by April Hunt
To Charlie, he’d been a friend. An older brother. Someone who cared about her, not because of what she could do or who she was related to, but because she was Charlotte Ann Hughes. That’s what she’d believed right up until Stone had burst her well-maintained bubble back at headquarters.
Charlie pulled the rental in front of Inked Up and cut the engine. There wasn’t any point to being stealthy. Despite her threatening to end him, she knew Eric would’ve alerted Brock she was on her way—and pissed. But she didn’t expect to strut right through the front door.
Vince trailed her, hot on her heels. “You have a plan here?”
“Not shooting someone in their bloody arse,” Charlie murmured.
She flung open the front door, a harsh jingle announcing their arrival. Behind the counter, a young tattooed girl paused in her flirting with the heavily pierced man in front of her and looked up. As Charlie headed toward the door leading to the back rooms, she jumped off her little stool. “Hey, you can’t go in there!”
“Watch me.”
Arms folded across his chest, the girl’s friend puffed up like a peacock and stepped into her path. “You heard her. No one’s allowed back there unless you’re a customer or an artist.”
Charlie barely resisted sticking her fingers through his bull-ring nose piercing and flinging him to the side. “Step aside. Seriously. I am not in the mood.”
“Step aside or what? You think your scrappy self is going to do any damage to me? Honey, I take dumps bigger than you.”
“You may want to listen to the woman,” Vince’s gruff warning came from behind.
Charlie kept her gaze locked on Metal Face and took a step closer. “I did you a favor by asking you to step out of my way. But now I’m telling you—if you want to keep that ridiculous thing attached to your face, you’ll move. Now.”
He must’ve seen the truth in her eyes. He lifted his hands in mock surrender and took a step to the left. “Bloodthirsty little wench, aren’t you?”
“You’ve got no fucking idea,” Vince muttered beneath his breath.
Charlie burst through the back doors and stalked into the depths of Inked Up. She already knew where Brock would be…the far back room, where he saw his special clients.
Behind the closed the door, the faint whir of a needle told her he was definitely in there, and he wasn’t alone. Charlie didn’t give a damn, flinging the door open and making the woman—who was naked from the waist down and sprawled on the chair—jump.
“What the hell?” Blondie’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t make any dash to cover her bare goods. “Get the fuck out of here!”
“I’m not going anywhere, love.” Charlie remained planted in her spot. “But you’re going to have to put your panties back on and finish up another day.”
“Like hell.” She turned to the man hunched between her legs. “Brock!”
Charlie allowed herself to finally look up. Just as she’d feared, twelve years melted away. Instead of being a newbie Alpha operative, able to incapacitate men twice her size, she stood, frozen, and mentally forced her heart down her throat as Inked Up began melting away…
Chapter Seven
Miami
Twelve Years Earlier
Charlotte turned her back toward the group of girls waiting for her outside Illusions and glared at her living shadow. Thanks to the loud pound of music spilling from the club and onto the street, she didn’t have to worry about the Glam Squad overhearing Brock being Brock.
“It’s a mistake, Char,” he said yet again. “It’s a big goddamned mistake.”
“No, it’s Illusions,” Charlie corrected. “I don’t know what your bloody problem is. You’ve been here before, probably a million times. Why is it an acceptable place for you to hang out and not me?”
“Because I’m not a sixteen-year-old girl,” Brock snapped. He threw out an angry arm and pointed to the club in question. “Do you think just because your uncle owns this place that you’re going to be safe in there? Wrong. You’re even more of a target than your dim-witted friends. And why the hell are you even hanging out with them? I thought they were all on your shit list.”
“Excuse me for wanting some kind of normalcy in my life, and some of us can’t exactly be choosy in the friend department. It’s them or Tina, and you know how much I can’t stand my cousin. I’d rather bathe in a tub of flesh-eating bacteria than hang out with her.”
“If you go in there, you’re on your own,” Brock warned.
