Beneath the Burn

by Pam Godwin

  The crowd rippled behind Jay. A moment later, his SUV pushed its way through. The passenger door opened and Edison reached out, pulling Jay inside.

  Where was Nathan? Charlee whirled, probing the sea of heads. No Nathan. Oh God, anyone of those heaving bodies could be a Craig. Her heart raced.

  Jay arched his back and screamed two syllables. The distance and the shrill of the fans drowned out his voice, but she felt it in the marrow of her soul. He was suffering, buried by his nightmares. She felt him say her name, so close no matter how far. She was there. She willed him to see her.

  The remaining bodyguards climbed in on the opposite side of the SUV. Tony pushed Jay into the seat and climbed in after him. As she reached for the door, he jerked his head in Charlee’s direction.

  Were they going to leave her? Yes. She swallowed. They couldn’t wait for her to reach them. Tony had clocked a gun on the roof. She was doing her job, getting Jay out of there. “I’m with you, Jay. I’m here,” she whispered.

  The door slammed shut, and the vehicle backed out toward the street. Her heart collided with her ribs. Caged by the crowd, she was powerless to get to him. She knew he was incapacitated by his guards, and more so by his nightmares. Would he come back for her?

  Women flung themselves on the hood and against the windows, but he was safe inside. Good. That was good. His security did the right thing, her need for him be damned.

  Suck it up. Jay was safe. She felt it in the slump of her shoulders and the looseness of her neck. She rolled her head back and glanced at the roof of her building. The hunkered shape was gone. Where was the sniper? Find Nathan.

  The mob of fans and photographers thinned, spreading out as they chased the SUV down the street.

  Heart pounding, face burning, she scrutinized the lingerers for blond hair, blue eyes, and a white button-up. Where the hell was he?

  A gentle hand cupped her shoulder from behind and traveled over her collarbones to settle on her other shoulder. Oh, Nathan. She wanted to sag against him. “We need to get out of here.”

  As she turned to face him, an unmoving figure caught her eye on the far side of the lot. Blond hair. White button-up. The man beside him held his hand beneath the cover of his jacket, pointing the bulge at Nathan.

  A shiver swept through her. She lowered her eyes to the hand on her shoulder. Pale. Manicured. Cold. Her heart stumbled and her lungs seized all the air in the sky.

  A chilling whisper snaked around her neck. “We’ll be out of here soon, so I can show you just how much I’ve missed you, beautiful girl.”

  40

  Charlee was an impulse away from stuffing Roy’s cold black heart with lead. The pistol at her lower back would do a bang up job, but her revenge would have to wait until she could assure Nathan’s safety.

  Two years of slavery. A combined seven years of running. He stole nine of her twenty-five years. And he stole Noah. The burn to retaliate pumped as naturally through her veins as her blood.

  She turned in the hook of his arm, rolling her hips forward to keep the bump of the gun concealed under the drape of her shirt, and looked up.

  The baseball cap, oversized leather jacket, and jeans made him difficult to recognize. Roy Oxford did not do casual, but his countenance was its usual color of death. Icy. Bloodless. She wasn’t sure he was even breathing as he stared at her. Then he opened his mouth. “How convenient that I was only a four hour flight away when your photos went viral.” He tsked. “I thought better of you than to keep company with a litter of lowbred musicians. Though I’m not surprised to find the traitor, Nathan Winslow, amongst the trash.”

  Furious dread balled up in her throat. Traitor meant he’d connected Nathan Winslow to Matthew Linden, which also meant Nathan had little chance of surviving the next few minutes.

  “Tell me, Charlee.” The mouthwash on his breath was as aseptic as his expression. “Has he stuck his dick in you?”

  Nathan’s odds of survival dropped to zero if Roy didn’t believe her. She raised her chin and held his suffocating gaze. “No. You murdered my one and only lover.” Her body pulsed with the desire to watch his eyes empty of life.

  One of the few dependable forces of good in her world stood a parking lot away with his cover blown and a bullet pointed at his gut. She was too far away to shoot the Craig threatening Nathan. And where there was one Craig, there would be more spread out around her, their guns trained from their hiding spots.

