by Loki Renard
“I don’t want more trouble,” Col growled. “She should stay in the cage.”
“Leave him, Col,” Rex drawled.
Col went away muttering, leaving Chase to fix dinner. It was a welcome respite. He liked Col. Col was a brother to him, but when the guy got a hair up his ass he was relentless. It was an incredible quality to have in the field, but in interpersonal relationships it could make him a nightmare.
“You should at least be getting your money’s worth,” Col added as he slumped back in front of the television.
Chase ignored the comment. There was no rush to have sex. He had no intention of letting Lacey get away from him again. She’d been on his mind from the moment they rescued her, and having her back in his world, let alone in his bed, was enough for now.
When he was done fixing some pasta, he put two bowls on a tray and carried it into the bedroom.
Lacey was still in bed. Hadn’t moved an inch. It wasn’t any incredible act of obedience. It was because she was fast asleep, curled up beneath his blankets. Adorable. She was so small in so many ways, and yet everywhere she went, chaos erupted. She needed to be protected. She needed to be kept under control. He was looking forward to doing both.
Chase carried the tray back out to the living room. He’d made enough for everybody to eat, so he walked into a room of slurping, except for Brian who liked to cut his pasta before he ate it.
“Back already?” Rex lifted his head from his food. “Didn’t think we’d see you until late tomorrow.”
“She’s asleep.”
Col rolled his eyes. “You’re going to pay twenty grand to let her sleep?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Idiot,” Col snorted.
“Col, leave it!” Rex interjected.
Chase had about had enough of Col’s attitude. He sat down in an armchair a few feet away from the couch where Col was sitting and took an aggressive bite of his meal before engaging the man. “You think we’re just going to fuck her every minute of every day for forever?”
“No. I think you idiots are going to get your dicks wet and then she’s going to fuck you all a hundred times harder than you could ever fuck her. And I think I’m the moron who knows better than to trust someone who already gave her word once and didn’t keep it.” Col slammed his bowl down on the coffee table.
Chase sat back, struck silent. Col had a good point. A really good point—one he couldn’t rebut. Lacey hadn’t exactly been trustworthy in her limited dealings with them. The past was one thing, but the present was also a concern. If she wrote another one of her tell-alls, the consequences could be even more dire. But, at the end of the day, trustworthy or not, she was in need. Her fate seemed to be connected to theirs. And he’d rather she was alive than dead.
“Now she’s asleep, can we talk about the real reason we’re doing this?” Brian finished eating and grabbed his computer.
“The real reason?” Chase was confused.
“The data she has,” Rex clarified. “We have a buyer.”
“What?” Chase narrowed his eyes. The hair on the back of his neck and arms was rising as he realized there was yet another layer to this shit show.
“The information she has is worth something. A lot of something,” Rex explained. “She owes us. Now she gets to pay us back.”
“Coming in her pussy wasn’t enough?”
“Not even close,” Rex said. “Don’t act like she’s a sweet innocent little girl. She’s basically a spy.”
“She’s a journalist.”
“A journalist with information on a high-ranking senator. A journalist with a payload she isn’t going to get to cash in on without our help.”
Chase felt his mood shift darkly. “You didn’t say a word about this when you agreed to help. The sex is one thing, but this is…”
“You got us on board by telling us she was in trouble because of information she held.” Rex leaned forward, his hands clasped together. “Did you really think we wouldn’t be interested in what she had? Did you think we’d drop everything to help someone who destroyed our lives for no return?”
“No pussy is that good, Chase.” It was Col who spoke again. Chase was getting ever closer to decking him.
“Col, shut up,” Rex snapped, standing up to take control of the situation. He stood over Chase in a way Chase didn’t really entirely care for. It was a domineering pose, not so subtly reminding everybody who was ultimately in charge.
“I get you feel a little blindsided, but you brought us in on this today. We’ve had some time to think, and Brian’s had time to get a handle on what she might have. He thinks it’s worth something.”
“Whatever it is, she’s probably not going to give it to us,” Chase said.
“She doesn’t have a choice.”
Chase looked at his comrades with a stony expression. Nothing about this felt right. Taking her as their own had been pushing it, but she’d agreed, at least partially. This? He didn’t know Lacey very well, but he knew her work was her life. It had almost claimed her life on several occasions. He had a feeling she was more ready to sleep with them than she was to share her research—especially if they were going to sell it.
The conversation was interrupted abruptly with a high-pitched scream. It was the cry of a woman in absolute terror. The sound zipped through Chase, throwing him from the chair in an instant. The others were close behind him. They all ran to Chase’s room to find Lacey sitting bolt upright in bed, still screaming, her face fraught with terror.
“Shit.”
Chase pulled her into his arms, but she didn’t wake up. She was caught in some desperate state between sleep and awareness, the dark space where nightmares reigned. They were all familiar with it to one extent or another. This was par for the course with anyone whose life was one long traumatic situation.
“Don’t kill me!” She pushed against him, her arms flailing wildly.
She was staring at something none of them could see, some monster her mind had manufactured.