“So go! It’s not like I’m alone anyway.” Charlie gestured off in the distance to where there were no doubt at least a handful of her uncle’s guards. Even when she snuck out, like tonight, they always managed to find her.
Brock stormed off, spewing curses. Charlie felt a twinge of guilt, but ignored it with a reminder to herself that she needed unwinding time in the worst way. These girls weren’t exactly her first choice of nightclub companions…they were her only choice. Not too many clamored for the chance to get chummy with Arturo Franconi’s niece, and those who did usually wanted something.
“Hey! Are we going in or what?” Sandy Madison, the leader of Miami Prep’s social elite, called out.
Charlie pushed her shoulders back and strutted to the bouncer. He gave her a once-over before nodding and letting them inside.
Illusions catered to the elite—and to those who believed they were. Music pounded like a second heartbeat. Strobe lights blinked and swerved over the sea of dancing bodies. It was like any other night, except the confrontation with Brock had put Charlie in a bad mood. With each song, the girls she’d come with distanced themselves even more. And she couldn’t blame them. Heck, she didn’t want to hang out with her either.
“I’m going to the bathroom. Anyone want to come?” Charlie shouted to the group, receiving four shakes of the head.
She left them to flirt with a group of guys and headed toward the back of the club. One look at the long line for the women’s bathroom and she bypassed it to go around the corner to the zero-wait men’s.
“If anyone’s in here, you’d best cover up the junk,” Charlie shouted in warning before stepping inside.
She made quick work of using the facilities. While washing her hands, she contemplated a believable excuse as to why she had to go home, and after finally thinking of something that didn’t sound too God-awful lame, she exited the bathroom. Two steps out the door and she crashed into someone walking past.
“Shit. Sor—” Something covered her mouth…a hand.
Charlie dug the soles of her sneakers into the floor, trying to stay rooted to the spot as someone dragged her backward, away from the club and toward the emergency exit.
“Stop fucking struggling,” a voice growled against her ear.
No way in hell. She watched the movies. She saw what happened when kidnapped girls got into cars. Charlie squirmed. She elbowed. She pushed her mouth deeper into the hand covering it, hoping to take a bite.
Nothing worked.
She was overpowered.
And a few seconds after a sharp sting pierced her neck, Charlie was also really, really tired. Her vision went fuzzy, her muscles weakening.
“Get the fuck over here and get her legs,” someone barked, his voice sounding muffled and far away. “We have to get her out of here before someone fucking sees us.”
“Shit,” came a second voice. “You doped her?”
“Had to. Little bitch is too spunky for her own damn good.”
Voice two chuckled, his words sounding a lot more muffled as darkness started closing in around Charlie, “Yeah, well, that’s soon going to become a thing of the past.”
She drifted in and out—that’s all she remembered. Every time she roused, another bite of pain came, and darkness wrapped itself around her again. Six times? Twelve? It seemed like a lifetime had passed when Charlie pried her eyes open and no prick of a needle followed.
She took a deep breath and choked on the urine-tainted air. She couldn’t see. She could ba
rely breathe. And thanks to the rough ties binding her hands and feet, and securing her to some kind of post in the ground, she could no longer feel much of anything—except the hollow ache of her stomach. It cramped as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, and maybe she hadn’t.
Pain sliced up her throat every time she cried out for help. Just when she’d given up, light ripped through the enclosed space. It seared into her retinas, temporarily blinding her.
“We’re going to get you out of here, Char,” Brock’s rough voice promised. Something broke away her bindings a moment before arms lifted her from the ground. “We’re going to get you to safety, and then you’re leaving Miami and never coming the fuck back.”
* * *
The sound of flesh hitting flesh snapped Charlie to attention. Blondie, wide-eyed and livid, stalked away from Brock and the red handprint she’d left on his right cheek. Charlie used the distraction to take a deep breath, but it didn’t go unnoticed.
