TooDangeroustoLove
Page 14
“I’m not telling you.”
“Raven, please. Don’t kill him,” Laurie broke in.
“Raven? From the Raptors?” His eyes bugged out as his voice trembled.
“That’s me. Why?”
“I’ve heard of you.” The smell of ammonia filled the air as he pissed himself.
“Well, you should thank the woman, for she just saved your life.” Before he could blink she had knocked him unconscious. “What a waste. Let’s go.” They headed off.
“What about the other men you went after?”
“I left them tied up.”
“Good. I hate killing.”
“I see.” That was all she could say. Nothing but the sounds of their breathing passed between them as they finally made it to the car.
Laurie was exhausted. Her whole body trembled and she had had to stop to throw up at least twice. “Get in. We will stop off at a motel and get some rest. I’m done in.”
“I don’t have anything else to wear,” Laurie said as the skies opened up and began a torrential downpour.
Raven put them on the blacktop and drove through the storm, lightning flashes periodically lighting the night so it appeared as light as day. Raven loved displays of nature like this, it was calming to her tortured soul. “I have some things for you to wear.” There was no answer from the other woman, for she was sound asleep.
Inputting a couple bits of information into her car’s GPS, she got what she was after. After about an hour of driving she saw a small roadside motel with its vacancy sign lit. Habit made her scope out the place but still she pulled in and walked in to the front, leaving Laurie asleep in the passenger seat.
“I need a room.”
The man that was there looked more exhausted than she felt. “How many?”
“Two.”
“Single or double?”
“Double. Just one night.”
The man nodded as if he understood. There was no paperwork to fill out. Raven paid in cash, then took the key and headed back out into the storm that seemed to increase with intensity.
The car parked directly in front of the door they would be using, she shook Laurie with a gentle hand and said, “Come on, wake up.”
“Sorry,” was her sleepy reply. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“Don’t worry about it. Come on. We are going to crash here for a few. Let’s go.” The women ran through the rain and entered the room.
Raven automatically put herself in front and checked out the room and bathroom before she put her gun away and shook her head. She really needed to get out of this business. It had begun to affect her. Everything was potentially dangerous and she hated viewing things like that.
Especially after she had met Brandt Fowler. Never before had she ever wanted to lead a normal life. Be a woman. Let a man protect her. Take care of her, love her for who she was, not whatever lie she had to be for her assignment. Love her for being Serenity Chandi Walker.
Chapter Eleven
Raven sent Laurie to use the shower first and went back outside to get her bags from the car. She locked it and dashed back inside, completely soaked.
With a knock on the bathroom door, she cracked it open. “I’m putting some clothes down on the sink for you. They should fit; we are pretty similar in build.”
“Thank you.”
Back in the room, she picked up her phone and pressed a button. The man was anxious as he answered. “Raven?”
“She’s safe. Meet me at the admiral’s house.”
“Why? Can I talk to her?”
“Just do it. No, she is in the shower right now. How long before you can be there?”
There was silence as Dylan thought for a bit. “Six hours would be the soonest.”
That would only give her four hours of sleep. It was feasible. “Fine. We will meet you there at nine.”
“Raven,” he asked hesitatingly, “is she all right?”
“There is trauma. She sustained a leg injury. I’m not sure about mental. That is not my area of expertise. I will talk to you later.”
“Thank you, Raven, thank you. . .”
She hung up on him. Laurie finally emerged from the bathroom wearing a large shirt and a pair of sweats. Her hair was still damp but she looked so much better.
“It’s all yours,” she stated the obvious as her tired body limped to the bed that did not contain Raven’s things on it.
“Wonderful. After I get cleaned up I will look at your leg.” Raven stood under the pounding spray of water as her mind drifted to Brandt.
Even now she missed him so much, and they hadn’t been away from each other for more than three days. Never in all of her assignments had she ever fallen for one. Ever.
Sure, there was the pretense and subterfuge, but she had always maintained her focus and her distance. With Brandt, all she wanted to do was touch his body, run her hands over his sculpted muscles. Taste his skin with her tongue, let him take her to paradise. Just be with him to talk, laugh and play.
That could never happen. He didn’t even know her real name. Almost every single bit of information he had about her was a lie. A fat stinking lie.
Time to move on. She could grieve over the lost chance for love some other time. Her face tipped up to the stream of water, and as it sluiced down her cheeks it took the salty tears that fell from her closed eyes.
Raven stood in that motel shower and cried until she had no more tears left in her body. Every time she took a breath her mind whisked her back to those two nights she spent in his arms.
A knock at the door snapped her out of her daydream. “What?”
“Are you alright, Raven? You have been in here for forty-five minutes.”
Had it been that long? It barely seemed like fifteen, much less three quarters of an hour. “Be right there.”
The water stopped and she dried herself off, then dressed quickly in a pair of shorts and a tank top. Laurie sat on the edge of her bed with the leg exposed.
Once again Raven was all business as she cleaned out the wound and rebandaged it. “Looks good. You did a good job keeping it clean. How does it feel?”
