Rogue (Phoenix Rising)

by Brynley Blake

  “She’s my wife.” The impossible phrase, although a lie, sounds oddly right. “I’m afraid something happened to her. Please, if you know anything at all, tell me.” I press a twenty-dollar bill into his hand.

  “I didn’t see anything,” he asserts. But I can see in his eyes that there’s more that he’s not saying. I try to hand him another twenty, and although he looks at it, he makes no move to take it.

  “I don’t want any trouble. I don’t see things that don’t concern me.”

  He frowns as a young woman appears in the doorway and says, “Father, has Johann come back?”

  “Go inside,” he scolds before turning back to me. “If there was a woman, how do I know you are her husband?”

  He’s seen her! I stumble over my words, trying to convince him so he’ll tell me what he knows. “Her name is McKenzie. She’s about five foot seven, soulful blue eyes, so beautiful it makes your heart hurt. If someone was forcing her, she might have not fought much—she tends to get panic attacks, and she thinks she’s not brave, but she’s really the strongest and most fucking amazing woman in the world.”

  The man is staring at me, and I realize that none of this proves anything. I rack my brain, trying to think of something that will convince him. “She was wearing an anklet I gave her. It had a padlock and a key on it. I got it for her so she’d remember she belongs to me, but dammit, she’s the one who owns me, and if anything happened to her…” Fuck. I’m babbling again. “Please! You have to believe me. I’m afraid she’s in danger, and I have to get to her.”

  “I believe you,” he says with a small smile. “No one talks about a woman like that unless he loves her.”

  I don’t have time to consider his words. “What happened? Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. My son, Johann, came running inside and told me two men had kidnapped an American girl and were putting her into the trunk of a car.”

  “What kind of car? Did you get the license plate?” I fire off questions, trying to ignore the fingers of dread that are squeezing my heart.

  He shakes his head. “I have a family. I can’t get involved.” He studies me intently, and his gaze softens. “But I also have a wife and daughter, and I can’t stand by and do nothing. I told Johann to follow them on his moped and find out where they took her. Then we will call the authorities and let them handle it.”

  “There’s no need to call the authorities,” I say, my voice steely. “I’ll handle it. Where is your son?”

  “He’s not back yet. You’ll have to wait.”

  The minutes pass interminably slowly. Finally, a boy of about sixteen rides up on a beat-up moped. He glances from me to his dad.

  “It’s okay. This is the woman’s husband. Where is she?”

  “They took her to the Promenade Hotel. There were two men. Her wrists were tied and she was blindfolded. She was struggling to get away.”

  I feel like I’ve just been stabbed in the gut.

  “Do you have a car?” I ask the man.

  He nods cautiously. I pull out five one-hundred-dollar bills and hand them to him. “I’ll see that it gets back to you.”

  He nods again. “Johann, go get the car keys.”

  A few minutes later, I’m driving down the crowded streets of Tawua like a bat out of hell, hoping I’m not too late. Hoping that this time, things will be different. I barely come to a stop in front of the hotel, parking in a fire lane as I scramble out of the car. At this point, every second counts.

  And then, like an answer to my prayer, I see her. She’s walking with a man in a suit, and he’s holding her elbow as he guides her out of the hotel. As Johann said, she’s blindfolded and her wrists are bound, but both the blindfold and the scarf look like they came in some Fifty Shades kinky fun pack. WTF? I look closer. There’s a gun rammed into her side. It’s military grade and very real.

  I crouch down behind the parked car, carefully planning my move. I’ve only got one chance, and I’m well aware of the fact that McKenzie will end up with a bullet in her if I fuck up.

  Doubt and misgivings crowd into my head, and suddenly I’m in the mountains of Mexico again, when one wrong move on my part meant the people I loved most died. But I can’t stay in the past anymore. It’s time to cross the threshold.