Vince’s hazel eyes studied her carefully, making her more uneasy than she’d ever been—except for that night at Illusions.
It had been Brock who’d rescued her twelve years ago. In a post-drugged state of dehydration and sensory deprivation, she’d thought she’d imagined his voice and hallucinated the distant sight of him in a swarm of law enforcement officers. But he’d been there, on the dock, when the door had been opened. His storming into Miami University Hospital in a panicked frenzy had been an act. He hadn’t been called as an emergency contact. He’d known about her abduction because he’d been working the case.
Charlie had always prided herself on her ability to read people but she hadn’t been able to see through the lies of one of the people closest to her. It made her wonder what else she’d gotten wrong. But the abducted women couldn’t afford for her to throw herself a pity party. The job. The assignment. That’s what she needed to focus on instead of a past she couldn’t change.
Brock, rising to his six-and-a-half feet of prime badass, shot her a glare. “What the fuck are you doing here, Charlie?”
At his volatile tone, Charlie hiked her big girl panties back around her waist. “My presence was requested, remember? You provided me with escorts and everything. Glad to see you’re putting Eric’s computer talents to good use.”
“You know damn well that’s not what I meant.”
Charlie flashed him Vince’s ring. “We’re scoping out honeymoon destinations. Trust me, Miami wasn’t one of my first choices, but Vince has never been here. We’ll be out of your hair in less than a week.”
“You, of all people, know what kind of shit can go down in a week.” Brock flicked a glance toward Vince and casually started cleaning up his workstation. “If you want to make sure your girl makes it to your wedding day, be on the first plane out of town.”
Vince answered the dark tone with one of his own. “That sounded suspiciously like a threat.”
“No, it’s a fucking premonition.” Brock slammed the tray of ink and whirled around, finger pointed toward Charlie. “I don’t expect your little boy toy here to have any kind of a fucking clue, but you should know better.”
“The circumstances still apply now as they did twelve years ago. If anything happens to me—”
“He’s got terminal cancer, Charlie. Death row or a life prison sentence to a dead-man-walking isn’t exactly a huge deterrent. Or are you taunting him? Do you want him to finish what he started?”
He went there.
Next to her, Vince’s ears perked up. Yeah, she’d told him how she’d bargained for her freedom, but she didn’t want a complete purge. If Brock continued on this path, she couldn’t spin his words around. She couldn’t control it, and the bastard knew it. But hell if she wasn’t going to try.
“I haven’t laid eyes or ears on you in twelve years, and that’s what you’re going to lead with?” Charlie attempted to steer the conversation away from its current direction.
“If it gets you gone quicker, then yes.”
“It was a long time ago, Brock. It’s in the past.”
“Then why are you so pale, babe?”
He was right. Light-headedness wasn’t something she experienced routinely, or at all. But really, it started now. The only way she could convince Vince it hadn’t been a big deal was if she acted as though it wasn’t.
Brock leaned against his desk, locking Vince in his sights. “Did Char tell you how she spent her last night here in Miami?”
“Why do you even care?” Charlie inserted herself back into the conversation. “You keep warning me about leaving before Arturo finds out I’m back, but hasn’t he already? I mean, you’re using two of his men as your own private people-fetchers.”
Brock’s jaw clenched.
Crisis averted—for now.
“At first, I only recognized Eric. But now I remember. Two of those men from the parking lot used to be part of my uncle’s thug squad. And like you said, he has an aversion to letting people go…which means you’re either talking out of your arse about that whole shelflife thing, or you’ve gotten pretty close to Arturo while I’ve been away.”
Brock stalked closer, stopping with a few inches to spare. “Get. The fuck. Out. Of. Miami. If you don’t, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“Good thing my safety isn’t any of your concern. Don’t summon me again, Brock. If you do, I’m not going to be so easygoing.” Charlie spun around and left. She ignored the harsh glare from the girl out front, and didn’t even enjoy the sight of Bull Ring guy warily moving to the other side of the room as she passed.