“Painful. But not bad considering.” Laurie covered her leg back up and lay down on the bed. “What’s the plan?”
“What do you mean?” Raven posed the question as she took to her own single bed.
“I have heard enough stories about your exploits to know that you have some sort of plan in mind.”
“Sleep. We sleep for about three hours and then go and meet Dylan.” She snapped off the light after setting the alarm on her phone.
“Raven?”
“Huh?”
“Thank you for coming to get me. I know that you and Dylan have your differences but it means so much that you came for me.”
“Goodnight, Laurie.” Raven rolled to her side and fell asleep almost immediately, but those words from Laurie were in her head. That progressed to her dreams. You came for me.
The soft tones of her cell phone’s alarm woke her later and she knew it was time to go. Silent as a leopard, she moved to the bathroom and showered, redressing in jeans and a clean shirt.
After she was ready she went and gently shook Laurie awake. “Come on, time to go.”
“Okay. I’m getting up.”
Raven gave her a pair of denim jeans and a silk shirt to wear after her shower. There was another pair of heeled boots waiting for her when she got out of the shower.
Within the hour they were back on the road, heading towards their final destination. Nine o’clock sharp, the black Spyder pulled up in front of a large, one-story brick home. Exiting, she took Laurie by the arm and led her up towards the door.
She opened it and walked, uninvited, into the home. Raven headed down the hall to the room that had her target in it. A silent gesture stopped Laurie, then she entered the door to the closest room without knocking.
“What the hell?” The question came as she walked past the oak door and faced the two men i
nside the room.
“Good morning, Admiral. Dylan,” she said to them both. “I believe we have some unfinished business, gentlemen.”
“Get the hell out of my house!” the admiral demanded.
“Shut up,” she snarled back at him.
“Commander, you know what will happen if you don’t keep me happy. Get your flunky out of my house,” he spat at the other man in the room.
“Do you mean the fact that you kidnapped Laurie?” Raven asked, deceptively calm as she flowed closer to the man that sat behind a large mahogany desk.
“You told? I warned you, Dylan, about what would happen if you spoke to anyone about this.” The man’s face grew mottled with rage.
“Nothing will happen to her.” Raven walked around the desk and reached for the admiral’s chair.
“What the hell do you know?” He slid his chair back as if he thought it was out of her reach.
“I know that she’s fine, except for the knife wound your men put in her leg.” Like a cobra, she struck. There was a knife in her hand and she stabbed the man in the leg. Right leg. Right up to the hilt and left it there.
“Shit!” he wailed as tears sprang to his eyes. “You bitch, what did you do that for?” He moaned with pain as he pulled it out and dropped it to the floor. Hands covered the deep wound as he tried to stanch the blood flow.
“So you know what it feels like.” Her voice was low and menacing. Raven stood up and called out, “Laurie, get in here.”
Dylan had Laurie in his arms in seconds, kissing and hugging her like she was his whole world.
That left the admiral alone under the focus of Raven. “I will kill you.”
Raven reached behind her and pulled something out of the waistband of her jeans and tossed it at the man who sat in the chair with blood running down his leg. He caught it purely on reflex.
It was a black Glock. “Please do. I have enough nightmares to last me a lifetime. Just so you know, that is the gun that killed the men at your cabin and now your prints are all over it. There is nothing for you to do but face the music. You will be going down for this and those killings.”
“At the cabin? How did you . . . how many did you . . . how?” he stuttered.
“As many as I could,” she spoke with such loathing. “Such a shame you gave yourself a self-inflicted leg wound to try and pass it off as an attack. You really should be more careful with weapons.”
The admiral lifted the gun, pointed it at Raven, and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing happened. She shook her head at him. “I’m not that stupid.”
“You’ll pay for this, I will find you.”
Raven closed the distance between them again and leaned down. “Don’t bet on it. I don’t ever want to have to come back and have another conversation with you about this.” She gripped the leg with the wound and began to squeeze with her gloved hand, bringing tears to his eyes.
“I don’t. Have a soul, that is.” She spoke as if she had read his very thoughts. Raven rose and turned to walk out of the room. She was done. It was time to go home.
Dylan reached out a hand to her but Raven walked right by it as if it wasn’t even there. He followed her out to her car, dragging Laurie with him. “Raven, wait,” he called out.
“There is nothing left for us to say to one another, Commander. I am done. I am going home.” Home where I can be me and be happy.
“Is there anything I can do to repay you? If there is, call me anytime. For anything. I owe you my life twice now.”
Raven stopped at her car, stripped off her gloves and reached over the door, grabbed something and tossed it to Dylan. He caught it. It was her phone. The one she had been given when she had gone to work for him.
Even the time two years ago when she had left, the phone had been with her, just in case. Now she gave it back.
“You should keep this.”
“No. I’m done, Dylan. I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired. Tired of killing, the lies, all of it. I don’t want to be a killing machine anymore. Not even if it was to be just a bodyguard. I can’t. No more. I have to find out who I am again.”
