The Crime of Love 1

by Linda Price

  “I got him covered!” Red shouted, then aimed at Gray. To me he shouted, “Stay where you are, Paige!”

  I didn’t think I could have moved if I wanted to—shock and fear were running hot in my veins, and I was shaking all over as Mac lunged at the limo.

  “No, Mac, let’s just go,” I screamed.

  “Gotta nail the son of a bitch while I can,” Mac spat, wrenching open the door.

  I stood there in the blistering heat, tears rolling down my cheeks, and said a quick, silent prayer to keep Mac safe. All around me, men were bleeding, moaning on the burning pavement, and inside the limo were the sounds of a struggle—and then more shots!

  I screamed again, my knees buckling, but Red was somehow right behind me, grabbing a hold of me. “It’s okay,” he promised, but I didn’t know, I had to be sure…

  And then one of Mac’s legs appeared in the door of the limo. He was coming out—and he was dragging Kirk with him.

  Chapter Nine

  I don’t know what I was expecting—a madman, a beast, something indescribably evil? But as Mac straightened up and pulled Kirk to his feet, I gasped. It wasn’t Kirk, whoever he actually was—it was my father.

  I must have wobbled, because the next thing I knew Red was propping me up again, which couldn’t have been easy since he still had a gun trained on Gray, who was flat against the warehouse, shaking his head. Disbelief and betrayal were making me dizzy. My father? This didn’t make any sense.

  “Dad? What are you doing here?” I managed.

  “Goddamn it, if you’d just held up your end of the bargain, none of this would have happened,” Dad muttered to Mac, who had one hand firmly around Dad’s upper arm and the gun in his other. My father was bent over, clasping his bleeding kneecap, and as I stood there gaping, he groaned with pain.

  For a moment, I thought I was going to throw up. It was all so unbelievable, as if I’d walked out of one nightmare and straight into another. I barely noticed as Red let go of me and stalked toward Gray, tying his hands behind his back and stuffing a rag in his mouth.

  Mac caught my eye, concern creasing his brows. “Paige, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s over.”

  He had no idea. Mac didn’t recognize him, and who would ever suspect my own father was the one who had hired him?

  The fury inside me boiled over. “You did this? You arranged to have me kidnapped?” I yelled.

  Red let Gray drop to his knees, darting over to grab me again before I could lunge at my father. Mac’s gaze had sharpened into something dangerous.

  “Paige, is that your…he looks just like…” he said, and my father winced as the gun hovered closer to his face.

  “Whoa.” Red’s grip on my arm loosened. “That’s your father?”

  Mac let go of my father’s arm, and he dropped to his good knee with a pained grunt. “Davis Thompson. Jesus Christ, it is you,” he said, peering at my father’s face. “I remember you from the media coverage. Holy shit! They were interviewing you about your missing daughter, you sick fuck!”

  “But why would he…” I whispered, my head reeling from the confusion.

  “Hmm,” Red said, taking a step closer, waving his own gun. “You’re in the middle of some nasty custody fight, last I heard.”

  “All those corporate espionage jobs I’ve done for you, it’s all starting to add up,” Mac added. His tone was flat, hard, an icy rage making each word brittle and sharp. “It was all for Thompson Media, wasn’t it? Even if it meant blackmail. But this…this is as low as a man can go, you scum. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  It came to me in a flash, my father’s image plastered all over the news, pleading to get his little girl back safe. All those headlines screaming “Family Man” and “Anguished Father,” they were all designed for one reason—to sway the public’s opinion of him in the custody trial.

  “And you were going to set me up for it, weren’t you?” Mac continued, kneeling now so that he was eye to eye with my dad, who flinched away from him every time he moved. “You said it was no big deal, it was between you and Thompson, and I was just supposed to keep Paige safe and hidden for a few days, right, Kirk? And you lied—you were planning to throw me to the wolves from the start! You called the fucking police!”

  “Please! You don’t understand,” Dad started, and I held up my hand.

  “Don’t even fucking start.” I was shaking, the hand held out in front of me trembling, but I couldn’t stop. “There’s no excuse for this. You may own a media empire, but you can’t actually create news just to protect your reputation. You put me in danger to save yourself! What kind of man does that to his child?”

  “Paige, you’ve got to give me a chance here,” Dad said, but I could see the gears working in his head as he tried to decide on a way to spin this that would get him off the hook. My own father was trying to snow me.

  “I cannot believe you did that. Everything I thought was true turned out to be false,” I said quietly. “I can never forgive you for that.”

  “No one was going to hang for this,” he insisted, raising his voice as I looked away. “I needed to make my point in the media, but I was never going to sell Mac out, I was going to set him up as the man who found you and brought you home. I had a reward planned. It was supposed to be simple, Paige. I’d used Mac before, I knew he would never hurt you.”

  “There are a lot of ways to hurt someone, you sick fuck,” Mac said, his voice as cold as ice. “Now shut up before I shut you up.”

  And dad…he actually rolled his eyes. Like he wasn’t the one bleeding on the ground with a gun pointed at his head, like he was still the one in charge of this horrifying mess. It undid me, watching that, knowing how little he actually cared about me, and what I was feeling. How terrified I would have been experiencing all that I have in the last two days. The more I thought about it the more I realized I didn’t know this man at all. And what made waters worse was coming to the realization that he probably didn’t love me at all. Unless it was some kind of sick, perverted love. He loved himself and his empire, no one else.

  And beneath the rage and betrayal, what I was feeling was love, for Mac. He looked like a fierce avenging angel, standing there glowering at my father for what he’d put me through, and when he raised his eyes to look at me, his expression softened so quickly, so completely, that I nearly wobbled again.