  I see a rock on the sidewalk and pick it up, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Right as they pass by me, so close enough that I can smell McKenzie’s clean, sunshiny scent, I aim and throw it, hitting the man squarely in the back. He stops. I lunge forward from behind, catching the man in a headlock as I knock his wrist down, aiming the gun away from McKenzie.

  But this is no street thug. He’s highly trained in martial arts and, I’ll hazard a guess, military combat, and we each struggle to gain control. But I have the element of surprise on my side, and I squeeze his throat with my arm as I use my body weight to torque his wrist, bending it as I push the gun down. I can hear the sickening snap of his finger, which is on the trigger, as it breaks. But he’s not about to give up. Using advanced techniques that you only get in the special forces or a lifelong career as an MMA fighter, he fights back, ultimately managing to wrench out of my grasp.

  McKenzie’s several feet away from him now, looking disoriented, and I have a choice. I can go after him in a fight I may or may not win and possibly take him out, or I can save her. It’s a no-brainer. I deliver a swift kick to the back of his knees, and he crumples to the ground as the gun goes skittering across the sidewalk. Without hesitating, I scoop McKenzie up in my arms, unceremoniously tossing her into the passenger seat of the car, and screech away, leaving behind the man who is trying to kill her.

  After a few minutes, I risk a glance over at her. She’s sitting rigidly in the seat next me, and I realize she probably has no idea where she is or who she’s with. “I’ve got you, baby. It’s me.”

  I rest my hand on her thigh, but she doesn’t move or even acknowledge me. If anything, she stiffens more. She looks like she might crack in half. She must be in shock.

  Fuck! The blindfold. I lean over and pull it off. She regards me coolly, her eyes shuttered. What the hell happened to her in the hour and a half that she was missing?

  “Hang in there, baby. We’re going to get somewhere safe, and then we’ll figure out what to do next. I don’t want to stop to cut off the zip ties until I know no one’s following us. Okay?”

  She nods mutely.

  I drive around, turning and backtracking enough to make sure we’re not being followed, before stopping at Maliau Basin, a pristine jungle hideout in the wilderness which a quick Google search while I drove says is a land of many waterfalls, high cliffs, and nothing but nature. And consequently, the perfect place to make sure McKenzie’s okay and for us to figure out our next move. I drive the Filipino man’s truck through the brush until we come to a private clearing. I kill the engine and turn to McKenzie.

  “If you’re going to kill me, just go ahead and get it over with,” she says woodenly.

  “Why the hell would I want to kill you?” Exasperation creeps into my voice. “My God, McKenzie, I love you.” I hadn’t intended to say that, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize they’re true.

  “You don’t use people you love. Or lie to them. You don’t have to pretend anymore. I know who you really are.”

  Fingers of dread grip my freshly opened heart. The only way she could know who I am is if El Gato sent someone to kidnap her, and somehow let it slip that I worked for him. Which means he lied to me about not sending someone after McKenzie.

  “That motherfucker! I made it clear to El Gato that if he so much as lifted a finger against you, we didn’t have a deal.”

  “So, you don’t deny you work for him?”

  I sigh. “I’ve been working for him for three years, but it’s not what you think.”

  The hurt I see in her eyes will haunt me until the day I die. “Really? I’ll tell you exactly what I think. No…what I know. It somehow looked like my brother
sold your boss some guns, but he died before they were delivered, and you or he or both of you think that Liam’s bucket list is going to help you find them.”

  “It didn’t just look like your brother sold El Gato a shitload of guns,” I correct. “I brokered the deal with him.”

  That stops her cold. “You met Liam?”

  I nod. “You’re more like him than you think.”

  She shakes her head in denial, but I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t think they’re similar or she doesn’t believe he sold the guns. Either way, she has her brother on some sort of pedestal, and hearing the truth about him must hurt.

  “I’m sure he had his reasons,” I say. “We all do. But there’s no doubt he sold the guns to El Gato.” I lift my hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, and she flinches.

  “For fuck’s sake, McKenzie. You can’t really think I would hurt you.”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” she says, her voice stony, but I can hear the hurt behind it, and it cuts me like a knife.

