by Dale Mayer
Cain’s Cross
Bullard’s Battle
Book #2
Dale Mayer
Books in This Series:
Ryland’s Reach, Book 1
Cain’s Cross, Book 2
Eton’s Escape, Book 3
Garret’s Gambit, Book 4
Kano’s Keep, Book 5
Fallon’s Flaw, Book 6
Quinn’s Quest, Book 7
Bullard’s Beauty, Book 8
Bullard’s Best, Book 9
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
About Eton’s Escape
Excerpt from Damon’s Deal
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
Welcome to a new stand-alone but interconnected series from Dale Mayer. This is Bullard’s story—and that of his team’s. All raw, rough, incredibly capable men who have one goal: to find out who was behind the attack on their leader, before the attacker, or attackers, return to finish the job.
Stay tuned for more nonstop action as the men narrow down their suspects … and find a way to let love back into their own empty lives.
Cain—hearing a killer’s last words, “You’re next,”—knows his time is running out, not only for him but for his entire team. As members of his team search for the still missing Bullard in the ocean, Cain has focused on tracking the killer’s history, hopefully to lead to the madman after them all. A trip to Sicily brings more information to light but also more puzzles to sort out. And an unexpected light in Cain’s life.
When Petra picks up the two men at the airport, she has no idea how fast her personal life is about to unravel. Not only do these men bring up old terrible memories but they also shine a light on an ugly corner of town. People she avoids at all costs.
Still she can’t afford to dwell on the past, as her present blows up. With Cain and Eton at her side, they’re all trying to stay alive, as the bodies drop around them.
Chapter 1
It had been several weeks since the shooting at the museum that had sent Ryland back to the hospital. Now that he was safely out at sea with Tabi and enjoying his life, Eton Duram and Cain Bestrow had gone dark, hiding, while they figured out what in the hell they would do next. They knew it was all about gathering intel at this point, and, since they had a solid plan, it was time to make a move.
But just because Cain had plans in mind didn’t mean their opponents didn’t have plans of their own. Cain couldn’t forget the last words of one of the gunmen they’d taken out at the art gallery with Ryland.
“Cain, you’re next.”
So not only had Green’s goons known who Ryland was, they’d also known who Cain was, and the gunmen had made it very clear that killing Bullard was part of their plan. So, taking him out—along with the rest of the team—was all part and parcel of the same deal. Cain still had no word on Bullard, after his plane had been downed, dumping him and Ryland and Garret in the ocean. It ate at Cain to think of that strong and majestic man out there suffering.
Bullard would deal with it in his usual stoic way, but he would also know that his team would be looking for him. Even now four of them still went up and down the coast, checking the small islands, speaking to the local fishermen and talking to the natives to ensure that nobody had seen Bullard or had picked him up accidentally. Or picked him up and helped him but hadn’t told the authorities, for whatever reason. Cain had absolutely no proof that Bullard had been picked up and knew it was all too likely he’d become fish food, but that was something impossible to reconcile with a six-foot-six 260-pound powerhouse.
But everybody died sometime, even Bullard.
Cain stood here, staring out the window of the Swiss chalet high up in the Alps; not a place most people expected him to go, but he needed to go underground, and here he was. Garret was at least awake now; not necessarily doing very well, but he was awake and aware. It had taken him days, but, once he’d come out of the coma, everything had seemed to go so much easier in Garret’s recovery. He’d started healing much faster too. It would be at least a couple weeks before he was well enough to join the fight, but he was eager, willing, and actually pissed off at being held back. Yet he had agreed to recuperate, as was Ryland, for the time being.
In the meantime, Garret was in the hospital, waiting for the swelling on his brain to stabilize. He had also suffered several other fractures, and they needed to heal up as well. A few more days and he could leave the hospital and recuperate elsewhere. So, while Garret and Ryland recovered from their injuries, Cain had Eton at his side.
He turned to see his old friend with spreadsheets all over the place. “You and your spreadsheets,” Cain said, shaking his head.
“I could say the same about you and your blueprints, you know?” Eton shook his head.
“At least my paperwork gets us in and out of buildings.”
“And mine is getting us in and out of bank accounts,” Eton said, laughing.
“Have to give you that one,” Cain muttered because that’s what Eton was doing—sorting money, seeing who was moving money where.
They had tracked down as many of the gunmen involved in Ryland’s case as they could. Then they had tracked the money trail. And definitely money had been flowing. When Green—the guy who set up the big finale in the museum–went down, his life had become an open book, and the team had gone through it with a fine-tooth comb, looking at every account and connection to see how he was hired, who did it, and why.