Chase kept a hold of her anyway, running his hand over her hair, making soft soothing noises until she started to quieten a little. Her screams turned to soft whimpers, though she was still no more awake than she had been when they came in.
“Great. So she’s a slut and she’s crazy.” Col muttered the words, or something like them under his breath. Chase didn’t really hear them properly, but Max apparently did. He spun on his heel and punched Col. Hard. The satisfying crunch of fist against nose woke Lacey up with an even louder scream. Chase had to grab on to her to stop her from basically exploding across the room in a panic.
“You saw what she looked like when we found her. You saw how it was. What she went through,” Max thundered at Col, displaying very rare anger. “Don’t talk shit about her.”
“Fuck you, idiot. Stick your dick in her and fall in love,” Col spat, storming from the room, his nose pouring with blood.
“Out!” Rex thundered. “Everybody out now!”
“I’m staying,” Max insisted.
“Fine, everybody else out. Col, go to the damn bathroom and I’ll set your nose.”
Chapter Ten
Lacey
She was surrounded by men, some of them swearing and cursing. For a second she didn’t recognize any of them. She was back in Venezuela. She was captive. She was going to be killed. This was it. It was happening.
“Shhhhh. It’s okay…”
She blinked and saw Chase next to her. Chase. Oh, thank god. He could help her. Save her. She grabbed him, opening her mouth to tell him that he needed to help her, but nothing came out. She was suddenly vocally paralyzed. The more she tried to yell the less anything came, but her throat was raw as if she had been screaming for hours. Finally, a thin cry escaped her, incoherent and pathetic.
“Get her something to drink, Max. Something hot.”
Max. The name sank into her consciousness and then she remembered. Three years rushed back in a tidal wave of time to the present mom
ent. Now she knew where she was. Not Venezuela. America. She was safe, or at least as safe as it was possible for her to ever be.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, realizing that she’d just made a huge fool of herself.
“Don’t be sorry. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”
“I’ve got a lot to be sorry for,” she said, her eyes welling with tears, which she blinked back quickly as she tried to get herself under control. She did not like being weak or vulnerable. She liked being tough. Whatever life threw at her, she could take it. That was fine when she was awake, but when she fell asleep the demons found her in the dark and took advantage.
“Not for having a nightmare,” he said, his voice rumbling through her. “How often do they happen?”
Lacey was reluctant to talk about the situation. She’d never told anyone about the nightmares. Just slept with the lights on and sometimes had a stuffed animal with her. A big stuffed dog named Furdinand who had been left behind in her apartment.
“Lacey,” Chase prompted. “I need to know.”
“Do you? Why?”
“Because we’re looking after you, and that means taking care of your needs and not letting you scream all night. Tell me,” he insisted. “How often and how bad are they?”
She bit her lower lip, then figured there was no real harm in telling him. He’d already seen her in the embarrassing state.
“It happened a lot after Venezuela and then less for a while, and then all this stuff happened, and… it’s worse when I’m stressed.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “That makes sense. Okay. You have meds for it?”
“No,” she scowled. “It’s fine. Like I said, I don’t usually get them unless someone tries to kill me, and then a bunch of men kidnap me and ravish me.”
“Have you seen someone about it, like a therapist?”
“I’m therapy resistant,” she said ruefully.
“You mean you’re a pain in the ass,” Chase smiled, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
She felt safe. She felt about the safest she had ever felt in her life. The night terrors made her so physically afraid she could barely breathe, so the contrast of waking in his arms was incredible. She was held. Hard male flesh was wrapped around her, protecting her. She rested her head against Chase’s shoulder and breathed deeply.
“Chase!” Max called out.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know how to make hot chocolate!”
Chase snorted. “Come on,” he said. “Wear the blanket. I’ll make you something to drink.”
Lacey shuffled out with Chase, the quilt wrapped around her nice and snugly. Still half asleep, she stood in the kitchen as Chase started to heat some milk for her. This would be such a nice little domestic moment if it were just the two of them. But it wasn’t just the two of them. The other men were somewhere toward the bathroom, making noises at one another. The door must have been open, because she could hear the conversation quite clearly.
“Ow, fuck!” Col’s voice sounded pained and nasal.
“Quit whining,” Rex ordered. “And hold still.”
Curious as ever, Lacey shuffled toward the bathroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on. As she shuffled into line of sight she saw that Col was standing in the middle of the floor, his shirt covered in blood. Rex was in front of him. He had a towel in his hand and he was reaching for Col’s nose.
Lacey shut her eyes, sensing the next part was going to be gross. There was a crunch and a click and a curse as Rex reset Col’s nose. He was going to be wearing a hell of a bruise for a long time, probably two black eyes.
“Lacey, get back over here,” Chase called out, noticing that she’d wandered away.
She obeyed, walking back to the kitchen just brimming with questions. “What happened to him?”
“Max hit him,” Chase said, mixing warm milk and chocolate powder.
“Why?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Chase said, handing her a mug of hot chocolate. It smelled delicious and she allowed herself to be distracted by it as she leaned against the kitchen counter and sipped at it, her gaze firmly locked across the room where Col and Rex were emerging, Col still cursing up a storm.
“Where the fuck is Max?”