  Though the bulk of the crowd had scattered into the street to chase Jay’s SUV, some milled about as if waiting for him to return.

  Two police officers lingered at the entrance of the lot, directing the streams of foot and motor traffic. They glanced at Roy and turned their backs. So much for serving and protecting.

  “I am your only lover.” Roy pressed his nose against her cheek and inhaled. “It’s been three years and I can still smell you on the pillow next to mine. Three years, Charlee. My life is hollow without you.”

  She laughed and found her courage in the sharp intake of his breath. Found it and fortified it with the realization that this was the first time she faced him without shackles. The first time she could address him in any manner she wanted. “You’re not my lover. I’ve never loved you. You’re my abuser, my ball-and-chain, and you’ll be hollow when I’m standing over your dead body.”

  He dug his fingers into her shoulder and flicked his eyes over the bystanders. Oh, he wanted to beat the shit out of her.

  Weaving through the cars and people was the ever dependable Craig, Salvador. He strode toward an SUV and unlocked it. There were two other lone men prowling opposite corners of the lot with bulges under their jackets where shoulder and hip holsters would be.

  Nathan was too far away to read his eyes, but the set of his shoulders and raised chin said he was ready to prove there was no worse enemy than an avenging Marine. His handgun should’ve been in the inside-the-pant clip holster on his hip unless the Craig had confiscated it. Maybe he didn’t need it. Given his military combat training, he could disarm the gun aimed at him. She knew he was waiting for her to do something. For the right moment to take his eyes off her. What could she do?

  She swallowed, her throat dry. The smallest mistake would cost him his life. And any threat to Roy’s life would beckon the nearby cops.

  “Mr. Winslow is just an incentive for you to leave quietly.” He wrapped a hand around her throat, pinched her airflow, and dragged her to the vehicle. “If you draw attention, he’s dead.”

  If she got in that SUV, Nathan was dead. She thrashed against him and screamed with burning lungs. Nothing came out. No sound. No air. There were a few stares in her direction, but no one moved to intervene.

  He wrenched her through the vehicle’s open door by her neck. She grabbed the roof, bucked against him, and tried to make a scene.

  The Craigs corralled. Her fingers slipped. The agony from the vise on her throat tapered her thoughts to one. Kill him. She released the roof and reached for the gun at her back.

  Tires squealed and an engine rumbled, approaching from behind. More Craigs? The cops? Brakes screeched. Roy let go of her throat and spun toward the commotion.

  Oh, thank God. Gulping for oxygen, she turned just as Roy shifted back. Face-to-face, she yanked the gun from her waistband. Flicked off the safety. Lined up the sights on his chest.

  Inhale.

  He looked at her gun. Looked at her. Then the monster smiled.

  Exhale.

  41

  Crammed in the backseat between three of his bodyguards, Jay covered his head with the hood of the sweatshirt he’d borrowed from O’Neil and pushed the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Never separate us again.” The directive exploded from deep in his chest and echoed in the small space. He lowered his voice. “From this point on, Charlee is your principal. Her safety supersedes mine. And hurry the fuck up.”

  With all the people in the street, it was taking an eternity to make their way back to the parking
lot. He stared at the nasal spray in his hand, needing it to numb the rage that sent his jaw into enamel-grinding spasms.

  “Yes, Mr. Mayard.” Tony held his gaze. “I’m aware of this as you advised me of your priorities before we left the apartment. I made the mistake in assuming a sniper aiming for your head superseded Miss Grosky’s security. I apologize. It won’t happen again.” Her glower didn’t look sorry.

  Colson slammed on the brakes. Jay’s knees smacked into the console and his blow flew under the seat. Fuck the drug. She was out there alone. Every second counted. “Let me out.”

  Too many bodies blocked his view. Bodyguards inside the car. Lollygaggers outside. “Can you see her? Let me the fuck out.”

  A gunshot cracked the air and, for the second time that day, heart-stopping fear ripped his anger asunder.

  Tony jumped out first, hand at the gun at her hip. Everyone but Colson followed.

  In his hurry, Jay stumbled onto the pavement and slammed into a wall of fleeing people. They parted around him, spun him the wrong way, and holy shit, they were running away from him. He turned back and jerked to a stop a few feet short of Charlee.

