And damn the assassins trying to blow a hole into the compound…
Boss had always been a multitasker. No reason to assume things had changed.
“I was so screwed up back then,” he admitted. “You know some of the stuff I was dealing with, what I almost did during that patrol after the barracks bombing. And it all came down to the fact that I didn’t feel like I could trust myself anymore. And that scared me shitless.” He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I thought I’d push her away for a while. Give myself time to figure out just what the hell was going on with me. But I wound up pushing her right into Preacher’s arms.”
Boss searched his face for a long moment. “And Preacher didn’t hesitate to accept that gift, I’m sure.”
Yeah, not even for a split second…
“Preacher always was the smart one.” He shrugged. “And afterward, I was so jealous I could barely stand myself. Part of that was because I knew Preacher was the better man. He and Shell were both so goddamned nice, it was like watching the real-life version of Ozzie and Harriet. It made me crazy.”
“Sometimes it’s opposites that make a relationship work,” Boss mused.
“Yeah,” Jake shook his head, “and what? Suddenly you’re all Jedi Relationship Master now that you’ve got yourself a brand-spanking-new fiancée?”
Instead of taking offense, Boss wore the smug expression of a man secure in his woman. “And now? You’ve conquered your inner demon, and you’re ready to do right by her?”
“I wouldn’t say conquered, precisely,” he admitted. “He’s still there, still inside me, but he doesn’t scare me anymore. And as for Shell, all I’ll do is right by her…if she’ll let me.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“Nothing worth having ever is.”
“Right answer, my man.” Boss nodded his approval, and Jake felt for sure the next words out of the dude’s mouth were going to be and may the force be with you. Instead, he motioned through the door to the munitions shed. “Help yourself to whatever you need.”
Amazed at how easily that conversation had gone, Jake went to step into the building, but Boss stopped him again with, “Hey, Snake?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll do what I can to help you with Shell.”
He swallowed and nodded his thanks, realizing how much he’d missed the big, mean bastard and how much it meant to be so easily accepted back into the fold.
There was a lightness to his step as he turned and pushed through the door to Arsenal Alley, and then all he was thinking was…ahhh, yeah.
Because, as he stood there looking around, he was like a kid in a candy store. A very deadly candy store. His eyes pinged from one set of stocked shelves to the next, gleefully noting that each held more impressive weapons than the one before. But his first priority was Shell and Franklin.
So he quickly strode to a nearby shelf and palmed a simple Glock 19. When he slid out the magazine, he found the clip fully loaded. Nice. Slamming it back into the grip, he shoved the weapon into the waistband at the back of his jeans, carefully concealing it with the tail of his loose shirt.
Next, he chose a Smith and Wesson five-inch, double-edged boot knife. Once he satisfied himself with its sharpness by checking the tip with his thumb, he slipped it into its custom sheath and clipped it to his front jeans pocket. Again, he was careful to hide it under his shirt. And though he wasn’t wearing boots, that didn’t mean he couldn’t utilize an ankle holster…
Strolling over to the next set of shelves, he let his eyes roam over the array of polished weaponry and chose a Kel-Tec .380 Auto. Sometimes they had the tendency to jam if you soft-wristed them, but he never soft-wristed a pistol. And though its six-round capacity wasn’t much, it was the only thing small enough to fit inside the calf of his jeans.
After securing it to his ankle, he grabbed an extra clip for both the Glock and the Kel-Tec and pocketed them before beating feet out of the building.
Securing the door behind him, he turned and glanced around the courtyard at the other outbuildings, wondering what surprises they held.
Goddamn, they really did it, he thought, taking a moment to feel pride in what Boss and Rock had built here in big, bad Chi-Town.
Then his eyes landed on Shell, and any warm fuzzies melted away like sunscreen on a hot day.
Damn.
Ice-cold fear shot through his veins, because even though he’d faced some of the most evil motherfuckers ever to be born and hadn’t batted a lash, the thought of something happening to Shell, especially on his watch, was enough to have sweat slicking his palms and sliding coldly between his shoulder blades.
“So?” she asked once he retook his seat, carefully arranging himself so his position didn’t impede his ability to quickly grab his weapons. In her chair, she unconsciously swayed side-to-side to soothe the sleeping boy, though the look on her face was anything but calm. “What’s going on?”
“Your big brother has made some enemies,” he admitted and watched her slim throat work over a hard swallow.
“Wh-what kind of enemies?”
For a moment, he thought of giving her the standard, don’t worry, doll, we got it all under control. But he knew that wouldn’t fly. So instead, he gave her the unvarnished truth. “The kind that want to kill him.”
“What?” she squawked. Franklin stirred against her chest, making a disgruntled noise followed by a little snort before she managed to shush him back to sleep. She lowered her voice and asked, “Who wants to kill him?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged, hoping to fool her with his feigned unconcern. Then he noticed her pulse hammering away at the base of her throat and realized he hadn’t quite managed it.
Obviously, you need to brush up on your acting skills, Sommers.
Okay, so he’d try a different tack. “There’s really no reason to worry, you know.”
“No?” She raised a disbelieving brow.
