by Stormy Glenn
I was all for that. I darted out from beneath the bed and ran to Jack's feet before shifting. I stood up and dove into Jack's arms. "Are you hurt?"
"No." Jack grinned. "Not a scratch."
Oh, thank god.
"Where are the others?" I'd forgotten to connect with them when I was in my shifted form. I'd been too worried about Jack.
"Hank took them all down to the tunnels," Jack replied as he poked his head out of the bedroom. "I'm supposed to take you down there then our team is going to gear up and flush these idiots out of here."
I wasn't sure I liked that plan, but I didn't have another one. I followed Jack down the stairs to the first floor. When he held up a fist, I stopped and held my breath. Jack moved a few steps forward and peeked around a corner before waving me closer. I tried to walk quietly as I joined him, but it sounded as if I was wearing clodhoppers.
Jack widened his eyes at me then held his finger to his lips.
I shrugged.
Jack shook his head and started walking again. He was slow, but methodical, scanning each room before moving to the next one. I was surprised we didn't run into anyone considering someone had just shot up our bedroom. I thought there would have been an entire army hanging around, but there was no one.
When we reached the living room, Jack held up his fist again. I froze where I was and held my breath again. My heart was racing, my throat was dry, my head started to ache, I was shaking, and I felt as if I had an elephant sitting on my chest.
I was pretty sure I was having a panic attack.
Jack held up his hand, telling me to stay where I was. I nodded then watched as he stepped around the corner and disappeared from sight. I pressed myself against the wall and prayed nobody came running in with a gun. I wasn't sure just how quickly I could jump out of the way.
I wasn't exactly in the best shape, despite being able to shift earlier. And thank god I could finally shift again. I didn't realize how much I liked being an ocelot until the ability to shift was taken from me.
My heart lurched when I heard a heavy thud and felt the vibrations under my feet of something heavy falling to the floor. I just knew it was Jack. I swallowed tightly then took one step forward, peeking around the corner.
As soon as I saw Jack lying on the floor, all my good intentions went flying out the door. I cried out and raced across the room, dropping to my knees next to the man I never dreamed would become so important to me.
I totally missed the man standing in the corner with a gun until I felt the barrel press against the back of my head.
"Hello, Kaito."
I froze. "Mr. Atkins."
"I must commend you. I never dreamed you'd escape so easily, especially with how many drugs I pumped into your system. How did you do it?"
"Just lucky, I guess."
Like I'd tell him the truth.
"Where's my pet?" Atkins asked.
I dropped my head down, but I noticed Jack's hand move when I did. I pretended I hadn't seen anything. I didn't know if he was fully aware of what was going on or just waking up, and I wasn't in a position to ask.
I stood then turned to face Atkins. I wanted his attention on me, not Jack. Atkins took a couple of steps back, but kept his gun trained on me. A quick scan of the room told me we were the only ones here. Where everyone else had gone was a good question, one I didn't have time to answer.
"I've said it before, and I'll say it as many times as I need to until you get the picture. I do not know where Danny is, and even if I did, I would never tell you. Danny is my friend, something you wouldn't know anything about."
Yeah, it probably wasn't a good idea to antagonize the guy with the gun, but I refused to let Atkins see how scared I felt. I was staring down the barrel of a gun I knew Atkins had no problem using. Jack was on the floor, and I wasn't sure if he was hurt or dying or what.
I just didn't care. I was done.
I took a step closer to Atkins. "Danny does not belong to you. You need to get that through your thick fucking head. Just because you have money does not mean you have the right to own someone."
Atkins chuckled as if what he found what I said amusing. "I can do anything I like, and there is nothing you or your friends can do to stop me."
"Wanna bet?"
I was so close to shifting and scratching this guy's eyes out.
"We will find a way to stop you."
"You can't stop me," Atkins said. "You don't have that kind of power, but I do. If I want something done, it gets done. If I want someone to disappear, they disappear. And if I want to keep your little friend as a pet, there is nothing you can do to stop it."
"Danny is not a pet!"
Atkins snorted. "You don't know much about your friend, do you?"
I blinked at the man, confused. "What?"
"He's a shifter."
I fucking knew that, but I wasn't about to acknowledge that I knew. "He's a what?"
"He's a shifter," Atkins insisted. "He can shift into a cat. I don't know exactly what sort of cat he is, but I think it's an exotic one. He's quite beautiful."
And Atkins was quite insane.
"People can't shift into cats in real life, Atkins. That's the stuff of Hollywood movies and romance novels."
"I'm not crazy," Atkins insisted. "I've seen it with my own eyes."
I snickered at the man. "You are crazy. Don't let anyone tell you differently."
"Don't fuck with me, Kaito." Atkins' eyes narrowed before he snapped his fingers. "I could have you killed just like that."
"Murder, kidnapping, stolen goods, selling people on the black market. Is there any law you won't break?"
Atkins' eyes grew a little fanatical, which totally creeped me out. "Haven't you heard? The laws don't apply if you're rich enough to buy your way out, and I am."
"You've been doing that for a long time, haven't you? Buying your way out of things. Is that how you went from being Robert Atkins to Carl Atkins?"