  She stood over a man, who lay face up on the ground. Roy Oxford? He looked paler in person than on TV and a lot less put together. Maybe because she pointed a gun at him as he pawed at a dime-sized hole in the chest of his leather jacket. His breath was ragged yet he longingly stared at her as if oblivious to the gun she aimed at him or the bullet she’d already delivered.

  Red clouded Jay’s vision. This was the piece of shit who had raped her more times than she could count. His thirst for blood swelled at the epicenter of his rioting emotions. “Pull the trigger, Charlee. Finish him.”

  Three men emerged from a break in the crowd. They wore common clothing—jeans, t-shirts—but the guns they pulled from their open jackets were big, scary, and probably illegal. The hostility in the air that followed them emulated their bloodthirsty eyes and hard features.

  The parking lot exploded in a frenzy of screams. Not the squeals of fan girls. These were the oh-shit-save-yourself kind of screams.

  The mayhem of the bolting crowd crested as two officers sprinted across the lot with guns aimed at Charlee. “Drop your weapon. Hands in the air.”

  Shit. Jay locked his legs in an attempt to stop himself from lunging for her. “Don’t do it, Charlee.”

  The gun didn’t twitch in the cup of her hands as she glared at Roy. “Don’t drop it? Or don’t shoot?”

  She was wielding a gun in public, and the cops weren’t shooting her. Nor did they spare a glance at the three gunmen, which meant Roy was lining their pockets. They were still NYPD and, Christ almighty, she’d already killed one person. The last thing she needed was a prison sentence for killing another in front of the police. “Don’t shoot, but don’t drop it either.”

  The cops jogged closer and one shouted, “Sir, do not engage the shooter.”

  Roy’s goons closed their triangular formation around him, Charlee, and Roy until they were about six-feet away. Jay vibrated with the need to move behind her and wrap her in the shield of his body. If he reached out and stretched his arm, he might’ve been able to touch her, but there were too many fingers on too many triggers. The slightest movement would endanger her.

  Something caught his eye on the far side of the lot. Oh Shit. Nathan. Jay kept his gaze on Charlee but could make out the movement in his periphery. Nathan head-butted some guy and chopped his hand at the throat. Jay refocused on Charlee. “Talk to me.”

  She didn’t shift her eyes or the gun from Roy. “I shot him in the chest. Why aren’t you bleeding, you…you bloodless monster?”

  Roy rolled his head back and released a laugh that tumbled into a hacking cough.

  Maybe the blood was pooling unseen beneath his bulky jacket. Bulky jacket. He would bet his Martin Acoustic there was a bulletproof vest. “Take off your coat.”

  A gunman with a missing earlobe angled his barrel at Jay. “How should we precede, Mr. Oxford?”

  Roy’s exhale whistled past his clenched teeth. He unzipped his jacket and pushed back the sides to reveal a black tactical vest rising and falling with his wheezes. Sharp edges protruded from the dimple left by the bullet. “What are you waiting for, Charlee? You can still shoot me in the head.”

  Fuck. Jay wanted to grab the gun and do it for her.

  She shifted her aim from his chest to his face. “If I shoot you, your Craigs will shoot me. If I don’t shoot, I get to ride down to the police station. Except we both know that ride will take me to San Francisco and I’ll end up chained to your bed by morning.”

  Roy scraped his curling fingers along the pavement. “Oh, it’ll be the stockroom for you, darling. I’m hard just thinking about it.”

  Jay’s adrenalin rushed to murderous boil.

  “I choose death.” She squared shoulders.

  Not going to happen. Jay forced a calmness he didn’t feel into his voice. “Give me the gun, Charlee.” He would start with Roy’s nutsac. A bullet in each testicle. Then he’d shove the barrel in his rectum and pump it with enough lead to shred his innards from sphincter to esophagus. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “I earned that privilege.” She adjusted her finger on the trigger.

  The sudden rigidness of the gunmen strained the tense atmosphere to the edge of snapping.

  Jay needed warp speed to shield her in time. Even if he had the speed, the firepower that would unleash from the surrounding gunnery would tear through him and hit her anyway. “Wait.”