“Nah,” he scoffed, though the hairs on the back of his neck had twanged upright the minute all those cell phones started ringing, and they were still waving around like little danger-barometers even now. “We’re secure as long as we stay inside these walls. They’re thick enough to protect us from pretty much anything. Not to mention the security cameras keeping watch around the entire perimeter.”
“Yeah,” she huffed, hugging Franklin to her chest and burying her nose in the boy’s hair. “It’s not the security I’m worried about. It’s the reason for the security that’s the problem. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have brought Franklin—”
“Look at me, Shell,” he commanded softly, his heart double-timeing it when she turned those soulful, gray eyes on him. “I’ll never let anything bad happen to you, you hear me? Never.”
I’ll die first.
And that was the one true thing he knew in this world…
***
Don’t say things like that to me! she wanted to scream.
Mostly because they were precisely the kinds of words—sweet ones, not cruel—she’d longed to hear on that rainy day four years ago. And hearing them now only served as a bitter reminder that it was too late.
Too late for anything, for…everything.
To her utter chagrin, hot tears hovered behind her eyes, and she’d be damned if she’d let him see. Quickly turning away, she placed another comforting kiss on top of Franklin’s head. “Please don’t cry, Shell,” he whispered and, crap, so much for trying to play it cool. “I know you’re scared, but I will protect you.”
He thought she was on the verge of tears because she was afraid?
Well, who wouldn’t, you daft woman? There are people trying to get in here to kill your brother!
Okay, and truthfully, she was scared. Petrified, in fact. But that wasn’t the reason for her tears. The sweat slicking the back of her neck and dampening her hair? Yep, that was from the fear. But not the tears. Oh, no. They were all about him…
Of course, it was best to let him
think what he wanted, play to his assumption. At least then she could use the excuse of her fear to keep the conversation on some sort of stable footing because, for the first time, they were alone.
Uh-huh, that had not escaped her attention. Especially since she suspected Jake had been waiting all evening for this very thing. It was obvious he had something he wanted to tell her. It was there in his pretty green eyes every time he looked at her.
And she didn’t want to hear it. Because no matter what he said, it wouldn’t change what had happened. The only thing his words could possibly accomplish was to make her feel more pain and regret, and Lord knew she’d already experienced enough of that to last a lifetime.
“I can’t help but be afraid.” She turned back to him when she was sure she had herself and her stupid tear ducts under control. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a mother, Jake. Fear, even under normal circumstances, comes with the territory. When you have a child to keep safe you—”
“I’ll protect him, too.” Jake vowed.
And there it was again. That look of utter sincerity. How does he do that?
“I know you will, Jake.” He lifted a brow, and she managed a weak smile. “Even after everything that happened between us, I never doubted your courage.”
“Yeah, about that…”
No, no, no!
“Can we just be quiet for a while?” She pleaded, this time not hiding the desperation in her eyes. “I just need some peace and quiet to calm my nerves.”
His jaw clenched, and she could tell he was biting back his next words but, finally, he nodded. And in the stillness of the courtyard, the only thing she could hear was the pounding of her weak and foolish heart.
***
Rock stood with Vanessa and Boss at the second floor window of the shop, watching as Wild Bill—their resident explosives expert and Becky’s older brother—and Angel—the spooky ex-Mossad agent who’d joined their ranks under mysterious circumstances—made their way through the compound’s hand-rolled iron gates, frog-marching their captive across the open expanse.
And even as he observed their would-be assassin struggle in the Knights’ grips, his mind drifted out to the courtyard.
I wonder how Snake is farin’ now that he has Shell all to himself?
Not too good, he suspected.
One didn’t need his particular skills for reading people, or his aptitude for picking up on subtle cues, to see that Shell’s feelings toward Snake fell far short of friendly. It was clear as day for anyone with two eyes, because whenever she looked at the guy, she appeared ready to either break down sobbing or turn tail and run. He couldn’t help but wonder exactly what had happened between—
“Is Eve on her way?” Boss asked Becky as she strolled up to the group, interrupting Rock’s thoughts.
Oui, and there was another mystery. Because though it was obvious Eve Edens was a timid woman by nature, that didn’t account for the look of stark horror that contorted her pretty face the moment she heard Wild Bill was going to show up. She hadn’t been able to vamoose herself from the compound fast enough.
“Yep, she’s headed home with her tail between her legs,” Becky said, snaking an arm around Boss’s waist before turning to watch the trio of men approaching from down below. When they walked beneath the yellow wash of a street lamp, she chuckled before adding wryly, “Well, holy flaming ninjas, Batman.”
Rock grinned. The hit man, whoever he was, was dressed all in black. And he’d actually had the couilles to deck himself out in one of those tight, eye-slit hooded thingamabobs complete with a pair of weird double-toed, soft-soled boots.
“He looks more like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dumbass,” Vanessa mused.
A snort of laughter erupted from between Rock’s lips before he could call it back.
Well, well, well. Aren’t you just full of surprises tonight, Miss Cordero?
When she’d flirted with him earlier, he’d been so blindsided by the whole thing that, for a minute there, he’d gone dumb and mute as a bag of hammers. But he was proud to say he’d recovered in enough time to slide her some pretty good one-liners.