  “If I really wanted to kill you, I had ample opportunity. I’ve had you bound spread-eagled to the bed and tied to the mast of my boat, naked and vulnerable. You have been at my complete and utter mercy more than a few times. No one was there but the two of us. No one would have known what happened if you had disappeared.”

  She shifts in the seat, her legs pressing together. “But your job was to find out what I know and lead you to the guns.” It’s a statement, not a question, and I don’t deny it.

  “It was. But that doesn’t mean that what happened between us wasn’t real.”

  “I’m sure it was nice to have a little fuck toy to entertain you during the journey. And I was stupid enough to fall for it. To fall for you.”

  I try to remember she’s feeling betrayed and hurting, but I’m seething at her comment. “When this is all over, I’m going to spank your ass for that comment. How dare you say that about yourself? What you gave to me was beautiful and sacred, and I won’t have you marring that because you’re hurt. Even if it’s understandable.

  “You were never just a fuck, McKenzie. God knows I tried so hard to resist you. At the hotel in Vegas, on the boat…” I scrape a hand over my face. “And then I couldn’t anymore. You were hellbent and determined to get fucked, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand around and watch another man take what the universe was all but shouting at me was mine. And make no mistake, McKenzie, you are mine. You were mine since the day I laid eyes on you, and my soul said, ‘She’s the one.’”

  Her sharp intake of breath reminds me of that moment when I hold her on the edge of orgasm, right before she tumbles over, but this time, it’s even sweeter. Because this time, it means I have a chance.

  “Initially, yes, you were the target. I was supposed to earn your trust so you’d lead me to the guns. But then I fell for you, and it became about us, too, not just the guns. Although I initially needed you to lead me to the guns, after a while I just needed you—your soft skin against mine, your smile, the way you trust me with your body and your heart and your soul.”

  Her eyes are so expressive they reveal her every thought, and I can tell she wants to believe me, but she has too many doubts. I have to convince her. It suddenly has become the most important thing I’ve ever done. I don’t want to lose her. Even if it means walking away from everything I’ve worked toward since Sarah and Maggie were killed.

  “I want you, McKenzie. Not a list, not the guns, not even revenge anymore. Just you.”

  “But you work for a drug cartel.”

  Her hands are still tied, and the blindfold lies on the seat between us. I pick it up and slowly place it over her eyes again. “I want you to remember the night at the hotel on Pangulasian Island. You were bound and blindfolded, just like you are now, and when I traced your skin with a chopstick, you freaked out and thought it was knife. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes, and I get that was a mindfuck, Noah. But this is different. This is a heartfuck.” Her voice breaks, and she fights to regain her composure. “I fell in love with you, dammit. I trusted you. I gave myself to you in every way possible, and you used me.” I hate like hell that I’ve hurt her, but I can’t squelch the joy bubbling inside me at hearing her say she loves me.

  “What did I tell you that night?”

  She’s silent.

  “Tell me, baby,” I say in that I’m-not-to-be-fucked-with tone of voice, the one that usually makes her scamper to obey me, even as she gives me that tongue-in-cheek grin that says she’s on to me, but she’s not going to do anything about it because she likes giving me her power as much as I like taking it. But she’s not smiling now.

  “That I have to trust you, even when my mind is telling me not to.”

  “And?” I press.

  “That just because something seems to be one way doesn’t mean it’s true, and that I don’t always know what I think I know.” Her voice is a whisper. “Tell me, Noah. Tell me what I don’t know. I want to believe you, but there’s a lot of evidence that says I shouldn’t.”

  “I work for El Gato, but I also work for the American government. I’m an NCIS agent.”

  “What?”