It was the why that kept poking at the team because, without a why, none of the rest of it made any sense. They were just so close but couldn’t find anything they could hold on to. They had plenty of old cases that gave them a big list of suspects. They had again sorted through the initial nineteen cases with the most likely perps—minus the five dead and the one in a coma—where they thought someone might have viable reasons, resources, and the means to come after Bullard and his team. Now they’d whittled those thirteen cases down to seven.
The father who’d lost his daughter on one of Bullard’s missions was one of the possible suspects. Particularly since two of his men had come to work for Bullard for a time and then went back to working with the father—as if checking out Bullard’s team for its weaknesses and strengths, collecting intel for their boss. So, there was always a chance the mastermind behind this attack on Bullard and his team was this father, who sought vengeance for the death of his daughter by kidnappers. Unfortunately Bullard’s team had arrived too late to save her. Cain and Eton had finally located the father, named Groner, and he currently lived just outside of Dubai.
But where was he at any other time? Who knew? His face was a permanent fixture associated with the media company he handled. The problem was the timing. It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense why he would do this now. It was one thing to wait for an opportunity, but it was another thing to choose an opportunity this far down the road. It had been at least one year ago since his daughter had died in captivity. Maybe even longer than that. It was amazing how time flew by when you were having fun. And since when did visiting Ice and Levi constitute a weakness or provide the opportunity for an attack?
Because Bullard flew all over the place. Or did someo
ne just happen to have contacts in Houston that Groner could pull from? Or even anywhere in America actually because Houston was just another one of a zillion mega-airports around the world.
But small private planes didn’t go in through the same areas as the big planes even in the same airports. The small planes always had their separate hangars and small runways to get in and out, making it a little easier for people to come and sabotage a seemingly innocuous flight. It also made these smaller planes easier to find, as often less security was involved, and that was one of the things that blew Cain away. If someone would spend that kind of money on a private plane, wouldn’t it make sense to have sufficient security around to protect it? But typically there wasn’t. The big airports were always looking for terrorists and people smuggling drugs in and out. But, for the small private planes, it just wasn’t the same, and that fact was a reality Cain and his team had come to accept. Now, as Cain sat here in the chalet, overlooking the mountains all around him, he awaited answers.
Answers that weren’t coming.
“Are you ready to leave?” Eton asked.
“I was ready to leave two days ago,” Cain bit off. “You know we’re waiting for answers.”
“I don’t think we’ll find them here,” Eton said casually.
“We’re obviously not finding them at all,” Cain said and turned to glare at his buddy. “Anytime you think you have a better idea, let me know.”
“I think we should go on the offensive,” Eton said.
“And how will we do that?” he asked, his stance spread slightly wider.
“Not sure, but I still think it’s time. We need to move.”
“As soon as we get the answers.”
“They won’t tell us anything,” Eton said easily. He got up, stretched his arms, reaching toward the massive beams above.
“Sicily?”
“It’s the last known place for this Green guy—or at least his two dead goons, Chico and that other guy,” Eton replied.
“And yet,” Cain said, “it doesn’t tell us anything.”
“We know nobody’s been seen around or going into Chico’s apartment lately. We know that the local authorities don’t have a criminal file on him. We know that he has family there. And in France.”
“So we’ll track down this Chico’s lifestyle?”
“We’ve done what we can online,” Eton said. “Now it’s time to pound on a few doors.” Just then Eton’s phone rang. “Bingo.” He picked it up, smiled, and said, “What have you got for me?” He knew that, on their team, everybody was pulling in as much information as they could.
The man on the phone replied, “Ticket info has been sent to you. Pedro will pick you up at the airport.”
“Fine. And then what?” Eton asked.
“You’ve been booked into a small bed-and-breakfast at the edge of town,” he said. “The family has connections to your target.” With that, he hung up.
“Good enough,” Eton said, turning to Cain. “We have a place to stay in Sicily, and it’s with a family related, well, connected to our target, Chico.”
At that, Cain raised his eyebrows. “Is that wise?”
“Depends on whether they know why we’re there or not,” he said cheerfully. “But being strangers is a good way to get to know the area, and the hosts of those B&B places always try to be friendly.”
“Until they find out you killed their family member,” Cain said.
Eton looked at him, laughed, and said, “Well, there is that.”
“And who’s this Pedro character?”
“No clue,” Eton said. “We’ll find out.”
Cain walked to where his bag was, ready to go as it had been every morning. While they flew out, the beds at the B&B would need to be changed, so their rooms wouldn’t be ready right away. Meanwhile Cain also had a stack of paperwork to deal with. He stood with his phone on Camera mode and quickly took photographs of everything he needed, then put the rest into the fireplace and lit a match to it.
“Hey, not everybody has your photographic memory, you know?” Eton grumbled.
“You can keep your spreadsheets and bring them with us,” he said, “but we can’t afford to have these blueprints found.”
“And yet, to a layperson, they’re just blueprints,” Eton said. “Nothing special.”
