by April Hunt
He’d fallen for her at the first bat of her blue eyes, all the way back in that Thai bar, but he’d fallen again and again every hour since. There wasn’t a minute she didn’t amaze him, even more so knowing what she’d had to deal with through the years. She didn’t quit. She acted. She moved. And that had been the real source of his anger earlier…that after all the struggle she’d gone through to live her own life, she was running away now.
If she wasn’t going to fight for them or for herself, then he would.
“I’m in love with her.” Trey said the words aloud, then turned toward Vince. “I love her…and I need to do something about it.”
“Well fucking duh, man. The question is, what the hell are you going to do?”
Trey dropped his cue stick and headed toward the door. “If you want to come with me, you better get your ass moving.”
Vince dropped his cue on the table and followed. “You mind telling me where we’re going?”
“I left something in Jonesville.”
* * *
Elle couldn’t see the road. Tears had turned her vision blurry, and she’d swerved onto the dirt shoulder more than once since leaving Alpha. She needed to either stop and pull herself together, or resign to the fact she was eventually going to wrap herself around a tree.
She wiped her wet eyes and, after catching a brief glimpse of a parking lot and a building on her right, pulled off the road—on purpose this time. The second she shifted into park, she let the tears fall, unchecked. Her nose stuffed up, becoming a hot, slimy mess, and each breath felt like it would be her last.
She wasn’t sure what dying felt like, but it had to be pretty close to this.
“Elle, honey? Open the door, sweetheart. It’s Sophie.” A soft knock rattled the driver’s side window. “Elle?” Trey’s mom knocked again, a little more insistent. “Elle. Please open up.”
Elle blew her nose and dried her cheeks on her coat sleeve. When she finally opened the door, the sympathy shining in Sophie’s eyes told her that she hadn’t done a very good job erasing the carnage of her sob fest.
The older woman gently pulled her from the car and into a hug. “Oh, my sweet little thing. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I-I’m leaving,” Elle managed to hiccup. “I’m going…home.”
“And where’s home, hon?”
It was a simple question, and it had a simple answer.
She didn’t know.
Home wasn’t Shay’s apartment. It wasn’t her father’s place. It wasn’t in some far-off country where she didn’t know another living soul.
As if sensing her turmoil, Sophie guided her to a bench. For the first time since parking, Elle realized she’d somehow ended up at the children’s community center. But with the children in school, the building and playground were eerily empty.
“Where do you want to be, Elle?” Sophie asked quietly, offering Elle the use of her scarf to clean up the mess on her face. “Don’t think about anything else and just tell me…where is it that you want to go right now?”
To Alpha. Back to Trey.
Every mile-marker away from him had settled more weight on the center of her chest until each breath felt like it would be the last.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Elle admitted. She sniffed and wiped her dripping nose. “I want to stay here so bad, Sophie.”
“So stay.”
Elle bit her lip to stave off a fresh wave of sobs. “It’s not that simple.”
“Are you talking about the men after you? Are you afraid that my son can’t protect you?” At Elle’s dropped mouth, Sophie chuckled. “Oh, please. My son likes to pretend that I’m oblivious, but I’m not. I know that boy and his friends aren’t exactly owners of a bar—at least, that’s not all they are.”
Elle shook her head. “It’s not that. Trey’s the most capable man I know.”
“Then what is it?”
“I love him…more than I ever thought I’d be able to love another person.”
A smile bloomed on Sophie’s face, and the older woman brushed a stray tear off Elle’s chin. “Then why the waterworks? Loving someone is a special, magical thing, honey.”
“But I messed it all up. I keep messing up. Every time I tell myself that I’m going to live my life the way that I want, something stops me.”
“And what’s that?”
“Fear that I’m not going to be enough. Fear that he’ll change his mind down the line and look at me differently…that he’ll resent me for the things I can’t give him.”
“Can you give him your love?” Sophie asked blatantly.
“That’s the only thing I can give him.”
“Then that’s all you need, sweetheart.” The older woman wiped away another stray tear. “Love is stronger than steel, or any doubt that could ever come along the way. If you’re lucky enough to have it, and share it, it can blast through any obstacle.”
“You talk about it like it’s a weapon.” Elle smiled wanly.
“It is.”
“No, a weapon’s a gun. A lot like the one I have in my hands right here,” announced a very low, very menacing voice.
Elle and Sophie looked up, taken surprise by the man standing three feet away. At first, Elle’s heart kicked into high gear, and then she recognized the face.
“You’re a little late, Mr. Winters,” she told her father’s henchman. “My father called off your arrangement. I’m sure you can contact him for whatever it is that he owes you, but your services are no longer required.”
“I’m not here about that lame-ass assignment.” Winters grinned wickedly, making the puckered scar stand out even more than it already did. “I haven’t cared about your father for a while now.”
“Then why are you here?”
“For her.” He pointed his gun at Sophie before slowly sliding it back and forth between the two women. “But now I’m not so sure. Choices. Choices. To take the mother, or the woman he loves. It really is a hard decision. Tell me, Ms. Hanson, on a scale of one to ten, how much of a mama’s boy do you rate your son?”