"Heard about that, did you?" Atkins chuckled. "I thought it was rather inventive to leave my entire estate to myself."
"What happened to the real Robert Atkins?" I already knew he was dead from the information Danny had dug up. "Did you have him killed?"
"I told you, I can have anyone killed."
"Is that what you're going to do to me if I don't tell you where Danny is? Or are you going to sell me to one of your little Middle Eastern friends as a slave, as you've done to so many other people?"
"Danny is mine."
"No." I grinned, which seemed to confuse Atkins. I pointed behind him. "Danny is his."
I was never so glad to see someone in my life, or in this case, several someones. Hank, Abe, Cooper, and Judge had appeared behind Atkins as if they had walked out of thin air. When I felt a presence behind me, I knew it was Jack.
"Your days of terrorizing people are over, Robert Atkins…I mean, Carl Atkins…I mean, whoever you really are." I pointed to the camera in the corner of the room. "You broke into Ian's house, your little buddies shot it up, you threatened me and my friends, some of whom are active military personnel, and you pissed me off. You're done."
"You think any of this matters?"
"I think that the authorities are going to be very interested in the video of what you've done."
"The authorities can't touch me. There are too many people in positions of power who owe me." Atkins scoffed loudly. "I'll never see a single second behind bars."
"You can't buy your way out of this one, Atkins."
"You can't stop me," Atkins countered. "No one can stop me."
"Yeah, there might be a problem with that." Danny stepped out from behind Abe. "It seems that there was a problem with your estate. You forgot to pay your inheritance taxes when you inherited the money from Robert Atkins. Considering the amount of money involved, the US government has frozen all of your assets and financial accounts until they can do a thorough investigation."
Atkins' face brightened. "Danny, my pet."
&nb
sp; Abe quickly stepped in front of Danny when Atkins took a step toward him. "Touch him and nothing in this world will stop me from ripping your head off."
I felt practically giddy as I grinned. "You're flat broke, Mr. Atkins. I hope you know how to say public defender."
"Don't be ridiculous." Atkins swung back around to face me. "You can't take my money."
"I didn't. The United States government did."
Atkins' eyes narrowed.
I had a split second to suck in a breathe before Atkins lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. Something slammed into my shoulder, and I felt a pain unlike anything I'd ever felt before, even when Atkins had electrocuted me.
Jack caught me as my legs gave out and I sank to the floor. My shoulder was on fire.
"Fuck, that hurts."
I heard a lot of shouting and something crashed to the floor, but I was too busy trying to breathe and not cry to really pay attention to what was going on. I clutched at Jack's shirt, holding on for dear life. I think it was easy to say I was terrified. I'd never been shot before. Shot at, yes. Actually shot, no.
"Jack."
"It's okay, baby. It's just a shoulder wound."
Just a shoulder wound?
I felt as if I had been shot by a cannon.
I cried out when Jack put pressure on my shoulder. The agony intensified so much, spots danced in front of my eyes.
"Sorry, baby, but I have to stop the bleeding."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but…" I hated being whiny, but it was better than crying my eyes out. "Fuck, it hurts."
"I have something that might make it feel better."
I didn't think anything would make it feel better. "What?"
Jack grinned as he nodded his head to my left.
I frowned as I glanced in that direction, then a wide grin spread out over my lips as I watched Atkins being escorted out of the house by two police officers, complete with handcuffs. He was ranting and raving about cat shifters and people stealing his money.
The officer standing in the middle of the room just shook his head. "That one is headed for a rubber room."
My grin grew.
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Chapter Twelve
I folded up the last cardboard box and stuck it in the pile I planned to take out to the recycling bin just as soon as I found the energy. I loved the house I'd bought from Ian and Hank, but moving sucked. Luckily, that was the last box to be unpacked.
I was now officially moved into my new house.
I lived alone.
Living alone sucked even more than moving.
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottled water then headed for the front porch. I loved that I now had a front porch to sit on. My apartment back in Massachusetts didn't even have a balcony. This was much nicer.
I settled myself into one of the light brown wicker chairs I'd purchased for the front porch, plopped my feet up on the porch railing, then opened my water and took a big swig. The water felt cool on my parched throat.
I waved when I saw Danny and Abe walking down the steps of their house. It was nice being so close to my friends. Ian and Hank lived right next door. Danny and Abe had a place directly across the street from me with Andrew and Cooper living in the house next door to them. The only ones missing were Ewan and Judge.
And Jack.
I'd really thought Jack would be moving in with me, but you know the old saying, "That's what you get for thinking."
As soon as I'd been patched up and released from the hospital, Jack had taken off. I hadn't heard from him since, and it had been over a month. I was starting to suspect that I never would.
I knew I never should have fallen in love with a straight man, no matter how much he insisted he was gay. He’d probably gone back to base and forgotten all about me, fucking his way back to being straight with whatever women he could charm out of their clothes. He'd certainly charmed me out of my clothes fast enough.
The man was talented.
Too bad he was a faithless bastard.
I glanced over when I heard a door close and saw Ian hopping down his front steps ahead of Hank. Both men started in my direction. Andrew and Cooper came out of their house and walked across the street. I smiled when they climbed the steps and took up different spots on my porch.
