More Than Forever (Providence Series Book 2)

by Moore,Mary B

  “Maybe we forgot to tell you, but back in the day Luke here used to play baseball at college. He was quite the batter I tell you,” Ren spoke up from behind me and the fucker sobbed louder.

  “Answer me,” I yelled making everyone jump.

  “Steve Rake,” he whispered. Pulling up the chair that had been sitting behind me, I sat down and placed the bat across my lap. His knee looked fucking awful and I had no clue how he was still conscious.

  “Right, Steve, today you shot my wife, who is pregnant with my twins.”

  His head shot up and he looked at me in shock and then rapidly started shaking his head. “No, they didn’t tell me she was pregnant. I swear!”

  Quite literally everything that he’d just said had us all staring at him trying to process it bit by bit.

  “You could see she was obviously pregnant, asshole,” Mace said from behind him and Steve’s head swung round to look at him.

  “She was behind the guy, I didn’t know,” he insisted and part of it made sense because Graham had said that she was standing behind him when she was shot.

  “Who is they?” Coleman asked the question before I could, but my eyes never left the bastard in front of me.

  “I was in a bar in North Carolina yesterday, two chicks came up to me and offered me money to do it. I wasn’t gonna kill her so I went for her arm! They didn’t say she was pregnant!” The last word was almost a scream and it took everything in me not to wince.

  “What did they look like?” I asked, although I had an idea what he was going to say.

  “One was old, big blonde hair but looked rough. The other one was younger. They both looked like they slept rough, ya know? The younger one came up first and tried to get me in the stockroom for a BJ, but I wasn’t gonna go there. She looked… weird,” he babbled and we all looked at each other knowing exactly who he was talking about.

  Coleman came forward and asked him for every detail he could remember about them and wrote it all down giving us a firm nod and then walked in the direction of the door while pulling his phone out of his pocket. We were now looking for Jodie and Calista.

  “Are the babies okay?” He whispered, looking tormented, but then, he should fucking feel that way for even shooting at Isla.

  “Yeah, and so is my wife!” I snarled.

  Baz walked over and with Mace standing on the opposite side of the guy, he cut the ties and handcuffed his hands behind his back.

  “We’re gonna lift you out of here, get you in one of the vehicles and take you to the

  ER. You’re gonna say that you were in a car accident and my men are going to be beside you the whole time. After they assess you, the police are gonna visit and you’re gonna tell them exactly what you told us here. Do I make myself clear?” He nodded his head vigorously back at Baz and then dropped his chin.

  I sat staring at the dirty floor thinking over what he’d told me and my gut turned so violently that I had to run to the corner, making it just in time to throw everything up. Once I got to the empty heaves, I took a big gulping breath and wiped my mouth on the short sleeve of my shirt. I was going to need to change before I saw Isla again and brush my teeth. I was about to turn around when a cold bottle of water was held under my nose and I turned around and saw Mace standing beside me.

  “Thanks.”

  He shrugged and then looked back at when Baz’s men were lifting a screaming Steve out of the chair. “I’ve got a spare shirt in one of my saddle bags. I’ll give it to you before we leave.”

  I stepped away from the corner and saw Coleman, Brett, Cole, and Ren walking toward us.

  “Well, that was short and sweet wasn’t it?” Brett said as he reached us. “I was sure that it was going to be much harder than that; obviously you still have a good arm on you man.”

  Coleman frowned at me and then looked at Mace. “Need you to track them down. Can you do it?” Mace gave a sharp nod of his head. “Good because the most recent sighting of them was in a motel twenty-five minutes outside of Piersville.” Mace’s head snapped up and a small smile appeared on his face before he clapped me on the shoulder and headed out of the door.

  “You okay, man?” Ren asked. This was a good question.

  “Shoulda killed him,” Cole whispered sounding angrier than I’d ever heard him sound. “Shooting a pregnant woman. Shoulda killed him.”

  I wasn’t sure if I agreed, but I did know that it was going to take me a while to process everything that had happened today from Isla getting shot to me shattering someone’s knee. My first step on processing it was getting back to my wife, though, and that’s where I was headed.

  “Let’s go,” I said and turned toward the door, getting hit in the face with a white tee as I walked out the door. Turning around, I saw Mace and his Unit roar out of the space, leaving a cloud of dust. The SUV with Steve in it had already left to get him to the ER, and I had no doubt that Mace would get the two cunts responsible.

  Ripping off my tee and putting Mace’s on, I got into the car and sat thinking about Isla. Half way there, I felt a nudge on my shoulder and turned around to see Cole holding out a stick of gum.

  “Thanks!”

  There was silence and then Cole said, “I wasn’t doing it for you, I was doing it for us and poor Isla. Motherfucker, what did you eat? Death?” He made some gagging noises before pressing the button to lower the window beside him. Two seconds later there was a smack followed by a thud and Baz shot forward in his chair slightly.

  “Owwwww,” he whined.

  “Well, if you’d sit back in your fuckin seat, Rumple foreskin, you wouldn’t smack your face off the one in front of you,” Ren growled, sounding pretty satisfied.