  She glanced up without moving her head or her trigger finger. Looking into her eyes was like watching a storm roll over the horizon and devour the blue skies. It was magnificent. Unstoppable. And deadly. “I have to end this, Jay.”

  “There’s a better way.” He hadn’t worked out what that was yet, but he’d make damn sure it was a solution she would walk away from.

  Colson remained in the driver’s seat with the engine running. The bodyguards had spread out, but not one was in sight. Where were—

  Nathan poked his head around the SUV nearest to Charlee.

  Jay tried not to fidget or make eye contact. No one looked in Nathan’s direction. Was the rest of the team hiding? Planning an attack from concealment?

  His muscles tensed in readiness. His pulse fired with purpose. An idea played out in his head. It could work. Adrenaline flooded his body with instant energy.

  Roy shifted to a sitting position in a cautious stiff movement. His breathing was quieter, steadier, as he looked between Jay and Charlee. “You lied.” His eyebrows lowered over his narrowing eyes and his nostrils flared. “You’re fucking this lowlife?”

  Jay’s fist clenched. “That’s rich coming from a rapist.”

  Charlee snorted. “There’s a hell of a lot of horny girls willing to lower themselves for Jay Mayard.” She shrugged. “He’s a wet-panty dream. I’d do him.”

  Was the casual disregard in her voice and posture enough to convince Roy? The man’s blank face revealed nothing. Jay burned to put a bullet hole in it.

  “Put your guns on the ground.” Tony stepped from around a parked car. Nathan, O’Neil, Vanderschoot, and Edison rushed in from nowhere and everywhere. Five on five, each of his team covered the three thugs and two cops.

  Jay released a breath, but anticipation billowed in the wake of relief. With her gun leveled on one of the officers, Tony looked at him out of the steely eyes of a Marine and waited for his signal. She was prepared to fight this with muscle and gunfire.

  And Charlee stood at the center of the web formed by the projectile paths of ten guns if they went off.

  Jay’s plan would ensure her safety. He was used to being the coward, the social retard, the pain in the ass. That was his go-to. He would fight this with evasion and bullshit. “Roy. Got some bad news for you. My team leader just gave me visual confirmation that you are being recorded.” He jerked his chin at the SUV they arrived in that morning and at the backup vehicle
they had returned in. “They activated video and audio equipment on the dashes when we arrived. The recordings are fed live to my team in L.A. If anything happens here, it will be broadcasted.” He held Roy’s glare and made sure he didn’t miss a single word. “Charlee will never see the inside of your stockroom again.”

  Unease rippled through the gunmen. Roy rose to his feet and held up a hand to stay them. “Miss Grosky shot me. Did you record that? Are you recording the weapon she’s aiming at me now?”

  “Of course, she wants to shoot you, you rapist motherfu—”

  “When we pulled into the lot,” Tony said, “we logged Miss Grosky defending herself during an attempted kidnapping.”

  A shiver ripped down his spine. If that was true, how close had he been to losing her? “This ends now. Charlee is going to holster her gun, and I am going to escort her to my car.” He captured her huge eyes. “Go ahead. They’re covering you.”

  The cop at the business end of Tony’s Glock kept his own gun trained on Charlee. “We can’t let you leave, Miss Grosky.”

  The pressure in the air was going to pop. Any second, someone was going to pull a trigger.

  Tony was the calm in the eye of the storm. “What’s it going to be, Mr. Oxford?”

  Roy watched Charlee with an infatuation that consumed his entire demeanor. “Stand down, officers.” When they lowered their guns, he said, “Your turn, Charlee.”

  She inhaled through her nose, flicked the safety on, and tucked the gun at the small of her back.

  Jay wiped a sweaty hand on his shirt and offered it to her. She grabbed it so quickly a thrill rushed through him. He waited for his shadows to crawl out of their holes and chase her away, but as Nathan joined them and they walked her to the SUV, he only felt her hand. Her essence. His Charlee.

  “You want to know how it feels?” Roy’s query tingled over Jay’s shoulder.

  His gait faltered. Would Roy call his bluff on the recording? How many guns were pointed at their backs?

  He pulled Charlee closer and picked up his pace. Nathan positioned himself behind them.