We were all here now, except for a few.
"All moved in?" Ian asked.
"Yep, just unpacked the last box."
"How are you liking the new house?"
I grinned even wider. "I love it. It's a huge improvement over my old apartment."
"Did you parents get that place a few blocks over?"
I nodded. "They still have to sell their place, but Mom is already packing everything up and Dad is looking into hardware stores in the area."
Danny frowned. "Hardware stores?"
I chuckled. "Mom gives Dad projects to do so he'll stay out of her hair. He's usually building her flower boxes or doing repairs on the house." I shrugged. "Guess that's how they've stayed married all these years."
Danny laughed as he tilted his head back and looked up at the man behind him. "How are you at flower boxes?"
Abe leaned down to peck Danny on the lips. "Whatever you want, liefling."
I glanced away, unable to watch. I was happy Danny had found Abe, but I wanted someone to look at me like Abe looked at Danny. I wanted to be held, to be called sweetheart or baby, and I wanted someone willing to stick around.
I didn't want to feel as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest.
"Has there been any news on Atkins?" I knew he'd been arrested, but not much more than that. The police had kept things pretty quiet so the media wouldn't get wind of his arrest. Apparently, they didn't want the headache anymore than the rest of us.
"He's still being evaluated in a loony bin. Apparently, he insists that shifters are real, and that's why he attacked us, because he believes I'm a shifter. Go figure." Danny snickered. "The prosecutor says he has enough evidence to go to trial, but he can't take anything before a judge if Atkins is ruled insane."
"So, he's in a nut house then?"
"It's a secure facility. The St. Petersburg Home for the Criminally Insane. He'll be there until they either figure out if he's nuts, in which case he'll stay there, or sane, in which case, he goes to trial."
"For what exactly?" I asked. "Not paying his inheritance taxes?"
Bringing Atkins' oversight to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service had been a stroke of genius on Danny's part. No one wanted to mess with Atkins, but the IRS was tenacious about getting whatever money was owed them. They could care less who Atkins was.
Once Atkins' assets and finances were seized, the dominos had started to fall, one right after the other. It was kind of hard for the man to pay people off when he didn't have any way to pay them.
Even the thugs working for him had turned against him, giving full details into Atkins' plans to kidnap Danny and the things the man had done to ensure it happened. They were spilling the beans just as fast as their lips could flap.
"I gave the tape of Atkins shooting you to the police," Ian said, "along with the video of his men breaking into the place and shooting it up. That, combined with the tapes Danny gave them when Atkins broke into his old place, was enough to get him charged with breaking and entering plus attempted murder."
"What about my kidnapping?" I seriously wanted the man to pay for what he'd done to me.
"We didn't have that on tape, but apparently, one of his men was actually an undercover cop, and he had a lot to report to his superiors." Ian lifted his left eyebrow. "It seems you two might have met? An Officer Brody?"
"He never gave me his name," I replied, "but he was probably the guy that rescued me from Atkins and took me to that motel. He was the one who told me to tell Danny to follow the money."
"The department is going to reinstate him since their investigation showed he wasn't the one who messed with the cameras or had anything to do wit
h the break-in at Danny's old place. It was all his partner, who was fired and is currently being brought up on charges."
"Will Officer Brody get any kind of compensation for what he went through?"
Ian nodded. "His captain told me he was being fully reinstated with all his back pay and they were putting a commendation in his jacket for uncovering Atkins' black market ring."
I kind of felt bad for the guy. That didn't seem like much compensation for what the detective must have gone through. Of course, there was a part of me who didn't want to forgive Brody. He had stood there while Atkins' shocked me over and over again, and he hadn't put a stop to it. I understood why, but that didn't make me any less resentful.
I was done with this conversation. I had given Atkins enough of my life already. He didn't get to have any more. I stood and started for the front door, smiling as I glanced back over my shoulder. "I'm going to order some pizza. Anyone want to join me?"
"Got beer?" Hank asked.
I rolled my eyes. "Of course."
"I'm in." Hank grabbed Ian and started dragging him toward the door.
Abe just picked Danny up and tossed him over his shoulder. "We like beer and pizza."
"You like beer," Danny replied. "I think it tastes like piss water."
I chuckled. "I have some wine coolers for you, Danny."
Andrew arched an eyebrow. "Do you have any wine?"
Uh… "No, but I can run to the store and get a bottle."
"I’ll run and grab a bottle from the house," Cooper said before leaning down to kiss Andrew. "Be right back, love."
Andrew just smiled and walked into the house.
I chuckled again as I shook my head. I wasn’t sure I'd ever understand how those two got together. A soldier and a model. They seemed worlds apart, and yet they were perfect for each other.
I had thought I was perfect for someone, but guess I was wrong there. It was a pain I knew I'd have to get used to because I didn't think it was going away anytime soon. Jack had taken a huge piece of me when he left, one I wasn't sure I'd ever get back.
I wanted to hit Jack almost as much as I wanted to hit Atkins. Both had hurt me tremendously, one physically, one emotionally.
I was angry at both of them.