  Switching off as Cole started bitching at Ren in the back, I closed my eyes and for the first time in my life thanked God for keeping Isla and the babies safe.

  Just as we were pulling into the hospital parking lot, Baz’s phone rang and he looked livid as he listened to whoever was talking to him. Hanging up, he turned and looked at me with a grim face. “They weren’t at the motel and no one’s seen them.”

  The severity of what he was saying sank in slowly. Jodie and Calista were out there still.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-THREE

  ?

  “I thought you said to back off them?” He snarled into my ear.

  Sitting upright in my chair, I gripped the phone so tight in my hand that it cracked.

  “Tell me!”

  If that piece of shit after the Townsend’s had fucked with my orders, he’d be breathing his last breath, sooner than I intended.

  “Isla Montgomery was shot today.”

  “What the fuck?” Had the bastard gone for my target?

  “Hired hit. You didn’t order it?”

  I thought about the move I’d made a couple days before and saw red. I’d told them they were to wait for my instructions, but obviously they hadn’t understood when I said ‘or else’.

  “The stepmother and stepsister,” I said and waited for it to click with him. “Clean up the mess and get rid of the loose ends,” I snarled. “And don’t fuck this up!” Pacing in front of my desk, I almost missed the quiet knock on my door. “Enter!”

  My beautiful assistant poked her head in and said in her normal shy voice, “Mr. Montgomery can’t make it. Apparently there was a family matter and he’s had to postpone.”

  Nodding, I flicked my hand dismissing her and sat down thinking about what to do next. I needed to get the focus off of the Montgomery’s so that they would relax and then I could strike. Deciding on a plan, I got the burner back out and rang the asshole back.

  “Go to Dallas. I’ll send you a number and you call it when you arrive; they need some of your knowledge.”

  “But…”

  I hung up on him and put my plan in action.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Luke

  It had been five days since Isla had been shot and, because of the pregnancy, her OBGYN had a
dvised her to stay on bed rest for a week. So I left her in bed to take my morning shower and then go downstairs to work on some of the shit that I hadn’t had a chance to work on while she’d been recovering. I had deadlines that were coming up quickly and amendments to make to plans that needed done as soon as possible, so I was going to clear them so that I could focus on Isla over the weekend. Mace was still out hunting for Jodie and Calista and had his men and some of Coleman’s looking everywhere. So far, they hadn’t been found and it was weighing on both of us, so I planned to spoil her this weekend to cheer her up.

  Walking downstairs, I got myself a coffee and then went to my desk that we’d had set up in the living room so that I could be around Isla while I worked. She was lucky, she had one of those lap desks that she put her laptop on so that she could work on the couch, so I kept her company as much as I could.

  Sitting down at my desk, I noticed that Leanne must have dropped off my mail because there was a stack of it sitting on the desk alongside a box from one of our suppliers. Opening the mail first, I sorted through what needed to be dealt with this afternoon and put the rest in a folder with post-its on them telling Leanne what I needed to be done with them. She was due to come over this afternoon for a meeting, so I’d pass it over then.

  One of the letters was to do with the project that I was working on, so I changed what they’d requested and added in the extra room and then went into my emails to see if the builder working on my and Isla’s house had sent an update. This was currently the priority build for one of our teams, so they forecasted that it would be finished within the next ten weeks, which suited me perfectly. Isla had been looking through nursery designs for when we could move back into her house, but I’d sent the ones she’d chosen to Maya and she was going to design the nursery and pass the details onto her team to complete as soon as they could get access to the house. She’d also discreetly been asking Isla about dream designs and was working on other rooms in the house so that it would all be over by the time that I took Isla to see it when it was completed.

  I sat grinning as I looked down at the floor plans for it in front of me and then remembered that I hadn’t opened the box from the supplier. Normally, these were lights for our special desks or stationary, so although it wasn’t urgent, it was another thing that I could give to Leanne if it wasn’t needed while I worked from home. I

  stood up to pick up the medium sized boxed and looked at the label from the supplier on the front; something didn’t look right. Leaning closer, I noticed that there was no return address on it and that the company was spelt wrong.

  Standing back from it, I picked up my cell to call Baz.

  “Yo!”

  “Baz man, there was a box on my desk that says it’s from a supplier but it’s all wrong. No return address, the company is spelt wrong, and I’ve just noticed there’s no postage on it.” My heart started racing as I looked up the stairs where Isla would still be fast asleep.

  “Don’t touch it Luke,” Baz warned, sounding pissed off and worried at the same time. “I’m twenty minutes away so I’ll deal with it when I get to you.”

  “I can’t,” I choked out. “Isla’s asleep and I can’t take the risk of this hurting her.”

  “Fuck! Right, let me call Graham and get him to get it out the house. Do not touch it Luke, wait for him to get to you.”

  Hanging up, I stood back and stared at the box scared shitless that something was going to happen. I couldn’t give a fuck about myself, it was something happening to Isla that was making it hard to breathe. I was just about to pick it up when the door slammed open and Graham and five other guys burst into the house.