“But, to a pro, they would lead them straight to Chico’s apartment or his family’s home in Sicily and then to us. But I still like to have my hands on any building blueprints, to help with my photographic memory,” Cain said. As soon as all the paperwork had burned up, he turned toward Eton. “You ready?”
“Always,” he said. “Let’s go see who this Pedro is.”
*
Petra Mirkonoc stood at the edge of the airport with a sign in her hand, wondering how, once again, she’d been conned by her aunt into picking up strangers for the bed-and-breakfast. Ever since Airbnb had started, her aunt and uncle had the idea that they could make more money with a bed-and-breakfast than they did from her uncle’s job. And they were right; they probably could. But it should be one of them standing at the airport with this sign right now, not Petra.
She didn’t like picking up complete strangers, but thankfully this wasn’t something she did normally. She would much rather be at the hospital in the labs, where she belonged. Instead, here she was, standing at the airport with a stupid sign. She studied the names: Cain and Eton.
They were very strange names to her. These were American visitors, but these didn’t sound like any traditional American names she had ever heard of.
Just then the airport door opened, and a flood of people rushed out. She held up the sign and called out, “Cain and Eton.”
Nobody turned to look at her. She groaned. It was typical for her to have people who didn’t realize they had a ride ready and waiting. Just as she was about to call out again, two men appeared, one on either side of her, almost pinning her in place. Not really, not intentionally, but they were so big that she felt hemmed in. Both stared at her with an intensity that had her gasping.
“Did you call for Cain and Eton?” the first man asked quietly.
She sucked in her breath, straightened, and said, “Yes. I’m from Pedro’s B&B.”
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Cain. This is Eton.”
“Hi,” she said, feeling a little better. She opened the trunk of her car and put the sign inside. Then she turned and held out her hand. “I’m Petra.”
Cain stopped and cocked his head. “It’s your bed-and-breakfast?”
“No,” she said. “My uncle is Pedro. I am Petra—with a T.”
“Okay, good,” he said. He motioned at the car. “Do you want us in the back seat or—”
“Anywhere you like,” she said, with a smile. “Makes no difference to me. Anything to make you comfortable.”
Cain took the front seat, while Eton slipped into the back, both opting to retain their bags. Cain noticed her eyebrows raised at that; so clearly she was observant. The car was a nice Audi, not something he would have expected a bed-and-breakfast to own. “Nice car,” he said.
She looked at him briefly, then nodded and said, “It’s mine. It doesn’t belong to the bed-and-breakfast.”
“Well, thanks for picking us up,” he said.
It appeared that he was at least attempting to be friendly, but there was something about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it—arrogance maybe. Just a sense of power around him that she didn’t quite understand. She was forced to meet many strangers because of the bed-and-breakfast. It was one of the reasons she didn’t hang around there more than necessary because she didn’t enjoy the steady stream of unknown visitors. She enjoyed the privacy that came with her own place and not having to worry about others being there.
She didn’t know whether she would feel better or worse about having these two men in the house. She told herself it depended on which side of the equation they sat on—figuring they were definitely people who had chosen a side. But she an
d her research work were all about the gray areas, thinking outside the box.
As she pulled into traffic, she said, “We’ll be about fifteen minutes getting home.”
“Do you live there too?”
“Oh no,” she said. “I live in the village, but I’m doing this run for my aunt and uncle.”
“Thank you again,” he said, then fell silent.
But even his silence spoke volumes. She glanced in the rearview mirror to study the other man. He had the same hard look to him. She frowned, wondering just what was going on with them. “So, you guys here for a holiday?” she ventured.
“No,” said the guy in the back seat, “mostly business.”
She nodded but didn’t quite know what to add. “What kind of business are you in?”
“Security,” he added.
That made sense. They both looked well past the stage of mere security guards, but maybe Secret Service or something like that. That power and sense of self-assurance again. Their movements were like mountain lions on the hunt.
So that’s what it was, she thought to herself. They were intense. Like predators. She wasn’t prey in this instance but hoped to God she never found herself on the other end of that intensity. “Interesting,” she said. “That will be a first at the bed-and-breakfast.”
“What’s the clientele normally like?” asked the guy sitting beside her.
Although he smiled, there was something uneasy about it. She glanced at him nervously, then moved her gaze back to the road. The traffic was on the mild side now, but it was still almost noon, so it would grow busier getting through the normal shopping and lunch hour. “Normally tourists wanting to spend a week or so,” she finally answered.
“Hmm.”
And again, nothing. She shook her head, checked both ways, and darted through an intersection. “The roads can be a little crazy,” she admitted. “And the drivers are definitely not the most mild-mannered, easy people around.”
“Interesting,” said the man behind her. “We’re used to crazy drivers though.”