  I loved him so much in that moment. It almost hurt. He wasn’t perfect, but I knew right then that he would never hurt me the way my father had. “Mac,” I said, and realized I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. There were too many things I wanted to tell him all at once.

  “It’s your call here, Paige.” His jaw was set stiffly again, and I realized he was waiting for me to make a choice. Would other girls have gone home after all that? Maybe. I wasn’t one of them.

  “I don’t care what you tell the media or the police,” I said to my father, “but I’m not ever coming home again. So much for your precious image as a family man, huh, Dad?”

  “You’re going to break your mother’s heart,” he spat out viciously. “Not to mention Teddy’s.”

  “I never said I wouldn’t see them again.” I looked him right in the eye as I said it, waiting for the flicker of fury I knew I would see there. “You don’t call the shots in my life anymore, dad. I do.”

  Red stepped in before my father could say another word, stuffing a scrap of cloth in his mouth as a makeshift gag, and hauling him to his feet before tying his hands behind his back. He could hardly stand, and the entire bottom half of his jeans was a mess of blood and grit, but I didn’t care. He deserved it.

  As Red shuffled my father toward the warehouse, Mac stuck his gun in the waistband of his jeans and walked toward me. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, but as the tears started falling, I shook my head instead. “I don’t know.”

  When he put his arms around me, I let myself fall into him, burying my face in the soft warmth of his shirt.

  “What
ever you want,” he whispered into my hair. “Whatever you want, I’m here for you.”

  “You,” I said, raising my head to look at him. “I want you, Mac. I love you.”

  He crushed me into a hug so fierce it lifted me off the ground, and I hung on with my arms around his neck. “Angel eyes, I hope you know what you’re doing, sticking with me. After everything you’ve gone through, and have done to protect me, I don’t know how I can ever repay you or make this right.”

  “Love me,” I said, staring into his eyes, deep blues now filled with emotion. “Just love me.”

  “Paige, I’ve never known what true love is,” he said, kissing me again. “But I’m yours if you want me. I’ll do my best to provide the love that you need. And I’ll learn. Fuck, I will learn.”

  I paused for a few moments.

  “You okay?” he finally asked. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, this is just… hard for me.”

  “It didn’t start out this way for us but ever since you’ve come clean, you’ve been honest with me. And I appreciate you remaining that way now. I’ll give you the time you need. A chance at love with you is better than a lifetime of empty guarantees elsewhere.”

  He gave me a long kiss.

  ~

  I hated to let go of him, but he and Red had to figure out our next steps. I retreated to one of the SUVs to sit in the air-conditioning while they discussed what to do with the men who were now our captives. I was so exhausted I dozed off for a little while. In my dream, Mac was racing me toward the surf on a wide open beach somewhere, laughing and shirtless, and Teddy was not far behind him.

  I woke up smiling when Mac smoothed a hand down my arm.

  “I think we’re set,” he said, leaning into the car to kiss my forehead. “Do you want to say goodbye?”

  “I think I’ve said enough to my father to last for quite a while,” I told him, ignoring the pang of disloyalty in my gut. It was natural, I guessed, but my father didn’t deserve loyalty or love from me anymore.

  “They’re all locked inside,” Mac explained, gesturing at the warehouse. “Red confiscated their phones and weapons, and once we’re safely out of the area, he’ll call the police. No one’s going to die of blood loss or dehydration.”

  I nodded, getting out of the SUV when he took my hand, and letting him lead me to another one. Red was standing beside it, arms folded over his chest, a grim smile on his face.

  “You holding up okay, little lady?” he asked, and I nodded at him, too. “Well, Mac here is going to take good care of you, I promise you that,” he added.

  “Oh, I know he will.” I managed a laugh. “And I’m going to take excellent care of him. We’ll find your mom,” I added, nodding confidently.

  Mac looped an arm around me, pulling me close so he could kiss the top of my head. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Red had more cash stashed at his place, and after we picked it up, Mac said, “We should head south this time.”

  “Mexico?”

  “Some sun and surf sound very good to me, especially with you,” he said, and I leaned over to kiss his cheek. “But you’re signing up for a dangerous life. It’s not going to be barbecues and soccer games, you know.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, hoping he could see the love in my eyes. “I love you, Mac Ryan, and I want to spend my life with you, no matter what we do. You make me feel alive. And I’m going to prove to you that you’re worthy of love, even if it takes forever. I believe in you.”

  He glanced at me, and I saw his throat working as he fought back a tear. “I’m lucky to have found you, Paige. So lucky.”

  For a moment we just looked at each other, too many emotions to name hanging thick in the air, and then I leaned over and poked him playfully, wanting to lighten the mood.

  “Maybe we can only con bad guys,” I suggested. “And con master villains out of their money to do good.”

  In that moment I was sure there was nothing we couldn’t do if we put our minds to it. Us running from the law, my Dad’s criminal activities, it all seemed like quite a mouthful. But I was confident that sooner or later Mac and I would figure it out. And on some level the thrill of running away from it all and not knowing what the next day would bring excited me like nothing else.

  We were going to have to elude the police for a while longer, and decide where to hole up, but even so, it sounded good to me. We were in this together now, and every moment we laughed was precious, despite the fact that we were fugitives. Or maybe that fact made a whole thing just a little bit more thrilling.

  ~

  We’d been on the road for five or six hours when Mac’s phone buzzed. “It’s probably Red,” he said, picking it up. “Hello?”

  I gazed out the window, imagining the clear blue sky over the beach in my dream—picturing Mac rising from the surf dripping wet, and looking delicious enough to eat—when Mac said tightly, “Say that again. Hello? Hello?”

  I glanced at him in confusion. “What’s wrong? Who was it?”

  He stared at me, brows knotted in concern, and then sped up. “It’s about my mother.”

  Our adventure wasn’t over yet. In fact, it was only just beginning.