He. Trey. For some reason, this guy was talking about Trey.
“Elle, honey, you need to get inside.” Sophie stood, squarely putting herself between Elle and Winters.
That was evidently all the answer Winters needed. “Come with me, Miss Monroe, and your sweetheart’s mama here won’t get hurt.”
“Don’t you move a step, Elle,” Sophie warned sternly.
When Winters stepped forward, Sophie snapped her outstretched palm against his gun arm. His aim momentarily widened.
“Elle, inside,” Sophie barked.
Elle wasn’t going anywhere. She’d stepped closer to help Sophie, when Winters brought the butt of his gun down on the older woman’s head. Elle jumped to catch her as she fell, but skidded to a stop when Winters aimed the gun at Sophie’s head.
“Stop!” Elle cried out. “Don’t hurt her!”
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.” Winters dug the barrel of the gun into Sophie’s temple.
“I’ll go with you,” Elle said frantically, praying he’d spare Trey’s mom. “I’ll go wherever it is you want me to go, as long as you don’t hurt her.”
Please don’t hurt her. Knowing how Trey felt about his family, losing Sophie would be something from which he wouldn’t return. And Elle wouldn’t let that happen.
Winters seemed to contemplate her offer for a minute before giving a slow nod. “We’re going to go to the other side of the road, and you’re going to get into the trunk of the car. And then you’re going to do exactly as I say or I’m going to come back here and finish what I started. You get me?”
“Okay.” Elle stepped closer, purposefully transferring Winters’ aim from Sophie to her.
He clamped his fingers around her arm and yanked her harshly toward the back parking lot. Unlike the time in the airport, there was no playing or pretending.
Elle’s life was definitely at risk.
Cha
pter Twenty-Seven
Trey whistled his way back to the truck, not giving one iota of a fuck that Vince was having a good chuckle at his expense. They’d gotten to Jonesville in record time, and Trey was prepping to sweet talk Charlie into hacking into the rental company’s GPS to find out Elle’s location.
Stone’s ringtone shrieked from his pocket almost the second they hopped back into the truck. “What’s up, boss man?”
“Where are you?” Stone asked. No ‘Hello, honey, how’s your day?’ from the former SEAL.
“Vince and I made a quick run into Jonesville. We’ll be back in about an hour and a half. Why?”
“Get here sooner.”
Trey flipped the ignition and put the phone on speaker so Vince could hear. “Do you want to tell me why you want me to break speed records?”
“Charlie found out why your gut was talking to you about Winters. Does the name Lance Cummings ring a bell?”
Trey’s blood ran cold as he flashed back to ten years ago. Stationed in a Middle Eastern desert, his Delta team had been assigned the task of bringing down a group of drug-runners who’d been linked to supplying the insurgents in the area. None of them thought their leads would bring them right to one of their very own—an Army officer—Major Lance Cummings.
The arrogant bastard thought the entire world owed him a fuck-ton of favors—and money—and decided to use U.S. guns to start up his own collection agency.
“He got blown to high holy hell right along with his stolen grenade launchers,” Trey pointed out. “And I should know, because I was there to see the fireworks.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Hanson, but it’s him. And Charlie’s finding a scary amount of info on how he was able to reinvent himself, starting with some Middle Eastern plastic surgeon practically jigsawing him back together.”
It shouldn’t be possible, but there was no ignoring Trey’s gut. It was why there’d been something familiar about the man ever since their first face-off at the airport. “You’re telling me that someone gave him a new face and—”
“And bone structure.” Charlie came on the line. “Whoever nursed Cummings back to health literally changed his facial markers. It’s why I came out empty-handed in all of my searches. Dean Winters wasn’t in the Army. He literally didn’t exist until years later, and there was absolutely no link between him and Cummings—until I followed a hunch.”
“Meaning you hacked another server?” Vince guessed.
“It may have been more than one, and not exactly anyone the United States is on friendly terms with, but not a single damn one of you better be complaining about it because it led us in the right direction—finally.”
Stone added, “I’m going to take a wild guess and say there wasn’t any love lost between you and Cummings?”
“Fuck no,” Trey stated emphatically, although he knew Stone would’ve already read the reports he’d written for his commanding officers. “When we realized we couldn’t completely confiscate the weapons, my team and I were the ones who set them to explode. Cummings ran back into the building to try and save his payload.”
“What are the chances that he recognized you from that first meeting at JFK?” Stone asked.
Fuck.
“The Sled-tacular,” Trey said immediately. “He may not know I’m Alpha, but that’s how he got to Elle at the Sled-tacular. He wasn’t there looking for her. He was looking for me. She just happened to be a lucky bonus.”
Trey peeled out of the parking spot and slammed the truck into drive. “Someone needs to get to Elle and my mom.”
“Chase and Logan are already on the way over to the youth center.”
“And Elle?”
Stone waited a beat too long.
“Where the fuck is she, Stone?” Trey shouted into the phone.
“Charlie’s trying to ping her cell now. Get here as fast as you can without getting your asses thrown in jail.”
Trey pushed the gas pedal to the floor. “They’d have to catch me first.”