  “Step back, Luke,” Graham said walking up to it. “Right, I want you to make sure that the path to the west field is clear of civilians,” he said pointing to what I assumed was two of Coleman’s plain clothed guys who I’d seen working around the ranch. “You - call Cleary and tell him we need the bomb squad dispatched. Mitchell and me will take the box to the field. Luke…” he turned to me and I saw sweat forming on his forehead and upper lip; fuck if he was nervous then we were all fucked. “Call Coleman and update him. He arrived in Dallas with Brett last night so he needs to be updated and I don’t know if Baz has done that yet.” I picked up my cell as he turned back to the box and roared, “FUCK, how the fuck did they get in here? After this, we need to do some cleaning because some motherfucker had to have helped them.”

  This hadn’t occurred to me, and now that he’d said it, all I could think about was being fast asleep upstairs with Isla, trusting that we were being kept safe from these fucking psychos, and that someone had come into the house right under our noses to leave whatever this was on my desk.

  Pressing Coleman’s name in my contacts, I waited for him to answer as I watched

  Graham and the guy he’d called Mitchell carefully, and so damn slowly, pick up the box and turn towards the door. Shooting another look up the stairs to make sure that Isla wasn’t coming down them, I turned around and followed them out.

  “Yeah?” Coleman answered.

  “We have a big fucking problem,” I said before I filled him in on what was going on. His reaction was the same as Baz and Graham’s.

  “Fuck me, right under our fucking noses! Motherfucker!” I heard Brett asking him what was going on in the background and continued to follow behind Graham as I listened to him fill Brett in.

  “Luke, man, what the fuck?” Brett said down the phone.

  “I don’t know, man; I mean, Jesus fucking Christ. I was asleep with Isla and someone fucking walked in, left it, and walked back out again without me fucking knowing about it!”

  “Coleman says it has to be an inside job and he’s calling his guys to go and check that no one else has anything waiting for them. Keep me updated, yeah?”

  “Yeah, stay safe!”

  “You, too,” he said before disconnecting. We’d reached the field and Graham and Mitchell were slowly walking across it to get it as far away from the houses and where there were people working as possible.

  We’d just reached half way across the field when one of the guys grabbed my arm. “Don’t go any further. We’re dropping it off over there.” He pointed to about fifty meters in front of us.

  I watched as Graham reached the area and placed the box down before he and Mitchell jogged back towards us. They’d almost reached us when there was an explosion behind them that shook the ground under us so much that I almost fell.

  Looking up, I could see a plume of black smoke going up into the sky above where the box had been, as tiny pieces of burning paper floated around the air.

  Around me, I could hear the guys swearing and yelling, but all I could think was if I had left that box any longer it could have gone off in the house. Fuck me!

  “Luke,” I heard Baz yelling as he ran across the field to us. “What the fuck happened?” He roared.

  Graham walked up behind us, wiping grass and dirt off himself from where he’d dropped to the floor when it went off.

  “We removed the box from the property and had just put it here as far away as we knew would do no damage to the properties or civilians and it exploded. This wasn’t like the other ones though, Baz,” he said grimly.

  “How so?”

  “If you’re going to create as high tech an explosive as the previous ones and hide it in a box, you would make sure that there were no errors in the packaging. Luke confirmed it, and Mitchell and me saw it - the company was spelt wrong and there was no postage. It was definitely dropped off, so we also need to look at doing some cleaning.” He looked and sounded disgusted as he said the last bit.

  I heard Isla screaming my name and turned around to see her being held back by a couple of Coleman’s guys, who were trying to calm her down, and left Graham and Baz to discuss what was going to happen. I was still in shock that there had been a bomb in our house. I could feel tears building up, seeing Isla crying and still screaming my name, knowing that we’d come so close
to losing each other and the babies. Running up to her, I lifted her off the ground and just held her to me with my face in her neck, aware that I was shaking all over.

  “What happened?” she sobbed.

  Baz walked up with Graham at that point and I heard the sound of vehicles driving across the field towards us.

  “Bomb Squad is here!” Baz said, sounding pissed off and almost inconvenienced.

  Looking over at him, I saw that he was glaring at them, and I realized that this was actually inconvenient because it meant that they would probably take away any evidence that they found before we could examine it. Looking over I saw the flashing lights of Fire and Rescue, the police, and ambulances with a black boxy looking vehicle that I assumed belonged to the Bomb Squad.

  Reluctantly, I put Isla gently back on the ground and held her to me as we watched them pull up around us. I asked the question I’d asked myself for the millionth time since all of this had started to happen - what the fuck had we ever done to deserve this and who the fuck was doing it?

  Brett

  Hanging up the phone to Luke, I turned around to a pissed off looking Coleman.

  “What the ever loving fuck, man?”

  “I dunno, Brett,” he said, tearing his hand through his hair and looking out the window at the walls and gates that surrounded my home here. “This really fuckin isn’t good, one of ours had to have let them in or helped, and what really fucks me off is that we don’t know who.”

  I was just about to reply when his phone rang again, and I listened as it was confirmed that no other packages had been found in the houses or the area around them. They were going to check further away in the surrounding fields and forests just to be safe. My family was safe, that’s all that matters.