  “After Sarah and Maggie died, the navy refused to send me back to Mexico to fight El Jefe and the drug cartel. But as far as I was concerned, if I couldn’t finish what I had started, then everything I had done, everything I had sacrificed, was meaningless. Sarah and Maggie would have died for nothing. El Jefe had taken everything—my love and sense of duty for my country, my confidence in my ability to protect and serve, my naive belief that I could make the world better, my wife and daughter. I had nothing left to live for except avenging the death of my family. I didn’t care that I’d go to jail or face criminal charges if I ever got caught. I didn’t care if I died fighting El Jefe, as long as he died, too.

  “As soon as my time was up with the SEALs, I quit and offered El Gato a deal. I promised if he’d help me, I’d take out El Jefe for him.”

  “You went rogue,” she murmurs.

  “I intended to, yes. Then my commander found out, or maybe he just suspected what I intended to do. The one time I ran into him after I’d signed on with NCIS, he said that’s what he would have done in my shoes.

  “NCIS offered me a position. I would divide my time between the States and Mexico, working undercover as part of El Gato’s organization, and investigate any acts of illegal activity by any military personnel, specifically illegal arms dealing. They made it clear that if I happened to have anything to do with El Gato eliminating the head of a rival drug cartel while working undercover for him, they’d turn a blind eye.” I shrug, even though I know she can’t see it. “Hell, the U.S. government wants Dominguez dead almost as much as I do. His cartel is responsible for millions of drugs trafficked into the U.S. every year. It was a win-win for them, and I got to stay in Mexico and take down the man who stole my life from me.”

  “Why didn’t Walker tell me you were NCIS?”

  Jealousy is a hot poker burning through my heart. “Who the hell is Walker?”

  “Walker was on Liam’s SEAL team. He was one of his best friends. He kidnapped me from the bus station. He figured out who you were and was trying to save me from you.”

  I feel like a six-ton weight has been lifted from my chest. The guy who kidnapped her was her friend; she hadn’t been in danger after all. The fact that he’s a SEAL explains a lot.

  “What I’m doing is extremely dangerous. If anyone in El Gato’s camp knew I was working for the U.S. government, I’d be dead faster than you can say ‘cocaine.’ My role with NCIS is highly classified for my own safety. And, of course, for the integrity of what I do for them.

  “I’m far from perfect, but I’m not the monster you think I am. And I never used you. I tried to stay in control with you, thinking it was best for both of us if I didn’t let you get too close, but you have owned my heart from the first time we met. And the more I get to know you, the deeper
I fall.

  “I didn’t mean to love you, but I did. I’ve been so careful to not let anyone close, but somehow you pushed past the barriers I erected and made me feel alive again. You healed the gaping hole Sarah’s and Maggie’s deaths left with your smile and your sense of humor and your courage. When you disappeared from the bus station and I realized you’d been kidnapped, my heart stopped. I’ve never been so afraid of losing someone. If you hadn’t been okay…” I trail off, unable to even fathom something happening to her.

  “I was also afraid that letting you into my life meant putting your life in danger, but as you said in the cave, the most dangerous thing of all is being afraid to live. And I realized you’re not Sarah. You’re braver and stronger and can hold your own. You’re more like your brother than you think you are. And no offense, sweetheart, but trouble seems to find you whether I’m involved in your life or not. I think your odds are better with me by your side.

  “I want all of you, McKenzie. I want to be the swell of the ocean that drives you higher than you ever dreamed possible and your safe harbor when you fall. Tell me you believe me.”

  I look into the face of the woman I love more than I ever could have dreamed imaginable, praying like I’ve never prayed before that she will give me the chance to deserve her love.

  Finally, she says, “I know you like me blindfolded and tied up, but there is nothing I want more right now than to see your face when you tell me you love me again.”

  My God, I love her. I lift the blindfold from her eyes. “Look at me.” Her steady blue gaze meets mine, and I know I’m about to live the rest of my life with my heart residing with someone else again. And I can’t wait.

  “I love you. And I want to spend every day of the rest of my life showing you just how much.”

  Chapter Twenty

  McKenzie

  “I love you, too.” My heart is overflowing with love for this man who has taken me places where I never dreamed I could go, whose steady and unwavering strength and love has finally set me free.