By the time she’d reached the sidewalk, Vince had caught up.
“Goddamn it, English.” His hand latched on to her arm, bringing her to a stop. “What the fuck?”
Charlie counted to three before she met his gaze. Damn those eyes. They lasered through her with all the tact of a missile, roaming over her face, searching for…something. Being partners gave him the right to some kind of explanation. She couldn’t give it…not right now.
Miami. Her family. Brock. Their mission. Thoughts and insecurities—old and new—shimmied their way into her mind.
Vince gifted her a slight nod, almost as if he knew where her head was at, and took the keys from her hands.
“Passenger seat.” He opened the door, and waited for her to slide in.
That was it. No questions. No demands.
For now.
She didn’t have high hopes of that lasting forever.
* * *
What Vince thought he’d known about the woman sitting in the truck next to him had been obliterated in a matter of minutes. One thing he was damn sure of: He didn’t like Brock-fucking-Torres. He didn’t like his attitude, or his seeming familiarity with Charlie. And she sure as hell didn’t like how he’d transformed the mouthy Brit into a quiet church mouse.
A silent Charlie was an eerie Charlie because that shit just didn’t happen. There’d obviously been something he’d missed during their little meet-and-greet, and judging by the silence from the other side of the truck, whatever it was, was a fucking whopper. Vince had two options: Let her get away with her obvious omission and keep his mouth shut, or open it and possibly get them both into a fuck-ton of trouble.
He flipped on his turn signal and aimed the truck toward downtown. “Are you planning on explaining what the hell happened back there?”
“I told you once already. Why I left has nothing to do with why we’re here now. Let it go.”
“I’m not letting anything the fuck go if it’s not safe for you to be here,” Vince growled. “Is Arturo going to make trouble for you? Do we need to make you disappear again?”
“No. That was Brock’s attempt at a scare tactic. I told you, it’s fine.”
She didn’t even look him in the goddamned eye, the first sign of a lie.
“Goddamn it, English.” Vince scrubbed a hand over his face. “This assignment was a clusterfuck from the beginning, but now it’s a clusterfuck soaked in goddamned gasoline. We need to chan
ge our plan of attack because there’s no way in hell I’m letting your sweet ass out of my sight.”
Charlie’s gaze snapped to him. He wanted her to talk and he was about to get a fucking earful.
“Excuse me?” She kept her voice low, but sounded no less threatening. “I’ve been keeping an eye on my own arse since long before I came to Alpha, and I can continue to do it now, and long into the future.”
“That go-it-alone mentality may have worked when you were a punk teen in Miami, but it’s not going to fly here. At Alpha, we watch each other’s backs.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what we do at Alpha. I’ve been with Stone since the start-up.”
“Behind a computer,” Vince snapped. He swerved around a slow delivery truck. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but the fact is you lack field experience.”
“My apologies for not having been born with a penis,” Charlie muttered under her breath. Her eyes locked on her side mirror and stayed there. “So you have all the field experience.”
“I do.”
“And because of that, you’ve really honed your observation skills, right?”
He nodded, glad she was finally starting to get it. “Exactly.”
“So, Mr. Experienced, Observant Field Operative, does that mean you pegged the dark SUV that’s been following us for the last four city blocks?”
“What the fuck?” He studied his rearview mirror, taking twenty seconds to take stock of their surroundings.
“Three car lengths back. Tinted windows.”
“Yeah I see it.” Now that she’d pointed it out.
Vince made a last-minute left, the wheels on the truck letting out a faint squeal. Charlie grabbed onto the oh-shit handle and threw him a glare. “You’re so worried about my bloody safety, but you’re the one who nearly gave me a concussion.”
“Guess your boyfriend was serious about you getting out of town.” Vince glowered. Fuck. That sounded like catty reality show shit even to his own ears.