Unfortunately, despite their titillating little tête-à-tête, it was obvious she was barking up the wrong damn tree where he was concerned. Because, merde, there was more than just lust in her eyes when she looked at him. Lust he could’ve dealt with quicker than a knife fight in a phone booth. But the visions of white weddings and matching rings he could see dancing around inside her pretty head stopped him cold. Happily ever after wasn’t an option for him…
“Hey,” Bill yelled from the front door, dragging him away from his thoughts, “what do you guys want us to do with Shogun here?”
“Put him in the interrogation room!” Boss ordered before turning to Rock and asking, “You ready for this?”
“Oui, I’m ready.” He nodded, taking a deep breath and turning toward the stairs.
As he made his way down to the first floor, he ground his back molars so hard it was a miracle he wasn’t shooting little shards of enamel and the occasional filling from his ass. He stalked into the claustrophobic supply closet they’d retrofitted into an interrogation room upon first learning of Johnny Vitiglioni’s paid assassins, tossed off his ball cap and tilted his head from side to side, cracking the vertebrae in his neck.
Zut. He hated this next part. Digging around inside a person’s psyche always left him feeling dirty…
Chapter Four
Goddamn, what’s taking so long?
Jake wasn’t accustomed to being outside the action. In fact, he was accustomed to being smack-dab in the middle of it. So this hanging out in the backyard with his thumb up his ass sucked. Hard.
He felt like a sitting duck, like he’d cut his leg on a piece of coral and was chumming the water in great white shark territory.
Oh, he knew Boss would never have left them if he truly thought there was any immediate danger, and he’d been telling Shell the truth about the level of security around the place, but that didn’t stop the hard burn of adrenaline from sizzling through his system, making his knees bounce until the beer in his hand threatened to shoot like a geyser.
With an effort, and so he wouldn’t make Shell any more nervous than she already was, he resisted the urge to recheck the clip in the Glock. Then he managed, just barely, to corral his jumpy legs and lean back in his chair.
Unfortunately, none of the physical calm he forced on himself stopped the dark thoughts from endlessly spinning inside his head.
Who would want to kill Boss?
Would this dick-wad try to go after Shell and Franklin?
Did this dick-wad know about Shell and Franklin?
Okay, and back to the original question, which was, Why the hell is it taking so long?
He covertly glanced around the courtyard, deciding on entry points and escape routes, figuring out where he’d place himself to best protect them on the off chance an assassin came crawling over the wall.
Christ, just the thought…
Well, I can easily hustle them inside the safety of the shop, he assured himself. Then he frowned when he realized that would be the case if the perpetrator tried to come at them from any direction save the northwest corner.
Yeah, that northwest corner was a weakness. It effectively placed an intruder only three feet from Black Knights Inc.’s back door, cutting off their only secure avenue of escape.
So, the far southeast corner it is.
That’s where he’d make his stand. From the southeast, he could hoist Shell and Franklin over the wall and into the Chicago River on the other side. They’d both be safe in the water while he dispatched the person or persons stupid enough to screw with those he loved.
And if he couldn’t dispatch them? If the number was overwhelming? Well, then, he’d give Shell time to swim to safety with Franklin while he stayed and fought to his last breath and—
Whoa. He’d just unconsciously included little Franklin in with those he loved.
> So that meant…what? He loved the kid?
It made sense—he certainly loved Shell, and Franklin was part of the package and, okay, now his pulse was really hopping. He’d never been tasked with protecting a child before…
When Shell started gnawing on her lower lip, he decided the silence she’d requested wasn’t really doing anything to ease her tension. So, to try to take her mind off the situation, and his mind off the memory of what it was like to suck that full lip between his teeth—come on, even pinned down by mortar fire he’d still have wild fantasies about that bottom lip—he determined it was finally time to offer up the apology that’d been sitting on his tongue since…well…since forever.
***
The expression on Jake’s face had Michelle’s heart flipping over in her chest.
“Shell?”
And when he said her name like that, even after all these years and even though her nerves were stretched piano-wire tight, her stomach took flight. “What?”
“There’s, uh, there’s something I’ve been needing to say to you for a long time.”
For the first time since her brother had disappeared inside the shop, Jake wasn’t craning his neck around every which way. Instead, he kept his eyes glued to the label he was nervously peeling from his beer.
Nervous? Jake?
Flip. Uh-huh, and that would be her heart turning over. Again.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Don’t fall for it, Shell. Just keep it together for a little while longer.
“Jake,” she said, “whatever it is, let’s just forget about it, okay? Let’s just—”
“I’m so sorry,” he blurted before she could finish.
Okay, so…they were doing this.
Taking a deep breath, doing her best to shore up all her emotional walls, she asked, “You’re sorry? For what?” She had a whole list.
“For getting Preacher killed,” he whispered.
Um, okay, so that wasn’t what she expected. If he’d suddenly grown whiskers and claimed to be the Easter Bunny, she didn’t think she’d be any more shocked. “Jake, that wasn’t your fault. You did what you thought—”
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