She walked around to the driver’s side of her car and opened the door when Laurie’s voice reached her. Reached them both.
“I am sure you do need a rest after dealing with Buho and Doc. But, at least with them gone, that man you were protecting is no longer in danger.”
Raven blanched at that statement.
“What did you say?” They both asked at the same time.
“Just that I agree she deserves a rest.”
“No, that other thing,” Raven corrected.
“About that man being safe now, with Buho and Doc out of the way?”
“What does Doc have to do with this?” Dylan asked.
Laurie looked at them both like they were insane. “He was hired along with Buho to kill him.” She swung her gaze over to Raven. “Didn’t you get my email? I snuck down one night and sent you a note, Raven. I knew that they would be looking for me to send a transmission to Dylan but since you have your things go through so many ISP addresses I figured it would not be discovered.”
“What email?” Dread filled her. “I never got an email from you. I checked every day and…oh shit.”
“What?” Dylan asked.
“Brandt had a tendency to snoop in my room. If he clicked on an email to read it that could explain why I never got it. I have it set to automatically delete after being read one time.”
“Because you can remember everything you read and don’t need to keep it,” Dylan finished off for her and Raven nodded.
Dylan’s phone rang. “Morgan. What? Demands what? How long? Fuck! I will do my best.” He shut the phone and looked at Raven with indecision in his gaze.
“Well?” Laurie asked.
Never taking his eyes off Raven, he filled them in. “Brandt is being held hostage. I have twelve hours to get Raven there. Alone. Unarmed. Or they will begin to torture him. His father is at headquarters.”
“I have to go.” The overwhelming sense of fear grew by leaps and bounds inside Raven as she imagined what Brandt could be going through.
Raven’s world swam before her eyes. She imagined what he must be feeling right now and cringed. Doc could be a sick bastard. And now he had Brandt, the man she loved.
“Get me there. Get us a flight and take me and the car.”
“I can’t let you go alone. We need to plan.”
“No. Get a plane and get me to Kentucky. Now!” she yelled, gripping the door of her car.
He nodded and made some calls. Three hours later her car was strapped in the belly of a C-40 that was headed for Kentucky. Raven paced the whole flight. Except when her phone rang, the one she had given back to Dylan. She took the call.
“What was that about?” Dylan questioned.
“It’s all gone. Everything. Burned to the ground. My home, everything.” Everything was gone, her dream home. Her life’s work.
“Jax and Hella?”
“No, thank God they were with Seth. They’re fine.” A cold fury began to burn within her. Everything she had worked so hard for, gone. Her sense of peace, shattered. They would pay.
Her nerves were a jumbled mess. Her body shook with fear, fear for Brandt. Anger, at herself for bringing this to him. And back to fear that she wouldn’t make it in time to save him.
As they landed and got her car out of the plane, Raven had regained some control of her body. They drove to a small safe house and Raven began to unload her car.
Every single weapon she had in her car was taken out. Every one. Her body was stripped of them as well. She had even changed out of the shirt and jeans from the morning. Now her body was clad in black leather pants with a body-molding black leather tank top. Her usual boots with two-inch heels completed the outfit.
“What are you doing?” Dylan asked.
“Following his orders.”
“You can’t go in there without a weapon. He’ll kill you.”
“What is your plan?”
“I don’t have one. All I know is that he needs me and I have to go.”
“Alone? You can’t do this alone.”
“Yes, I can. And I will.” Then she began to toss everything out of her car.
“Atten-huh! Stand at attention, Marine!” Dylan roared in the afternoon air, sending birds screeching and squawking as they flew out of the branches taking to the sky.
Raven was ramrod straight in seconds, before the last syllable faded from the air. Her eyes focused forward and yet not really seeing. Shoulders squared, she waited for him to say something.
“You need to focus. You can do this, but not in the condition you are in right now. Find your center. Find your focal point. Concentrate. Don’t let your feelings for this man be the death of you. Nor your anger over your home cloud your judgment.” His tone had softened but then it sharpened again. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“That will be all, stand at ease, Marine.”
She did.
The realization hit Raven all of a sudden that she was no longer a Marine. Anger flared, but as she looked into Dylan’s gray eyes she understood the reason that he had done that. She had lost her focus. Now she had it back.
Composure that had made her so well known fell over her features. She met the eyes of her friend and realized just how much he did care for her.
“I know what I am doing. But Doc knows how we operate and I’m not willing to take that chance, not this time.”
“You love him? Have you fallen for your assignment?”
“He is no longer my assignment.” Her voice almost broke but she rallied her inner strength and fortified her words. “But yes, I love him. I would gladly give my life for his.” And she may have to.
Her car was repacked and ready to go. Raven took a deep breath and looked at the two that stood in front of her. One like a father to her at times, an old boss and one man she would consider a true friend regardless of what they had been through. The other, a woman that shone with her own light. Laurie was a beautiful woman who had a heart that people just didn’t see anymore. She was a truly giving woman.