They made the drive back to Alpha in under an hour. Trey and Vince headed down to the compound where the team was already congregated in the main room. Weapons littered every inch of flat surface and winterized camo gear was draped over every chair. Half the team had already dressed for a stroll through the tundra.
“What the hell’s going on?” Trey barked. “Where’s Elle? And my mom?”
“Trey?” His mother’s head slowly poked up from the couch. Chase was next to her, urging her to lie back down, though she batted his hands away and stood up anyway. “I’m not as fragile as I look, young man. I swear, all of this hoopla over me, when I’m not the one everyone should be worried about.”
Trey made it to his mom in four strides. He touched the forming bump on her forehead and winced when she let out a little hiss.
“Will you stop fussing?” Sophie pushed his hands away. “You need to get your asses out there and get Elle back.”
“What happened?” Everything was starting to make painful fucking sense. His mom there. Elle not. And his team armed to the nines.
“Elle came to the youth center. I don’t think she even realized where she’d pulled over, the poor thing. Lord, she was in such a state.” Sophie, as abrupt as always, drilled her son with a harsh glare. “And after you get her back from that man, you and I are going to talk about how you treat the woman you’re in love with. That poor girl could barely see the nose on her face she was crying so damn hard.”
A stabbing guilt pierced through Trey’s chest. He’d been abrasive and stubborn, and too hurt by her lack of in faith in him to see what was actually happening. He guided his mom back to the couch and gently pushed her down onto the cushion.
“We’ll have whatever talk you want,” he promised, “but you need to tell me what happened.”
“We were talking outside of the youth center when that man came skulking up. I didn’t recognize him, but Elle did.” Sophie absently rubbed the knot on her head.
“Sophie verified that Cummings is Winters, or that Winters is Cummings,” Charlie said from her laptop. “You know what the bloody hell I’m talking about. Not only did he recognize you from one of your run-ins, but he had every intention of using Sophie to get to you.”
“That’s right.” Trey’s mother stood up again, her hands latching onto his arms. “But I think he overheard me sticking my nose in your love life, and now Elle’s the one that’s in danger. This is my fault. Mine and my big mouth’s.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. And I’m going to do something about it.” Trey firmly detached himself from his mom and started loading up on weapons. “Charlie, you need to get me the coordinates on that phone. And right the fuck now.”
“I already have the coordinates, but I’m not giving them to you,” Charlie announced.
Trey’s temper exploded. “What the fuck do you mean, you’re not giving them to me?”
Vince implanted himself between Trey and Charlie, who was standing there, not backing down in the least.
“She means that she’s not going to give you the fucking coordinates so you can go off on a tangent and get yourself fucking killed,” Vince clarified, his voice too goddamned steady. “Think, man.”
“I am fucking thinking!” Trey boomed. “I’m thinking about all the different things that bastard could be doing to Elle. You weren’t stationed overseas with that sick fuck. He’s twisted, and I highly doubt getting blown to fucking bits has straightened him out any. Move or I’ll move you myself.”
“If you underestimate Winters and go off half-cocked, he’s going to use that to his advantage.”
“He’s right, Trey,” Rafe interjected. “And he could be fucking anywhere. What are you going to do? Comb every square inch of this mountain? And what if he took her out of the area?”
“He didn’t.” Charlie brought an image up on the television screen—a map of their mountain.
“Is this what I think it is?” Logan asked.
&nbs
p; “It’s the GPS in Elle’s phone, and it’s definitely on her because it’s moving,” Charlie clarified.
Trey squinted. “It looks like it’s following the old reserve road. Why the fuck would he be taking her up the damn mountain? There’s nothing there except the old operations building.”
Vince looked thoughtful. “You mean the one the Army used as a makeshift bunker for field exercises? That place is a shithole waiting to fall the hell down.”
“It’s a shithole with only so many entrances and exits—easy for him to keep tabs on, especially if he’s by himself,” Trey admitted. “Smart fucking bastard.”
“But by the time he sees us, it’s going to be too late for him. He’ll be a sitting duck.”
What Trey was about to say felt like razorblades slicing up his throat. “I don’t think he’s really worried about escape. He just wants a little payback.”
* * *
The bitter breeze whipped against Elle’s face, but she couldn’t feel it. She hadn’t felt much of anything since Winters had dragged her from the car an hour ago. Her single layer of socks and bare hands were no match for the freezing temperature.
“Stop dragging your fucking feet.” Winters gave her a rough shove from behind.
Elle stumbled and grabbed on to the nearest tree. Bark ripped into her bare palms, making her wince. Okay, that she felt. And what little moonlight squeaked through the trees showcased the trail of blood coating her palms.
“You better hope to God that Sophie’s okay because I’d hate to be you if she isn’t.” Elle wiped the blood on her jeans. Her stomach somersaulted as her brain replayed the image of Trey’s mom stepping between Winters and her—and then dropping to the ground. “Actually, I’d hate to be you either way. Trey’s going to be pissed.”
“Good. That’s exactly what I want.”
“Spoken like a man who hasn’t seen him in commando mode. If you think he’s going to let you walk away after having threatened his mother like that, then you’re delusional.”