehicles. What more do you want to do?”

  Her face paled. “That was our fault.”

  Colin moved to stand in front of Jean and set a hand on each of her shoulders. “No,” he said carefully. “He put himself in that situation. The second that money hit his account, he was doing this for more than just love of family. Right now you’re riding an adrenaline rush, which is why you want to get out of here so bad. But, trust me, you need to take a few deep breaths and relax. The adrenaline will fade soon.”

  Jean took his advice and inhaled and exhaled deeply. “So all this is normal to you? Chasing people in the street down? Working through the adrenaline?”

  “Well, I don’t normally sit alone to work off the adrenaline.”

  She looked up at him. “So what? You hit the gym?”

  He scoffed. “Not exactly.”

  “So what? Come on, give me something. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin here.”

  His hands slid over her shoulders and down her arms, and he would’ve killed to be touching bare skin. “When I get like this, I usually find a hot girl and go to her place.”

  “Oh,” said Jean softly as she still looked up at him. “Well, I don’t have a place close to here.”

  “True,” he said, trying to read her reaction. She didn’t seem shocked by his words. If anything, she seemed...curious. “I do have a bed though.”

  She tilted her head to look at the bed behind him. “After this, you’re leaving, right?”

  Colin started to say yes but stopped himself. That wasn’t right. “I promise that I’m not going to leave you in danger. So no matter when you get your inheritance, I’m not going until we figure out which of the brothers is after you.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. Still not moving away. Still staying close to him.

  “What do you want from me?” He bent in closer.

  “I—” She broke off as she seemed to think for a few minutes. “I don’t know. I just want to stop being confused. Ever since you came into my life, I feel like everything has turned into chaos and I feel like I should be blaming you, but at the same time the only time I feel normal is when I’m touching you. And I don’t know if that makes me the stupidest person in the world or not.”

  Colin bent in closer, his lips now just inches from hers. He could inhale her scent and feel her warmth. His cock knew she was close and his entire body was on high alert. It was damn sexy to know that she was just as confused about him as he was about her.

  And it was fucking hot to know that she wanted him.

  “I promise to keep you safe. So I think that you hanging onto me is the smartest place you could be.”

  She smiled and looked up at him. “I like that theory.”

  Colin felt as though they were back in that little enclave off the building. Knowing someone was after them and something was about to go down, she’d reached up and kissed him. That sweet, gentle motion that had thrown his world on its axis. Without any more hesitation, he bent down, wrapping his arms around her, and lifted her up against him. Her lips were on his in a heartbeat as her toes were off the ground and her entire body pressed hard against his.

  Jean didn’t try to fight him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist as she kissed him fiercely. She licked at his lips and even nibbled as she rubbed herself against him. Colin let out a growl as a dam in him seemed to break. He went from just horny to a sudden, feral need to be inside her.

  Jean was his and here, and he belonged inside her. Slamming into her welcoming, warm core now. He turned with her in his arms and made it to the bed in just two long strides. He came down on top of her on the bed, their kiss not breaking at all. As soon as her back hit the mattress, her arms came loose from his neck and he intertwined his fingers in hers, pushing her hands up and over her head to pin her beneath him.

  She moaned as she arched up and pressed herself against him. He grunted low in his throat as he pressed his hips against hers. Damn it, they needed to be naked right now.

  He tore himself away from her as he ripped at his shirt. She followed his lead as she pulled her sweater off her shoulders and slid out of her shirt and bra in one quick move. As soon as her gorgeous breasts were freed, Colin lost all rational thought. He bent forward, pushing them together as he started to lavish each peak with attention. He reveled in learning Jean’s body. When his teeth and tongue worked in a certain way, her entire body would jerk and she’d make the sexiest little moan he’d ever heard.

  As she grabbed at his shoulders to urge him on, one of his hands reached down and slid into the waistband of her jeans and panties, finding the one spot between her thighs guaranteed to drive her crazy.

  She bucked beneath him and tossed her head from side to side as she wiggled in his arms. He gave one quick nibble to her breasts as his thumb circled her in just the right wa
y, and she fell apart in his arms. Her head fell back, and she screamed loud enough that the neighbors could probably hear, and he was damn proud of himself for a quick moment. But as she came down from her orgasm, he was desperate to have her.

  Colin pulled off her leggings, grateful for the stretchy fabric that came off so easily, while cursing the boots that got in his way. But Jean leaned forward to help him, and in seconds she was naked beneath him.

  He couldn’t wait any longer. He unzipped his pants and pushed the denim and boxers just far enough to free his cock before he gripped her hips and slid completely inside her in one smooth motion.

  Before he could start thrusting, Jean pushed at him, and he went with her as he turned onto his back. He’d hoped the change in positions would give him a chance to cool down. He felt as if he wanted to take her so hard he’d be done in seconds, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to savor having her beneath him. Well, on top of him now.

  But his plan to cool down was seriously flawed. She set her hands on his chest and started to move up and down, and his eyes couldn’t get enough of her body. The position pushed her breasts up and together, and every time she moved, there was a gentle brush that sent shivers right through him.

  He reached up to grip her hips and showed her how he wanted her to move...the ways she could drive him crazy.

  Her eyes drifted shut and her head fell back as she followed his lead. Every time she went down, her clit rubbed against him in just the right way that had her whispering his name.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, flipping over until she was beneath him again, and he thrust fast and hard. Jean wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on.

  His climax hit him hard, and he gripped tightly onto her hips as it ripped through him. As he tried to catch his breath, Jean’s hands stroked up and down his back. He bent forward and rested his head against her neck, reveling in the feel of her.