“Here.” Max lumbered out of the hallway. “You got something to say to me?”
“You bet I fucking do,” Col hissed. “This is a mistake. You’re all making a huge mistake because none of you can see past your own dicks.”
“Col, that’s enough…” Rex started to say, but Col wasn’t listening. Lacey huddled closer to Chase as Col launched into a tirade.
“You’re all fucking stupid if you think she won’t sell us out. You think the nation won’t want a follow-up where the reporter who broke the Venezuela story gets abducted and fucked for money? You think she’s not making little notes in her head right fucking now? You think she’s not finding a new way to describe us? You want to be a grizzled wolf again, Rex? Or an all-American superhero, Chase? Fucking stupid.”
He was quoting her article practically verbatim. She had taken some poetic license when describing her rescuers years earlier. Hearing the words snarled at full volume made her blush with embarrassment and anger.
“I’m not going to write a story about you,” she said, speaking up for herself.
“We’ve heard that before.”
“Yeah, well. I learned my lesson,” she said, trembling as she tried to defend what was basically indefensible. Col had no reason to trust her, no matter what she said. “I’m not going to be a journalist anymore. I’m done. I’m going to burn the information I have and…”
“Whoa there,” Rex interjected. “Let’s not be hasty here. Why don’t you give us the information for safekeeping?”
“Rex…” Chase started to speak, but Rex cut him off with a dark look, as if there was something he really didn’t want said, especially not in front of her.
“No,” Lacey insisted. “I’m going to destroy the evidence, and I’m going to give the people who are after me proof that I destroyed it, and then maybe they’ll leave me alone and maybe you can believe that I’m really done breaking stories. I can delete the files easily. Brian, can I borrow your laptop?”
Brian was sitting in the corner of the room and had been conspicuously staying out of the drama, but the moment she asked to use his laptop, he looked up with an expression that was slightly more horrified than it would have been if she’d asked to fuck his mother.
“Nobody touches my computer except me. You can give me the password and the file location and I’ll destroy it for you.”
She bit her lower lip. “Okay.”
“Lacey…” Chase tried to interject again.
“That’s enough, Chase,” Rex said grimly. “Brian, take Lacey to your room and get what needs to be done out of the way.”
Chapter Eleven
Rex
“I’m not going to let you use her,” Chase hissed. “Not this way. Sex is one thing, but this is a betrayal. Plain and simple.”
Rex calmed himself inwardly as he prepared to deal with this latest tantrum. Chase was an idealist. Always had been. He wanted to be the good guy even when the ‘good guy’ was just a naive cartoon. It had been a lot easier when they were in the military and orders were orders. Nobody questioned him then. Now they had a lot more leeway for pushback.
“We’re already using her,” Rex said. “Besides, the information she has is information several other people died collecting. It means something. It shouldn’t be deleted just because she loses her nerve.”
“It means a payment to your bank account,” Chase pointed out.
“It means a payment to all our bank accounts. It means Lacey gets to live. You think the people who are after her are just going to shake her hand and say thanks for deleting their data? No. They’re cleaning up. They’ll take her out with the rest of the trash. We’re doing what’s best for her.”
<
br /> Chase lifted his chin in a way that did not bode well. “You’re lying to her, and I won’t do that.”
“Yes, you will,” Rex said, his voice hard and steely. “You’ll do it because I’m damn well ordering you to, and because it’s what’s best for all of us.”
“You could just tell her…”
“And then I’d have to have two irritating conversations with mouthy subordinates instead of just one.” Rex could hear the strain in his own voice. The brutal part of him, the part he kept well in check, was crying out to lay a beating on these whelps who dared question him.
Chase ground his teeth and glared at him with a mutinous gaze, but Rex knew damn well Chase would follow orders when it came down to it.
“You wanted our help on this.” Rex softened his voice with some effort. “It comes at a price.”
“And that price is using her sexually and then lying to her.”
“Still better than her being tortured and killed, no? She’s made no objections to our arrangement. I think she likes it. She’s exactly the sort of girl who enjoys being used by men.”
Chase clenched his fists. The threat of violence was in the air between them. Rex knew he should be de-escalating this, but there was no way to do that without being bluntly honest.
“She’s no pure princess, Chase. She’s a dirty little slut at heart. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with using a girl as nature intended.”
“One more fucking word…” Chase growled.
“And what? You’re going to break my nose too? Shall we all just break each other’s noses over her?” Rex’s voice was borderline mocking. “I know this doesn’t suit you, Chase. I know you’d prefer to play house with her, but we don’t have that luxury, and you know what else? She’d eat you alive if you tried.”
“What do you mean?” Chase looked more confused than angry.
“I mean she might seem small and scared now, but that girl in there is not an innocent little sweetheart. She’s got a soul like steel. Think about where we met her, Chase. She didn’t end up in a militia prison because she took a wrong turn in Caracas. She had been running with criminals for months before we got there. And now she’s mixed up in some serious political shit. There’s a trail of bodies, but she’s still alive. Don’t underestimate her just because she looks like Holly Homemaker. The truth is she’s a buck twenty of trouble, tits, and ass. The sooner you realize that, the better.”